reading poetry
GLOSS
POSTED IN reading poetry January 15, 2021
GLOSSDays go past, and days come still,
All is old and all is new,
What is well and what is ill,
You imagine and construe
Do not hope and do not fear,
Waves that leap like waves must fall;
Should they praise or should they jeer,
Look but coldly on it all.Things you’ll meet of many a kind,
Sights and sounds, and tales no end,
But to keep them all in mind
Who would bother to attend?…
Very little does it matter,
If you can yourself fulfil,
That with idle, empty chatter
Days go past and days come still.Little heed the lofty ranging
That cold logic does display
To explain the endless changing
Of this pageantry of joy,
And which out of death is growing
But to last an hour or two;
For the mind profoundly knowing
All is old and all is new.As before some troupe of actors,
You before the world remain;
Act they Gods, or malefactors,
‘Tis but they dressed up again.
And their loving and their slaying,
Sit apart and watch, until
You will see behind their playing
What is well and what is ill.What has been and what to be
Are but of a page each part
Which the world to read is free.
Yet who knows them off by heart?
All that was and is to come
Prospers in the present too,
But its narrow modicum
You imagine and construe.With the selfsame scales and gauges
This great universe to weigh,
Man has been for thousand ages
Sometimes sad and sometimes gay;
Other masks, the same old story,
Players pass and reappear,
Broken promises of glory;
Do not hope and do not fear.Do not hope when greed is staring
O’er the bridge that luck has flung,
These are fools for not despairing,
On their brows though stars are hung;
Do not fear if one or other
Does his comrades deep enthral,
Do not let him call you brother,
Waves that leap like waves must fall.Like the sirens’ silver singing
Men spread nets to catch their prey,
Up and down the curtain swinging
Midst a whirlwind of display.
Leave them room without resistance,
Nor their commentaries cheer,
Hearing only from a distance,
Should they praise or should they jeer.If they touch you, do not tarry,
Should they curse you, hold your tongue,
All your counsel must miscarry
Knowing who you are among.
Let them muse and let them mingle,
Let them pass both great and small;
Unattached and calm and single,
Look but coldly on it all.Look but coldly on it all,
Should they praise or should they jeer;
Waves that leap like waves must fall,
Do not hope and do not fear.
You imagine and construe
What is well and what is ill;
All is old and all is new,
Days go past and days come still.
MIHAI EMINESCU
Translated by
Corneliu M. Popescu
Birthdays
POSTED IN reading poetry, Stories January 17, 2015
BirthdaysI’ll bake tonight a rounded cake
to celebrate the wish I make
I’ll lit my candles with the Moon
and let them glow in nightly gloom.I wish myself a better year,
to feel and see what I can’t hear,
and as a snake sheds its own skin
I’d like to shed my old chagrin.In darkened room a mirror stays,
in candlelight I catch a gaze
from mirror staring straight at me.
One moment thought: who could that be?The candles shiver as I do,
She looks at me as if she knew
something I did not. Who is she?
From mirror comes another me.A girl with dark wide opened eyes,
she’s silent without any smiles.
She’s watching from another time,
she hears and sees a silenced chime.I look into the mirror’s will
another me its waves reveal.
All other me that through time strives
to help me learn my other lives.I make a wish and write it on
a piece of paper which anon
I fold in half and light in fire,
and let it burn my heart’s desire.Candles like not to be blown out.
Wet fingertips or with my clout
I kill their flame. I’m born again.
With all my stars I drink champagne.
17.01.2015
Lanzarote
Maria Magdalena Biela
Hypocrisy
POSTED IN contemporary poetry, reading poetry, Stories January 11, 2015
Hypocrisy
She’s dressed in black with white high heels,
A designed dress her ways reveals,
She fakes some tears with mini skills,
She hides her face and what she feels.
She wants to say: “I am a saint,
I can’t bear badness, I do faint,
I talk to angels while I paint,
I am suave, fragile and quaint”.
Her voice is calm, and kind, and deep,
Her head inclined in little weep.
She’s got style, poise and sex appeal,
One may think she’s the real deal.
She hides her face, her eyes, her truth,
She fears to be perceived in sooth.
She knows: in a photography
One can’t see the hypocrisy.Maria Magdalena Biela
From now until it’s now again
POSTED IN reading poetry, Stories July 19, 2014
From Now Until It’s Now AgainI’d like to be a drop of rain,
a tear to shine in eyes of crane,
to feel no sadness nor a pain.
From now until it’s now again.I’d like to be a bitter chain
to hold those hearts that only drain
the human will. Those hearts too vain.
From now until it’s now again.I’d like in every soul to reign,
to caress fearful thoughts profane
that a poor heart deny would fain.
From now until it’s now again.I’d like the power to restrain
mouth-honor, curses and disdain
away from every heart and brain.
From now until it’s now again.Time, Father of the mighty Vane,
make seconds sleep outside of gain,
stand still for all that is humane!
From now until it’s now again.19.07.2014
Chania
Bielka
Innocence
POSTED IN reading poetry, Stories April 21, 2014
InnocenceWhen falling off the cliff they cry,
hurting the iris of their eye,
flying before they learn to fly,
whose words will kiss their tears to dry?
I am the Catcher in the Rye.The Fallen knows the Catcher’s dream
to keep alive th’ innocent gleam.
The Catcher feels the Fallen’s sense:
“Don’t kill the heart of Innocence!
Let it live hidden in the sky!”
I am the Catcher in the Rye.I gave the hunting hat to me
while pushed into the falling free.
Life took me off the cliff, but I,
I was the Catcher in the Rye,
I gave myself the hat of hunt,
and through the Rye I walk and chant.Maria Magdalena Biela
Dot the i
POSTED IN reading poetry, Stories March 11, 2014
Apart
POSTED IN reading poetry, Stories January 5, 2014
Apart
Her eyes were shivering a tear
while the old year was shot
she softly sighed “Happy New Year!”
And dried the tearful thought.
Her eyes were echoing the heart
its beating ten to one
the counted seconds, whole in part,
made future be outrun.
Her eyes kissed Mother’s loving hands
and Father’s forehead gray
they cry in their faraway lands
and for their daughter pray.
Their eyes were searching, near and far,
to meet each other’s soul
watching the same heavenly Star
and each part as a whole.
When Time she stopped, she whispered sad
into wide Heaven’s ear:
“I love you, Mom! I love you, Dad!
Blessed be this New Year”!
Bielka
One Art
POSTED IN classic poetry, reading poetry April 3, 2012
One ArtThe art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop
