Elegy Poems
Duino Elegies: The First Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
......
A Satirical Elegy On The Death Of A Late Famous General
by Jonathan Swift
"His Grace! impossible! what, dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall,
And so inglorious, after all?
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now;
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we're told?
......
Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we thrust ourselves into the wind
and fall to earth into indifferent ponds.
Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one.
And somewhere lions roam, quite unaware,
in their magnificence, of any weaknesss.
But we, while wholly concentrating on one thing,
......
A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London
by Dylan Thomas
Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness
And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
......
O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; 10
......
We Dead
by Joe Cyr
(epanalepsis)
We Dead are amassed in a vortex of Hate:
Enshrined underneath Towers of Light are we dead;
Collected from the Pentagon walls were we dead;
Scorched fields mark more sacrifices by we dead;
Joined by bomb targets in Israel are we dead;
Souls from West Bank reprisals merge with we dead;
Victims of terrorism and revenge are we dead;
......
Release
by Joe Cyr
(double inverted nonet)
see
the clouds
without form
all wander free
Heaven must be thus
looking over our world
waxing and waning at will
......
Agnes M. and May
by Joe Cyr
(elegy)
Prologue
In a small New England town, in a Church cemetery
at edge of a family plot with room scarce to bury,
stand twin stones to Agnes M. 1887 – 1897,
and to May, who in chiseled 1901 birth year also entered Heaven.
Missing burial records for these two is a local mystery,
As to why memorials appeared many years later, we are not yet privy.
......
Blank - Shot
by Divyosmi Goswami
Have you lost your way
Trodding across the fumes of frost?
Or it is fashion to arrive unannounced,
From across the foggy horizon.
But now that you have arrived,
Take refuge behind that lone palm tree.
And look on at the person,
Fluttering like a fish out of pond at the corner.
......
English Translations of Uyghur Poems by Michael R. Burch
by Michael R. Burch
These are modern English translations of Uyghur poems by Michael R. Burch, an American translator, editor and publisher of Holocaust and Nakba poetry.
Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Tursun has been described as a "self-professed Kafka character" and that comes through splendidly in poems of his like "Elegy." Unfortunately, Tursun has been "disappeared" into a despicable Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. According to a disturbing report he was later "hospitalized."
Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
"Your soul is the entire world."
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
......
