TRUE LOVE - Wisława Szymborska (Translation in Unknown Edition)

True love. Is it normal,
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

 

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions, but convinced
it had to happen this way— in reward for what?

    For nothing.

The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn’t this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn’t it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

 

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn’t they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends’ sake?
Listen to them laughing— it’s an insult.
The language they use— deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines—
it’s obviously a plot behind the human race’s back!

 

It’s hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who’d want to stay within bounds?

 

True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life’s highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn’t populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.

 

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there’s no such thing.

 

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

Haiku - Matsuo Bashō

For a lovely bowl

Let us arrange these flowers,

For there is no rice.

EXAGGERATION - Scarriet Editors

You must know I’m not usually excitable,

But how long must I be calm and pleasantly glad?

I have read about love. It was sad.

The man paced outside the window. The woman

Covered her arms in folds of crimson and myrtle.

The tradition arrived every night this year.

Every woman attended. This is no exaggeration;

They crowded, they pushed ahead—even the dearest woman.

I affected learning. I thought this decision up in my own mind.

The poetry readings, seminars; failures in oak,

Scratches, graffiti, partly undressed tables, inside and outside the mind.

I affected poetry. It did no good. I was too calm;

I went on in hushed tones about my childhood;

Stood near her by the window, even laughed.

It wouldn’t do to repeat it now, even if I could.

There is a need to exaggerate, even without drama or poems,

To not flag, to make oneself happy; to pretend a woman’s figure

Will make one happy, and this is all a man needs.

Life is dull. We exaggerate. And so it proceeds.

Popular Romance - Paul Guest

To hum in a smoke-dank alley a song by Elvis

was not the height of my love for you. To turn

my arm from its socket like a hateful thing

was not devotion only. To speak your name

like a spell to my imagined foes was not

peace, no, not ever. Rather, you were a stone

I licked and pretended to eat. You were

ever a dream of falling. An odor of smoke.

You were the design of my worst

crimes. What I stole for love added up.

It added up to nothing. To the air perfumed

by an absent woman. To a box

filled with crushed chalk. God save me

from the stars, once and for all—

I have had enough. Let me love anything

but that: let me go free and dream

of green oceans and the surf

that batters some other world to sleeplessness.

O. It is enough to whisper only

this. To speak to the flame in your breast

and hear nothing else. Once

I believed I could possess

what touched you: the worn sweater,

or the song on the radio

that meant nothing and all in that instant.

Against your door I pressed

my ear, and heard nothing, the whisper

of water, maybe, a breath of cool air—

the gossip of your absence—

and nothing in me could knock or wait,

and all around me the night

spread like water through a rag,

and I let my hands drop whatever they held.

how is your heart? - Charles Bukowski

during my worst times

on the park benches

in the jails

or living with

whores

I always had this certain

contentment--

I wouldn’t call it

happiness--

it was more of an inner

balance

that settled for

whatever was occurring

and it helped in the

factories

and when relationships

went wrong

with the

girls.

it helped

through the

wars and the

hangovers

the backalley fights

the

hospitals.

to awaken in a cheap room

in a strange city and

pull up the shade--

this was the craziest kind of

contentment

and to walk across the floor

to an old dresser with a

cracked mirror--

see myself, ugly,

grinning at it all.

what matters most is

how well you

walk through the

fire.

Abracadabra Acudubillah - Warsan Shire

Everyday since that bad

thing happened, I've been practicing

                   a spell:

how to disappear

from yourself,

within yourself.

I've noticed

each time I leave,

something in me keeps

                   going.

Something in me turns

its back on me—

someone else reflected in the mirror,

someone else answering

to my name.