Jane Hirshfield - It Was Like This: You Were Happy

It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.

It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

Edna St. Vincent Millay - Love is Not All

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão - Nada tão silencioso como o tempo

Nada tão silencioso como o tempo
no interior do corpo. Porque ele passa
com um rumor nas pedras que nos cobrem,
e pelo sonoro desalinho de algumas árvores
que são os nossos cabelos imaginários.
Até na íris dos olhos o tempo
faz estalar faíscas de luz breve.

Só no interior sem nome do nosso corpo
ou esfera húmida de algum astro
ignoto, numa órbita apartada,
o tempo caladamente persegue
o sangue que se esvai sem som.
Entre o princípio e o fim vem corroer
as vísceras, que ocultamos como a Terra.
Trilam os lábios nossos, à semelhança
das musicais manhãs dos pássaros.
Mesmo os ouvidos cantam até à noite
ouvindo o amor de cada dia.
A pele escorre pelo corpo, com o seu correr
de água, e as lágrimas da angústia
são estridentes quando buscam o eco.
Mas nós sentimos dentro do coração que somos
filhos dilectos do tempo e que, se hoje amamos,
foi depois de termos amado ontem.
O tempo é silencioso e enigmático
imerso no denso calor do ventre.
Guardado no silêncio mais espesso,
o tempo faz e desfaz a vida.

Danez Smith - less hope

apologies. i was part of the joy
industrial complex, told them their bodies were
miracles & they ate it, sold someday,
made money off soon & now. i snuck an ode into the elegy,
forced the dead to smile & juke.
implied America, said destroy but offered nary step nor tool.
i paid taxes knowing where the funds go.
in April, my offering to my mother’s slow murder. by May
my sister filled with the bullets i bought. June & my father’s life
locked in a box i built. my brother’s end plotted as i spend.
idk why i told you it would be ok. not. won’t. when they aren’t
killing you they’re killing someone else. sometimes their hands
at the ends of your wrist. you (you & me) are agent & enemy.
there i was, writing anthems in a nation whose victory was my blood
made visible, my mother too sugared to weep without melting, my rage
a comfort foaming at my racial mouth, singing
gospel for a god they beat me into loving. lord
your tomorrow holds no sway, your heavens too late.
i’ve abandon you as you me, for me. say la vee.
but sweet Satan—OG dark kicked out the sky
first fallen & niggered thing—what’s good?
who owns it? where does it come from?
satan, first segregation, mother of exile
what do you promise in your fire? for our freedom,
i offer over their souls. theirs. mine
is mine. i refuse any Hell again. i’ve known
nearer devils. the audience & the mirror. they/i make you look weak.
they/i clapped at my eulogies. they/i said encore, encore.
i/we wanted to stop being killed & they/i thanked me for beauty.
&, pitifully, i loved them. i thanked them.
i took the awards & cashed the checks.
i did the one about the boy when requested, traded their names
for followers. in lieu of action, i wrote a book,
edited my war cries down to prayers. oh, devil.
they gave me a god and gave me clout.
they took my poems and took my blades.
Satan, like you did for God, i sang.
i sang for my enemy, who was my God.
i gave it my best. i bowed and smiled.
teach me to never bend again.

Robert Frost - Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.  
    They may not mean to, but they do.  
They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,  
Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself.

Gerard Manley Hopkins - The Lantern out of Doors

Sometimes a lantern moves along the night,
       That interests our eyes. And who goes there?
       I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,
With, all down darkness wide, his wading light?

Men go by me whom either beauty bright
       In mould or mind or what not else makes rare:
       They rain against our much-thick and marsh air
Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite.

Death or distance soon consumes them: wind
       What most I may eye after, be in at the end
I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.

Christ minds: Christ’s interest, what to avow or amend
       There, éyes them, heart wánts, care haúnts, foot
              fóllows kínd,
Their ránsom, théir rescue, ánd first, fást, last friénd.

Pedro Homem de Mello - Véspera

Seríamos dois faunos sobre a praia,
Batidos pelo vento e pelo sal,
Tendo por manto apenas a cambraia
Da espuma
E, por fronteira,
O areal.

Gémeos de corpo e alma,
Ver um era ver outro:
A mesma voz
A mesma transparência,
A mesma calma
De búzio, intacto, em cada um de nós!
Felicidade?
Não.
Inconsciência!

E as nossas mãos brincavam com o lume
À beira da impaciência
E do ciúme...

Solmaz Sharif - Self-Care

Have you tried
rose hydrosol? Smoky quartz
in a steel bottle

of glacial water? Tincture
drawn from the stamens
of daylilies grown
on the western sides

of two-story homes?
Pancreas of toad?
Deodorant paste?
Have you removed

all your metal fillings? Made peace
with your mother? With all
the mothers you can?
Or tried car exhaust? Holding your face

to the steaming kettle?
Primal screamed into
a down-alternative pillow
in a wood while tree bathing?
Have you finally stopped

shoulding all over yourself?
Has your co-pay increased?
Right hip stiffened? Has the shore
risen as you closed up the shop?

And have you put your weight
behind its glass door to keep
the ocean out? All of it?
Rang the singing bowl

next to the sloping toilet? Mainlined
lithium? Colored in another
mandala? Have you looked
at yourself in the mirror

and found the blessed halo
of a ring light in each iris?
Have you been content enough

being this content? Whose
shop was it?

Álvaro de Campos - Lisbon Revisited (1926)

Nada me prende a nada.
Quero cinquenta coisas ao mesmo tempo.
Anseio com uma angústia de fome de carne
O que não sei que seja —
Definidamente pelo indefinido...
Durmo irrequieto, e vivo num sonhar irrequieto
De quem dorme irrequieto, metade a sonhar.

Fecharam-me todas as portas abstractas e necessárias.
Correram cortinas de todas as hipóteses que eu poderia ver na rua.
Não há na travessa achada número de porta que me deram.

Acordei para a mesma vida para que tinha adormecido.
Até os meus exércitos sonhados sofreram derrota.
Até os meus sonhos se sentiram falsos ao serem sonhados.
Até a vida só desejada me farta — até essa vida...

Compreendo a intervalos desconexos;
Escrevo por lapsos de cansaço;
E um tédio que é até do tédio arroja-me à praia.

Não sei que destino ou futuro compete à minha angústia sem leme;
Não sei que ilhas do Sul impossível aguardam-me náufrago;
Ou que palmares de literatura me darão ao menos um verso.

Não, não sei isto, nem outra coisa, nem coisa nenhuma...
E, no fundo do meu espírito, onde sonho o que sonhei,
Nos campos últimos da alma onde memoro sem causa
(E o passado é uma névoa natural de lágrimas falsas),
Nas estradas e atalhos das florestas longínquas
Onde supus o meu ser,
Fogem desmantelados, últimos restos
Da ilusão final,
Os meus exércitos sonhados, derrotados sem ter sido,
As minhas coortes por existir, esfaceladas em Deus.

Outra vez te revejo,
Cidade da minha infância pavorosamente perdida...
Cidade triste e alegre, outra vez sonho aqui...
Eu? Mas sou eu o mesmo que aqui vivi, e aqui voltei,
E aqui tornei a voltar, e a voltar,
E aqui de novo tornei a voltar?
Ou somos todos os Eu que estive aqui ou estiveram,
Uma série de contas-entes ligadas por um fio-memória,
Uma série de sonhos de mim de alguém de fora de mim?

Outra vez te revejo,
Com o coração mais longínquo, a alma menos minha.

Outra vez te revejo — Lisboa e Tejo e tudo —,
Transeunte inútil de ti e de mim,
Estrangeiro aqui como em toda a parte,
Casual na vida como na alma,
Fantasma a errar em salas de recordações,
Ao ruído dos ratos e das tábuas que rangem
No castelo maldito de ter que viver...

Outra vez te revejo,
Sombra que passa através de sombras, e brilha
Um momento a uma luz fúnebre desconhecida,
E entra na noite como um rastro de barco se perde
Na água que deixa de se ouvir...

Outra vez te revejo,
Mas, ai, a mim não me revejo!
Partiu-se o espelho mágico em que me revia idêntico,
E em cada fragmento fatídico vejo só um bocado de mim —
Um bocado de ti e de mim!...