"poland" poems
Many people write a "bucket list" of things they want to do before they die. Now in my 80th year, I don't have the time or the energy to do things that others might aim for, but I have during my life visited many places, seen many things, and enjoyed many experiences that I would have been sorry to miss. There have also been some events that I would have preferred not to experience, but which have enriched my life in different ways, and which I remember with a kind of sad affection.
Some of these are very personal to me, and would not be interesting to most people, but read the note if you wonder why I chose them.
Here then is what I might call
My Reverse Bucket List
Towns and cities – architecture & atmosphere
Barcelona, Spain
Venice, Italy
Oxford, England
Jerusalem, Israel
Luxor, Egypt
Varanasi, India
Hiroshima, Japan
Pompeii, Italy
Other locations
Galápagos islands, Ecuador
Great Barrier Reef, Australia
North Woolwich, London
Churches
St Paul's Cathedral, London
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Coventry Cathedral
Córdoba Cathedral, Spain
Blue Mosque, Istanbul
Other structures
Taj Mahal, Agra
Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland
Royal Festival Hall, London
London underground system (because it was the first, and I rode it for a long time). Also the more splendid underground railways of Mexico City and Moscow.
Avebury Ring, Wiltshire, England (the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world, and much more primitive than Stonehenge)
Bayeux Tapestry
"Angel of the North" statue, Gateshead, England
"Christ the Redeemer" statue, Rio, Brazil
Events
Messiah at Royal Festival Hall, Feb 1959, with the girl later to be my wife
St John's night, Spain, early 1990s (?)
Death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, Aug 1997
Oberammergau passion play, 2010
Destruction of World Trade Centre, Sept 2001
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 9:16 AM UTC
Afghanistan needs hellopoetry
Albania needs hellopoetry
Algeria needs hellopoetry
Andorra needs hellopoetry
Angola needs hellopoetry
Antigua and Barbuda needs hellopoetry
Argentina needs hellopoetry
Armenia needs hellopoetry
Australia needs hellopoetry
Austria needs hellopoetry
Azerbaijan needs hellopoetry
The Bahamas needs hellopoetry
Bahrain needs hellopoetry
Bangladesh needs hellopoetry
Barbados needs hellopoetry
Belarus needs hellopoetry
Belgium needs hellopoetry
Belize needs hellopoetry
Benin needs hellopoetry
Bhutan needs hellopoetry
Bolivia needs hellopoetry
Bosnia and Herzegovina needs hellopoetry
Botswana needs hellopoetry
Brazil needs hellopoetry
Brunei needs hellopoetry
Bulgaria needs hellopoetry
Burkina Faso needs hellopoetry
Burundi needs hellopoetry
Cabo Verde needs hellopoetry
Cambodia needs hellopoetry
Cameroon needs hellopoetry
Canada needs hellopoetry
Central African Republic needs hellopoetry
Chad needs hellopoetry
Chile needs hellopoetry
China needs hellopoetry
Colombia needs hellopoetry
Comoros needs hellopoetry
Congo, Democratic Republic is in need of hellopoetry
Congo, Republic is in need of hellopoetry
Costa Rica needs hellopoetry
Côte d’Ivoire needs hellopoetry
Croatia needs hellopoetry
Cuba needs hellopoetry
Cyprus needs hellopoetry
Czech Republic needs hellopoetry
Denmark needs hellopoetry
Djibouti needs hellopoetry
Dominica needs hellopoetry
Dominican Republic needs hellopoetry
East Timor (Timor-Leste) needs hellopoetry
Ecuador needs hellopoetry
Egypt needs hellopoetry
El Salvador needs hellopoetry
Equatorial Guinea needs hellopoetry
Eritrea needs hellopoetry
Estonia needs hellopoetry
Eswatini needs hellopoetry
Ethiopia needs hellopoetry
Fiji needs hellopoetry
Finland needs hellopoetry
France needs hellopoetry
Gabon needs hellopoetry
The Gambia needs hellopoetry
Georgia needs hellopoetry
Germany needs hellopoetry
Ghana needs hellopoetry
Greece needs hellopoetry
Grenada needs hellopoetry
Guatemala needs hellopoetry
Guinea needs hellopoetry
Guinea-Bissau needs hellopoetry
Guyana needs hellopoetry
Haiti needs hellopoetry
Honduras needs hellopoetry
Hungary needs hellopoetry
Iceland needs hellopoetry
India needs hellopoetry
Indonesia needs hellopoetry
Iran needs hellopoetry
Iraq needs hellopoetry
Ireland needs hellopoetry
Israel needs hellopoetry
Italy needs hellopoetry
Jamaica needs hellopoetry
Japan needs hellopoetry
Jordan needs hellopoetry
Kazakhstan needs hellopoetry
Kenya needs hellopoetry
Kiribati needs hellopoetry
Korea, North needs hellopoetry
Korea, South needs hellopoetry
Kosovo needs hellopoetry
Kuwait needs hellopoetry
Kyrgyzstan needs hellopoetry
Laos needs hellopoetry
Latvia needs hellopoetry
Lebanon needs hellopoetry
Lesotho needs hellopoetry
Liberia needs hellopoetry
Libya needs hellopoetry
Liechtenstein needs hellopoetry
Lithuania needs hellopoetry
Luxembourg needs hellopoetry
Madagascar needs hellopoetry
Malawi needs hellopoetry
Malaysia needs hellopoetry
Maldives needs hellopoetry
Mali needs hellopoetry
Malta needs hellopoetry
Marshall Islands needs hellopoetry
Mauritania needs hellopoetry
Mauritius needs hellopoetry
Mexico needs hellopoetry
Micronesia, Federated States is in need of hellopoetry
Moldova needs hellopoetry
Monaco needs hellopoetry
Mongolia needs hellopoetry
Montenegro needs hellopoetry
Morocco needs hellopoetry
Mozambique needs hellopoetry
Myanmar (Burma) needs hellopoetry
Namibia needs hellopoetry
Nauru needs hellopoetry
Nepal needs hellopoetry
Netherlands needs hellopoetry
New Zealand needs hellopoetry
Nicaragua needs hellopoetry
Niger needs hellopoetry
Nigeria needs hellopoetry
North Macedonia needs hellopoetry
Norway needs hellopoetry
Oman needs hellopoetry
Pakistan needs hellopoetry
Palau needs hellopoetry
Panama needs hellopoetry
Papua New Guinea needs hellopoetry
Paraguay needs hellopoetry
Peru needs hellopoetry
Philippines needs hellopoetry
Poland needs hellopoetry
Portugal needs hellopoetry
Qatar needs hellopoetry
Romania needs hellopoetry
Russia needs hellopoetry
Rwanda needs hellopoetry
Saint Kitts and Nevis needs hellopoetry
Saint Lucia needs hellopoetry
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines needs hellopoetry
Samoa needs hellopoetry
San Marino needs hellopoetry
Sao Tome and Principe needs hellopoetry
Saudi Arabia needs hellopoetry
Senegal needs hellopoetry
Serbia needs hellopoetry
Seychelles needs hellopoetry
Sierra Leone needs hellopoetry
Singapore needs hellopoetry
Slovakia needs hellopoetry
Slovenia needs hellopoetry
Solomon Islands needs hellopoetry
Somalia needs hellopoetry
South Africa needs hellopoetry
Spain needs hellopoetry
Sri Lanka needs hellopoetry
Sudan needs hellopoetry
Sudan, South needs hellopoetry
Suriname needs hellopoetry
Sweden needs hellopoetry
Switzerland needs hellopoetry
Syria needs hellopoetry
Taiwan needs hellopoetry
Tajikistan needs hellopoetry
Tanzania needs hellopoetry
Thailand needs hellopoetry
Togo needs hellopoetry
Tonga needs hellopoetry
Trinidad and Tobago needs hellopoetry
Tunisia needs hellopoetry
Turkey needs hellopoetry
Turkmenistan needs hellopoetry
Tuvalu needs hellopoetry
Uganda needs hellopoetry
Ukraine needs hellopoetry
United Arab Emirates needs hellopoetry
United Kingdom needs hellopoetry
United States needs hellopoetry
Uruguay needs hellopoetry
Uzbekistan needs hellopoetry
Vanuatu needs hellopoetry
Vatican City needs hellopoetry
Venezuela needs hellopoetry
Vietnam needs hellopoetry
Yemen needs hellopoetry
Zambia needs hellopoetry
Zimbabwe needs hellopoetry
Dec 21, 2019
Dec 21, 2019 at 11:08 AM UTC
It was early nineteen thirty four
The world was set to change
Europe was on fire
It was time to rearrange
Poland was the first stop
The German Army on the move
So we left for America
I hope you did approve
You came with me to Jersey
On a trip across the sea
You've guarded all my secrets
Known by only you and me
You used to spin quite gaily
Now you just stand there en pointe
You're my clipped wing little angel
That's the name I shall anoint
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet
I sit here and remember
All the treasures you once hid
You've still some trinkets in there
Some from when I was a kid
Your tu tu is all tattered
The silk lining frayed and torn
But, you've held together nicely
But, I guess we're both quite worn
Your lipstick isn't red now
I hear your music in my head
It hasn't played for 50 years
I just remember it instead
The music gave up playing
You were slightly over wound
But, you still twirled and kept dancing
Even though there was no sound
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet
I've told you more than anyone
Than I have ever known
We've been together now forever
You're the most precious thing I own
You've been with me for two husbands
And you've seen my kids pass on
There's just me and you, my dancing girl
All the rest of them are gone
Your paint is chipped and cracked
Your pony tail is broken too
If I still can recollect now
In the fall of fifty two
Your spring is rusted tightly
You need a hand to stand up right
But, then again, I do as well
And most days it's quite the fight
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet
Charms and little trinkets
Plastic jewellery, real as well
Secrets of a child
Secrets you would never tell
I am now moving to December
Of my calendar of years
Soon my life will end and
There's no one left to shed me tears
I sit here and I wonder
What shall become of you
My Thumbelina Ballerina
In your dancing dress of blue
You started as a music box
You are not used as that no more
But, Thumbelina Ballerina
Will you dance for me once more?
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 11:47 PM UTC
The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.
The fat
Sacrifices its opacity. . . .
A window, holy gold.
The fire makes it precious,
The same fire
Melting the tallow heretics,
Ousting the Jews.
Their thick palls float
Over the cicatrix of Poland, burnt-out
Germany.
They do not die.
Grey birds obsess my heart,
Mouth-ash, ash of eye.
They settle. On the high
Precipice
That emptied one man into space
The ovens glowed like heavens, incandescent.
It is a heart,
This holocaust I walk in,
O golden child the world will **** and eat.
8k
Somebody is shooting at something in our town --
A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street.
Jealousy can open the blood,
It can make black roses.
Who are the shooting at?
It is you the knives are out for
At Waterloo, Waterloo, Napoleon,
The **** of Elba on your short back,
And the snow, marshaling its brilliant cutlery
Mass after mass, saying Shh!
Shh! These are chess people you play with,
Still figures of ivory.
The mud squirms with throats,
Stepping stones for French bootsoles.
The gilt and pink domes of Russia melt and float off
In the furnace of greed. Clouds, clouds.
So the swarm ***** and deserts
Seventy feet up, in a black pine tree.
It must be shot down. Pom! Pom!
So dumb it thinks bullets are thunder.
It thinks they are the voice of God
Condoning the beak, the claw, the grin of the dog
Yellow-haunched, a pack-dog,
Grinning over its bone of ivory
Like the pack, the pack, like everybody.
The bees have got so far. Seventy feet high!
Russia, Poland and Germany!
The mild hills, the same old magenta
Fields shrunk to a penny
Spun into a river, the river crossed.
The bees argue, in their black ball,
A flying hedgehog, all prickles.
The man with gray hands stands under the honeycomb
Of their dream, the hived station
Where trains, faithful to their steel arcs,
Leave and arrive, and there is no end to the country.
Pom! Pom! They fall
Dismembered, to a tod of ivy.
So much for the charioteers, the outriders, the Grand Army!
A red tatter, Napoleon!
The last badge of victory.
The swarm is knocked into a cocked straw hat.
Elba, Elba, bleb on the sea!
The white busts of marshals, admirals, generals
Worming themselves into niches.
How instructive this is!
The dumb, banded bodies
Walking the plank draped with Mother France's upholstery
Into a new mausoleum,
An ivory palace, a crotch pine.
The man with gray hands smiles --
The smile of a man of business, intensely practical.
They are not hands at all
But asbestos receptacles.
Pom! Pom! 'They would have killed me.'
Stings big as drawing pins!
It seems bees have a notion of honor,
A black intractable mind.
Napoleon is pleased, he is pleased with everything.
O Europe! O ton of honey!
7.8k
Dear Poet Friends, Here is a poem by a young Canadian poet named Darien, which I found while browsing the Net! I would like to share this with you as a prelude to my poem about the 'Rise of The Third Reich', - which I hope to post on this Site shortly. Thanks, - Raj Nandy, New Delhi
World War II - ADOLF ******
by DARIEN, Aug 21, 2006
Austria raised a man so vile and vicious
His life was dark, callous and malicious
Passions of hatred engraved in his mind
As he plotted to create his own mankind
A soldier for Germany in World War One
War to end all wars had only just begun
The National Socialist Party appeared fast
Their numbers grew rapidly as time passed
Charismatic oratory and propaganda his tool
False promises made, people he would fool
Were Nazis the one to bring hope? Perhaps
Without their help Germany would collapse
The Reichstag Fire would be a stepping stone
Germany's President died, he took the throne
He became the fuhrer leader of all Germany
And would start the worst war of the century
War had been started with a Nazi-Soviet pact
Together with Russia, Poland they attacked
England and France were not ready for war
Marching of Nazis soldiers was not ignored.
Mussolini became his ally and supported him
For all other countries their chances were slim
Many countries were defeated in a few days
the Fascist and Nazis would give him praise
Blitzkrieg was a strategy that worked most
In defeating all his enemies he came close
The Nazis would spread all across Europe
But it would be at Stalingrad they would stop
Communist regimes were one group he did hate
Yet it was the Jews he would try to annihilate
In all cruelty, bloodshed, war would soon end
There was still so much for people to defend
On V-Day he saw all his armies demolished
****** and fascism in Europe was abolished
World War Two ended the areas were secure
From that evil, monstrous beast Adolf ******
- By Darien. (Canada)
..........................................................................
Sep 22, 2018
Sep 22, 2018 at 11:11 AM UTC
Diaspora
From the Greek
When I heard the word I felt it
And I looked it up
In my old red dictionary
I could have used the Internet,
I suppose
But I like to run my forefinger down pages
Of words
I read the definition
And I felt it
Oh
Oh
We are diaspora.
Am I using it correctly?
We are a diaspora.
Diaspora
From the Greek
From the green valley of Ottawa
From Scotland
From Ireland on wooden boats
From the French village thirteen children
From the mines in the North
From Poland and from Germany
From the churches and
From the Blueberry patches
From the Island Manitoulin
From the dark lake Kagawong
From Kinburn and Arnprior
From Markstay and from Sudbury
From Waterloo
From Kitchener, Michener
From the Suburbs
Oh
From the Suburbs
From the red bricks, red currants
And geraniums
From green island cabins
From the desert
Oh
From the desert
From the potholes and pipes
From the salty wind
Cracked Caspian Sea
From the middle of the east of nowhere.
From the mountains
Oh
From the mountains
From the crystal water fountains
From the tram bells
On the cobblestone streets
From the torrents of the Rhein
From the white cross
Oh
From the white cross
On the green hill
From the river Laurence
From the French and from the English
Plains of Abraham
We are diaspora
We are a diaspora
Diaspora
From the Greek
How did it end up here on my tongue?
It is diaspora.
It is a diaspora
Diaspora is a diaspora
And I wonder if it misses its other pieces
The way that I miss mine
Ours
There is no
Roping us back together now
There is no
Home to go back to
There is no
Point of meeting
Of reunion
No
White steeple in our old town
No
Yellow slide in our backyard
No
Old folks on an old farm
No
Walled house on a hill
No
Luzernerring 93
No
Familiar riverwater
There is no
Ancient Greek anymore
Diaspora
Only fragments of fragments
Of roots of stems of words
In different dialects
There is no
Place for you to belong,
Diaspora
You’ve been sliced to pieces
And scattered
Into the wind
But
When people ask you
Where you are from
You say simply
From the Greek
Oh
From the Greek
And
When people ask me
Where I am from
I say simply
From the diaspora.
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 10:50 AM UTC
It wasnt long before the baluster flapped somewhere in the distance and Icarus knew how old he had been on the day of his birth. For whatever reason, the snow capped cappuccinos he had willfully destroyed in a heated debate on fiscal policy had him beginning again. Why was there always a beginning where there was an end? Fur traders used to circumnavigate the Hudson's Bay of his humanity when he was young, sharing drinks and fire water whiskey like it was all an H2O ready for the soul search. Sadly, many ended up in Hitlers concentration camps weeks after the **** invasion of Poland, about a month or so before the fall of the Roman Empire. Beginning with a last breath, Icarus strode off the plank with a new-found confidence unnatural in his niceties of long past. It was as if 1 minute and 35 seconds was enough to dish a clamouring populace onto the dinner table before the fat step-father gleefully orders
everyone to 'dig in, everyone!'
Cancelling everyone's appointment with Dr. Pardon meant the gaining of a key participatory certificate in El Dorado, and the gold lingering in dusty sun-beams was sifted for the taking. Some got rich, the rest got miserable. The rest used to imagine the gold, staring at ivory towers and lottery tickets, apple cores lording over old public servant applications near the city hall drain pipes as the modern world collapsed into a flash-mob image of Ronald Reagan.
Icarus was a sliver of duskish light flittering a top distant windowsills, all cupped in an intentional light because happiness was as possible as sadness. Not that considering either would make you either.
Icarus slept as his wings incinerated at the first glimpse of the solar system. He now believed every single proverb the old ***** slumbers had whispered their children as they woke to find themselves adults.
In the beginning he found the beginning beginning again. It made him feel however you wish. Both were just as possible. Both were just as much a jazz configuration as a smooth and easy guitar rift.
Ahha!
Apr 1, 2013
Apr 1, 2013 at 5:31 PM UTC
for the 111 yr. old young lady from Mars
<•>
fluids in, fluids out
wake up at midnight, lips, throat, even eyes, California Death Valley parched, white crusted-stuck together,
it takes Poland Spring water from the Northeast to unlock the throat, ****** not sipped, from a plastic gourd the chilling wetness slap to the body and brain screams metaphor, poem in there somewhere,
so what if it's spat-past midnight,
isn't this one of those soul-criticality's,
staying hydrated, (is) disco staying alive
make sense to you?
the older I get, thirstier I am, could be I'm drying/dying out from the inside out,
doctors clueless, but then again they don't reveal all they see out of poetic professional courtesy and they are tired of
yeah yeah yeah,
my professional courtesy answer to their dire warnings repetitious
tonight tho the metaphor runs strong like a mountain stream,
a Mt. Marcy beginning trickle growing into a mighty Hudson,
and the driving urge to drink, simple replenishment, birth fluid
is strong transformed into words
water is words, the water is wide, the poems hydrate what's left on the inside, and the metaphor transforms itself again
water is words, words are water,
the difference huge, the difference minuscule,
both pour, both refresh like a mother's body fluids,
all for one, one for all, and as closing time grows nigh,
staying-hydrated is primate
place a new cold bottle in readiness for my
3 o'clock feeding
Nov 14, 2017
Nov 14, 2017 at 1:50 PM UTC
*i once had a girl from poland over,
gave her the tourism of london,
a daughter of my mother's friend.*
i suffered sun stroke one day out
with her, blonde hair and all,
i was bound to feel the cold shivers,
went to a party with a school-friend
of mine and her...
i was left in a bed shivering,
he later said he didn't want to say it
but did, that they kissed...
like i didn't know the shorthand for
oral ***
now i'm drinking a beer, write
one poem weeping, another like this
one laughing prior, slapping myself in
the cheek...
two slaps to the face i didn't receive
from prostitutes **** your moral
relativism, you people only
know that theft and ****** and ****
are equal in the cauldron of einstein's
space-and-time, i accept physical
relativism, but i loath moral relativism,
it's like giving an umbrella to the man
under a champagne waterfall -
and an anorak to a man under a waterfall
of cow **** -
yep, slaps outside the brothel,
the kind women became knights' sparring partners
for the oath undertaken,
it was a practice among knights to get
a handkerchief to ease the sting later...
but when prostitutes don't slap you
for trying to sort your life in order to provide,
you sort of become two knights,
twin siamese, you slap yourself because
all that st. thomas gospel wisdom went into
sex-augmentation procedures and cheap
cancer victims with pill-for-pill profiteering...
leisurely ladies of societies made rich
by easy money, watching operas
but still preferring to notice what
their neighbours were wearing,
the peasant snobism who are more distracted
by what others wear rather than the music...
a herd of wilder-beasts could ease out more tears
at an opera than these "precious" ladies of the new
post-aristocratic society of easy money...
you drink beer, laugh, slap yourself silly on the cheeks
for more laughter... your brain
becomes a monkey in a cage gone mad
rather than turning docile...
so she came over and enjoyed my company,
spotted a fox in an alley to a surprise...
but then i got rudely told that oral *** was a kiss...
well **** me there's a cataphract -
let's ***** slap him silly so no byzantine philosopher
cared to exist.
Mar 31, 2016
Mar 31, 2016 at 8:37 PM UTC
Shema (“Listen”)
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You who live secure
in your comfortable homes,
who return each evening to find
warm food and a hearty welcome ...
Consider: is this a “man”
who slogs through mud,
who has never known peace,
who fights for scraps of bread,
who lives at another man's whim,
who at his "yes" or "no" lies dead.
Consider: is this a “woman”
shorn bald and bereft of a name
because she lacks the strength to remember,
her eyes as void and her womb as frigid
as a winter frog's?
Consider that such horrors have indeed been!
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them in your hearts
when you lounge in your beds
and again when you rise,
when you venture outside.
Rehearse them to your children,
or may your houses softly crumble
and disease render you equally as humble
so that even your offspring avert their eyes.
Primo Michele Levi (1919-1987) was an Italian Jewish chemist, writer and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. It has been described as one of the best books by one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. His unique work The Periodic Table was shortlisted as one of the greatest scientific books ever written, by the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Levi's autobiographical book about his liberation from Auschwitz, The Truce, became a movie with the same name in 1997. Keywords: Holocaust, poem, Italian, translation, man, mud, woman, bald, nameless, houses, homes, bread, eyes, womb, empty, void, frigid, lifeless, horror, horrors, hearts, write, etch, engrave, inscribe, children, offspring, disease, avert, reject
Mar 14, 2020
Mar 14, 2020 at 4:58 AM UTC
From the starting point in Poland
To the hedgerows of France
High above the English countryside
to the depths of the Atlantic
In the sand-ridden dunes of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia
to the foothills and mountains of Sicily and Italy
From the Pacific to Asia minor
we fought
Storming the beaches of Normandy
to taking back France
From Guadalcanal to Okinawa
from Burma to China
We fought
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 11:16 PM UTC
Yahya Kemal Beyatli translations
Yahya Kemal Beyatli (1884-1958) was a Turkish poet, editor, columnist and historian, as well as a politician and diplomat. Born born Ahmet Âgâh, he wrote under the pen names Agâh Kemal, Esrar, Mehmet Agâh, and Süleyman Sadi. He served as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, Portugal and Pakistan.
Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”)
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
for the refugees
The time to weigh anchor has come;
a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown,
cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts.
No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure;
the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief,
scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring...
Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing!
There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life!
The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile,
for they cannot know where the vanished are bound.
Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves,
since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey.
Full Moon
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
You are so lovely
the full moon just might
delight
in your rising,
as curious
and bright,
to vanquish night.
But what can a mortal man do,
dear,
but hope?
I’ll ponder your mysteries
and (hmmmm) try to
cope.
We both know
you have every right to say no.
The Music of the Snow
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years!
This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years!
Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery,
It rises from a choir of a hundred voices!
As the organ’s harmonies resound profoundly,
I share the sufferings of Slavic grief.
Then my mind drifts far from this city, this era,
To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey.
Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear,
With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul!
Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me;
I keep them at bay all night with my dreams!
Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer. Keywords/Tags: Beyatli, Agah, Kemal, Esrar, Turkish, translation, Turkey, silent, ship, anchor, harbor, ghosts, grief, Istanbul, moon, music, snow
Oct 30, 2020
Oct 30, 2020 at 4:28 AM UTC
*The man with green hair and green hands.
A long long time ago
When army’s wore uniforms.
We were khaki they were grey.
My grandfather was fire warden
In WW2 he had seven sons
And three daughters .
You could say he was
a bit of a pacifist.
Make love not war
Was his mantra.
He married my Grandma
when she was seventeen.
They were to stay married
for over sixty five years.
And produce tribe of ten children.
He had spent his whole life
Working as a coppersmith
For the same company.
His hair and hands tinted green
From the metals Verdigris.
My father was a baby just born
In the middle of the war.
We lived in Manchester.
Money was always tight.
But we were happy.
Just as Herr ****** invaded Poland
My grandad bought our first house.
We always rented until then.
It was a large town home.
The six older boys
All joined the marines
At the outbreak of the war.
They did one act of preparation
That ultimately saved the family.
They took down an old barn for a farmer
And used the beams to shore up the stone cellar
of the house.
When the air raids came later.
We would all huddle under the stair well
Until the all clear sirens sounded.
When the bad raid came
It was the early hours of the night.
Grandad was out on fire watch.
Six of the sons were on ships
In Europe and the far east.
My aunty told me much later.
When the war was long over.
She heard the bomb falling
It screamed as it fell.
Exploding just outside our house
the house caved in and they
were all buried under the rubble
in total darkness.
She said grandma was
breastfeeding the baby my dad.
Grandad was busy the raid was a hard one.
A friend said Frank your house has been hit
It’s bad.
He dropped everything and ran and ran
Breathless he reached the fallen house.
In his heart he thought we were all dead.
It took ten neighbors four hours to reach us.
They pulled the girls out first
Then the baby my dad.
And finally the dimutive figure of my grandma.
She was weeping.
She said Frank we’ve lost everything.
There’s nothing left.
He held her in his big arms
Tears flowing from the eyes of a man
Who had had a hard life.
Who never cried.
He kisses her full on her lips
A single sign of public affection
That was out of his character.
He whispered to grandma.
That odd Mary
Because I just found
Everything I ever wanted or needed.*
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 12:36 AM UTC
why i am an only child?
you have to ask the Polish women
who were forced to drink iodine....
1986...
Chernobyl...
it spread to Poland from the Ukraine...
a "rainbow" effect,#as my great-grandmother
recounted...
in the local park?
streaks... of autumnal trees
in their full bloom decay,
and the furthest green in summer...
a strange time...
why wouldn't my mother have
more children?
i guess, in fear of breeding a ******
pro-life, what?!
you raise them!
see how they turn out when
you're dead!
god's "grace"...
you ever curate the fate
of your grandmother?
well then!
now you know!
nature is ruthless!
man attempting to
overcome it?!
you know
what nature does?
i know what nature does...
steam-roller and...
somehow the most vocal speakers
are those daring to
question the feathers
of a macaw parrot...
substituting it with
fashion trends...
mort in concencus,..
vive in conscissio...
i might have been born with
a sibling...
but i wasn't...
the Scandinavian countries learned
of it,
from under, beneath the iron curtain...
and who can actually blame Gorbachev?
when the U.S.S.R. was made
dissolute?
and no war took the zeitgeist
garments of a pope's approval?
no cardinal red,
with Attila's river...
who is to blame,
the scolded transition period of peace?
no one unless my grandfather can
understand the peaceful transition
of the disintegrated U.S.S.R.,
into a Russian Fed.?
no one?
but the women of Poland
and the Ukraine? still had
to drink iodine...
and i am...
i am...
i am...
i will always be...
the long lost cousin of the Chernobyl
geblüt;
there is not concept of
a butterfly effect...
when it comes to the query of an,
atomic reactor!
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 10:50 PM UTC
16th, 17th, 18th chapel I don't care how many of them you make
If there's no gift shop how am I supposed to remember I was ever there?
In Germany I got a mug and a spoon
In Wales, Austria, and Poland I got a spoon
They're small and made of poisonous metal but very heavy for their size
I heard from a former classmate that you can't get a spoon in Egypt they only sell forks
What do you mean you're "not a very visual person"?
May your indictment remain sealed despite the current widespread family tumult
Feb 8, 2013
Feb 8, 2013 at 5:17 AM UTC
*ᚹᚨᛚᛖᛋ - alphabet above the ᚱᚻᛁᚾᛖ... bereft a cleaving for worth of fortitude, or Liverpool: so too the strongman for bow and two finger F; chisel the ******* bracket or ah into stone correctly, or i'll make you stake a thousand men's' worth of dough worthy of death, nation building etc.*
above the Rhine,
at least that's
my Austrian welcoming,
playfriends my beehive
**** the longship.
i said sooth
nearing rune toward Sweden
of Poland or Germania -
ALPHA BETUM, BETUM
try a care begotten a coliseum!
** SALVAGE DIE *** STIRRUP!
TO A *** RIDE! RIDGE A COLLAPSE
OF ROME! salvage it with Bach...
or else, the death-man's symphony,
you Welsh *****
Jun 15, 2016
Jun 15, 2016 at 11:17 PM UTC
The Rent-a-Mob loonies, the gangsters and the Racists
damaged scums of society and contemporary politics
Ignorant arrogant sociopaths who want it all for nothing
Indulgent wasters in nation awashed with opportunities
In idle union they scream, feed us poor and **** the Rich
Strangers come Poland, Bulgaria, India and all over
to work in farms, hospitals, hotels and Constructions
Building futures and faring in endeavours with sweat
Crimson gangs and Renta Mobs states we serve nobody
**** the wealth makers, **** the parasites and let's drink
Our shyster gangs of Revo-comrades and malcontents
See killing fields, whereas strangers toil and find rich pickings
Our Revos Distract, confuse, sow seeds of dissent, make strife
Blame all others, lie and decieve, fling indulgent political turds
Rent brainwashed Mobs,into ***** bridgard to do their ***** work
We all know life is unfair and even roses have imperfections
Some are born to riches in spades and some born to beggars in dusts
Those with time, sit and ask God why, just a fact of life to accept
But from dust has risen billionaires, whilst riches have made duds
Insane Crimson sits in spurious guise and odious fallacy playing God
Yeh, **** the Rich and feed the poor, why hide and use Rent a mob
Why not air your case in broad daylight and stand your conviction
The coward you are knows it hold no sanity for those with sense
Except for thieves, the workshy and wasters who cheat to survive
In your city of merits aplenty, Revo-crimson is beneath contempt
Dec 13, 2018
Dec 13, 2018 at 9:56 AM UTC
Inspired by George Ella Lyon's poem Where I am From
I am from cul-de-sacs
From skinned knees and seven speed bikes
I am from the bewitching perfume of the osmanthus bloom mingling with freshly mown grass
I am from the familiar music of the bubbling creek and the cardinals song
the swish of a golf club and the thud of a soccer ball
I am from hot pavement on bare feet, the taste of honeysuckles, and reaching pine tree forests whose invisible trails and clearings became my secret empire
I am from airplanes and home cooking
From Mary and Mark
northern accents and southern hospitality
I am from "use your manners" and "Not enough month left at the end if the money"
I am from sunday school and patent leather shoes that pinch my toes
from a prayer before dinner that is carved into my brain
I am from poland
from poppyseed kuchen and kielbasa
I am from my grandmother forgetting baking soda in the bread
and then... years later, forgetting me too.
I am from my grandfather's sense of humor
and his unwavering stubbornness.
I am from too many cousins to count
from pinched cheeks and "How you've grown!"
I am from piles of unfinished photo albums
brimming with new adventures, frozen faces, and old memories
I am from the path I carved for myself with tools that my parents bestowed upon me.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 1:14 PM UTC
.*pre-scriptum alternatives... either a bus-driver... or a garbage-man... ha ha... Leibniz... was a ******* librarian!*
a zookeeper,
a warden in a prison...
or some obscure,
accolade role
in an asylum...
i'm being pushed the role
of a chemistry teacher...
mind you... i know that the best
way to pet cats,
is to "ignore" them,
let them play their
solipsistic hide & seek game
with plain view of the target...
but i'm thinking of 3 dream jobs...
horticulture isn't an option...
must be the sort of man
with a floral pattern
rather than a sky-scraper
in my underwear
to provide gender
exclusive role play...
whatever the hell the means...
but teaching children
chemistry?
d'ah ****
i want to be on the forefront...
a gorilla zookeeper,
a prison warden,
an accolade
for what's the upper tier
of nursing,
namely, inside an asylum...
but i won't ever get a chance
to prospect myself for such roles...
hence the poetry...
given that i'm a chronic drunk
in England, but a sober
sparrow in Poland...
come to think of it...
i'm ever only drunk,
when i start talking...
alone, drinking?
i can catch a judge
play-thing sober...
but those are my dream
jobs...
and in all three instances...
none, are advertised for
potential applicants...
like a safe pass into a business of
past, trans-generational funeral homes...
just like they said:
it's not what you know,
it's who you know -
unless of course there's a merger,
and you're thinking
about emperor Nero stabbing
himself in the neck...
within the confines of a self
acknowledgment, "question".
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 8:29 PM UTC
there's no point writing out what poetry is... if you don't actually write it.
a whiskey prior noon,
too soon, too soon,
too soon?
i'll be cooking a turkey curry later,
a whiskey prior noon,
too soon, too soon,
too soon?!
rhyme or rhythmic, perhaps the latter
in Dante's trinity of rhymes -
poetry of the near-illiterate,
who never read as much as could
have been -
thinking it out as origin and originals -
a man without influence is
not worth reciting -
he'll still have to borrow
the life of a Henry VIII somehow,
whether he has or hasn't read a book
concerning the man -
while the Vatican emerges as the gossip
library of all the European royal families,
and indeed Henry VIII dubbed
Anne Boleyn's cow dangler *******
duckies - i think it's due to the fact
he quacked while he suckled the *******
like a pre-mature **** not producing ***** -
seriously, no milk;
and as honesty goes, ********** literature
does it for me, patron saint kenneth rexroth -
self-education moulds the self into a
pristine sequence of surprises -
there the pop of a balloon,
there the weeping clown...
there the giraffe on stilts!
indeed even at university entry point
where i deposited my self
i came back with debts!
idiotic treachery of teaching the politicised
version of language,
as language per se simply called grammatically
sound, in politics simply versed "correct";
two satans from Syria while Solomon
had his harem,
a third from Poland,
they say the holocaust,
6 million if not more citizens of the world
with polish passports - mind you
they took the Diogenes quote
into left and right parallel readied for a march -
Apollo listened then laughed at
the failures counting to 13 - laughing
while the words 'too the moon!' were eased
out from his helium filled lungs.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 6:11 AM UTC
POLAND, France, Judea ran in her veins,
Singing to Paris for bread, singing to Gotham in a fizz at the pop of a bottle's cork.
"Won't you come and play wiz me" she sang ... and "I just can't make my eyes behave."
"Higgeldy-Piggeldy," "Papa's Wife," "Follow Me" were plays.
Did she wash her feet in a tub of milk? Was a strand of pearls sneaked from her trunk? The newspapers asked.
Cigarettes, tulips, pacing horses, took her name.
Twenty years old ... thirty ... forty ...
Forty-five and the doctors fathom nothing, the doctors quarrel, the doctors use silver tubes feeding twenty-four quarts of blood into the veins, the respects of a prize-fighter, a cab driver.
And a little mouth moans: It is easy to die when they are dying so many grand deaths in France.
A voice, a shape, gone.
A baby bundle from Warsaw ... legs, torso, head ... on a hotel bed at The Savoy.
The white chiselings of flesh that flung themselves in somersaults, straddles, for packed houses:
A memory, a stage and footlights out, an electric sign on Broadway dark.
She belonged to somebody, nobody.
No one man owned her, no ten nor a thousand.
She belonged to many thousand men, lovers of the white chiseling of arms and shoulders, the ivory of a laugh, the bells of song.
Railroad brakemen taking trains across Nebraska prairies, lumbermen jaunting in pine and tamarack of the Northwest, stock ranchers in the middle west, mayors of southern cities
Say to their pals and wives now: I see by the papers Anna Held is dead.
2k
Adolf ****** was really quite a chap
He made those Froggies eat a lot of crap;
And he made all those Norwegians
Look like a load of paraplegians.
He marched into Poland with his troops
Into their pants those Poles did poops.
He made short work of the poor old Greeks:
And in their pants they did big keeks.
Killing the Jews was oh so bad and cruel:
Burning them up for harsh winter fuel.
But invading Russia was a bad place to go
And the Nazis froze in the cold and snow.
The Yanks were frightened to join in the war:
They were **** scared of what they saw;
(they only got involved when the Japanese
brought the Pearl Harbour fleet to its knees).
Only the Brits stood resolute and brave
For Churchill was an inspiring knave;
He fought Adolf on the shores and beaches
And the Germans crapped their leder-britches.
So what is the lesson of these facts from history?
Not ****** much - what a ******* mystery.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 1:42 PM UTC