After long silence by W B YEATS

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

William Butler YEATS

Despair (part II) by Lord Alfred TENNYSON

(...)

II

What did I feel that night? You are curious. How should I tell?
Does it matter so much what I felt? You rescued me—yet—was it well
That you came unwish’d for, uncall’d, between me and the deep and my doom,
Three days since, three more dark days of the Godless gloom
Of a life without sun, without health, with out hope, without any delight
In anything here upon earth? but ah God, that night, that night
When the rolling eyes of the lighthouse there on the fatal neck
Of land running out into rock—they had saved many hundreds from wreck—
Glared on our way toward death, I remember I thought, as we past,
Does it matter how many they saved? we are all of us wreck’d at last—
‘Do you fear?’ and there came thro’ the roar of the breaker a whisper, a breath,
‘Fear? am I not with you? I am frighted at life not death.’

(...)

Lord Alfred TENNYSON

Phoenix by Joe SEPHOZA

phoenix

so often thoughts wander
I'm not laughing
while thinking
- being haunted
behind me, spinning, turning
the wheel of fortune
and slowly
headlights
reflecting
in distorting mirrors
to blind my dream
of who I would be, if alive

they do have a limp, sumbling up the stairs towards the seat
where my life, partly, dies
the other half of misery
is reality's phoenix

empty grave
cold bones
I might laugh
once dead

sometimes - friendly - they ask me
'who's that stranger'
they don't know
and I
a stranger to myself

midnight in longing
I close a freudian pact
with my thoughts
and they return
tired of the world
in bed they're like the fantasy
of a one-night sleep
the sun turns me over
and falls asleep.


in :http://www.polumnia.net/writing/poetry.html

Origine

Je me dois de préciser que j'ai trouvé les trois derniers auteurs dans


ANTHOLOGIE DE LA POESIE PROTESTATAIRE DES USA (1980-1995)
par E. KATZ et C. HAYE

Edité chez : Le TEMPS DES CERISES
Maison de la poésie Rhône Alpes

ISBN :
2-84109-037-X

la sélection de ces trois poèmes est un choix personnel et donc arbitraire fondé sur mes goûts, mon caractère, mes origines, mon humeur du moment etc etc

Je m'en excuse car beaucoup sont des oeuvres de grandes qualités
mais ce sont ces trois là qui m'ont instantanément bouleversée en première lecture Il m'a donc paru indispensable de les conserver sur My Foreign Swamp

Que leurs auteurs respectifs trouvent ici l'expression de mon admiration et de mes sincères remerciements pour avoir su "dire" et "communiquer".


Mijo

Pour ceux et celles que l'anglais rebuterait, l'édition est bilingue et les traductions de qualité même si personnellement, j'estime qu'une poésie doit être lue telle qu'elle a été écrite

His speed and strength (Alicia OSTRIKER)

His speed and strength, which is the strength of ten
years, races me home from the pool.
First I am ahead. Nike, on my bicycle,
no hands, and the Times crossword tucked in my rack,
then he is ahead, the Green Hornet,
buzzing up Witherspoon,
flashing around the corner to Nassau Street.

At noon sharp he demonstrated his neat
one-and-a-half flips off the board :
Oh, brave. Did you see me, he wanted to know.
And I doing my backstroke laps was Juno
Oceanus, then for a while I watched some black
and white boys wrestling and joking, teammates, wet
plums and peaches touching each other as if

it is not necessary to make hate,
as if Whitman was right and there is no death,
A big wind at our backs, it is lovely, the maple boughs
ride up and down like ships. Do you mind
if I take off, he says. I'll catch you later,
see you, I shout and wave, as he peels
away, pedalling hard, rocket and pilot.

Alicia OSTRIKER

DINOSAUR LOVE (Eliot Katz)

On the Museum of Natural History’s 4th floor
I greeted my old friend :
“Hey, T. Rex ! Long time, no see !”
My buddy flashed his killer teeth :
“Over two years, E. Katz,
I missed you.”

Surprised, I asked, “You missed me ?
I didn’t know dinosaurs had emotions.
Rexy, did you know love ?”

Rexy sighed ; “I knew love
..... not as humans can
but as humans do :
….. love of self
….. and love of finding something weaker
…... ….. to pounce upon.

E. Katz, can your species be saved
….. by love’s possibilities ?

“Rexy” I answered, “you haven’t lost
your ability
to ask the tough question.
Let me ask you something we humans
have been curious about for centuries.
How did you die ?”

“I don’t know.
One day I looked around
And I wasn’t there.”

Eliot KATZ

WE WANT EVERYTHING by Moe SEAGER

These predictable exchanges
we pass on thin winds
Are we talking
or faming ourselves ?
Where's the gust !

You don't know me -
cause itself :
Take my hand, grip
it is malleable.
I'll come. Always at the ready
On the brink of becoming...

You're a black man in Philadelphia
I an orphan shaping poems in Paris.
There we say : ça va ? Bien, et toi ?,
leave it at that.
Like two dogs lifting hind legs
at the hydrant.

Here it sounds : How's it goin man ?
it goes like this :

...each time our children's hands
...ripped to paper ribbons
...snag of the thornbush
...forbidding them fruits of desire
...I stop cold on the boulevard
...un-curl palms scarred and cannot heal.

I am a civilized man
Thus told - to hold my tongue
How absurd. I prefer to hold yours
...Like a shell pressed to my ear
...Resonance of inner cosmos
...Rings from within
...Harmonic convergence
...We want everything.

We must stop lamenting the rain,
Shrinking from heat, humid days
Weather is so much tide
Ocean of air from which we swim.
Direct me to the nearest galaxy.
Shall we summon a boat?

What's happening ? Ask me, again.
No. Yes. Yes ask me !
...You are to me, alchemy
...Look : space between us
...charged with protons of love
...passion particles osmosing the boundaries
...of the vacuum
We are about love
when we choose to be.

Bullets, blades, booby traps
sprung by the masters
parasites embalmed in pale faces
bank vault visions myopic chill light
Hermectic madness.
...C'mon Orpheus
...Play-me your opus
...I wil empty my head
...like a tulip in April.
...We shall build the cult of imagination

You don't know me
but I hear your howls
from the death camps.
Columbus'crematorium.
Migrating birds pass the news.
I wrench requiem from my sleep
brood in the mirror of morning cafe
spittle drops on counter tops
unhinge doors to corridors
days in discord
Arrested in motion on a bridge deck
hammered stone, cold steel rivets
to the base of my skull.

you don't know me
I've been writing to you for years
and crystal clear moments
I sing your song in the darkness
the migrating bird my witness.
...How you be ?
...Go on - tell me
...Tell me more.
...So much more.

Moe SEAGER