Identity Poems
In A London Drawingroom
by George Eliot
The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.
For view there are the houses opposite
Cutting the sky with one long line of wall
Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch
Monotony of surface & of form
Without a break to hang a guess upon.
No bird can make a shadow as it flies,
For all is shadow, as in ways o'erhung
By thickest canvass, where the golden rays
Are clothed in hemp. No figure lingering
......
Passport
by Mahmoud Darwish
They did not recognize me in the shadows
That suck away my color in this Passport
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs
They did not recognize me,
Ah... Don't leave
The palm of my hand without the sun
Because the trees recognize me
Don't leave me pale like the moon!
......
September On Jessore Road
by Allen Ginsberg
Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts
Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go
......
Echoes of a Rose
by Drake Son
Her winds still whisper names forgotten,
And her rivers now hum hymns of home’s embrace.
Chimney tops rise, silent like prayers unanswered,
And cracked cobbles mutter stories of long ago.
Still held together by time’s drystone hands,
The home we once knew, now overthrown.
Now, not a place of darkness and gloom,
As strangers still believe.
Nor a land of milky tea-stained dreams,
......
Poems Of Joys
by Walt Whitman
O TO make the most jubilant poem!
Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death.
O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments! full of grain and trees.
O for the voices of animals! O for the swiftness and balance of
fishes!
O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem!
O for the sunshine, and motion of waves in a poem.
......
Wir sind,wer wir sind
by Mario Odekerken
Wir sind,wer wir sind,
weil wir sind,wer wir sind.
Kein Spiegel zeigt es ganz,
kein Wort fasst es ein.
In den Schatten unserer Gedanken,
in den Linien unserer Hände,
trägt das Sein seinen eigenen Grund,
ohne Erklärung,ohne Ziel.
......
Het geslacht Odekerken
by Mario Odekerken
Ze kwamen met de tijd,
lang voor mijn naam bestond.
Mannen en vrouwen
geworteldin het zachte land
waar de heuvels zwijgend toekeken.
Zuid-Limburg,
waar mist tussen boomgaarden hangt
en de aarde herinneringen vasthoudt
alsof ze weet
......
Limburg,het land van mijn voorvaderen
by Mario Odekerken
Tussen glooiende heuvels
en zacht uitgesproken woorden
ligt het begin van mijn verhaal.
De aarde ademt oud vertrouwen,
zwaar van klei en stilte,
gevormd door handen
die ik nooit heb gekend
maar toch herken.
......
In the Neighbourhood where my mind lives
by Mario Odekerken
In the neighbourhood where my mind lives,
the streets bend like questions never quite asked,
and each house hums a different memory-
some with doors wide open,
others sealed shut with the dust of
"not now".
The wind there smells like pages turned,
and sometimes, like a song
half-remembered,
......
Verborgen woorden(In een verborgen leven)
by Mario Odekerken
Fluisteringen glijden langs muren van steen,
verloren gedachten,onzichtbaar,alleen.
In daglicht verzwegen,in schaduwen geschreven,
woorden die dansen op het randje van leven.
Een naam in de mist,een zin in de wind,
herinnering zweeft waar niemand het vindt.
Een boek zonder kaft,een stem zonder bron,
wat ooit werd gezegd,is al eeuwen weer gone.
......
