The Last Toast

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Whether we like it or not,
We have only three choices:
Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And not even three
Because as the philosopher says
Yesterday is yesterday
It belongs to us only in memory:
From the rose already plucked
No more petals can be drawn.

The cards to play
Are only two:
The present and the future.

And there aren’t even two
Because it’s a known fact
The present doesn’t exist
Except as it edges past
And is consumed…,
like youth.

In the end
We are only left with tomorrow.
I raise my glass
To the day that never arrives.

But that is all
we have at our disposal.

~Nicanor Parra~

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Something Like That

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PARRA LAUGHS like he’s condemned to hell
but when haven’t poets laughed?
at least he declares that he’s laughing

they pass the years pass
the years
at least they seem to be passing
hypothesis non fingo
everything goes on as if they were passing

now he starts to cry
forgetting that he’s an antipoet.

00 00 00

MY CORPSE and I
understand each other marvelously
my corpse asks me: do you believe in God?
and I respond with a hearty NO
my corpse asks: do you believe in the government?
and I respond with the hammer and sickle
my corpse asks: do you believe in the police?
and I respond with a punch in the face
then he gets up out of his coffin
and we go arm in arm to the altar

00 00 00

THE TRUE PROBLEM of philosophy
is who does the dishes

nothing otherworldly

God
the truth
the passage of time
absolutely
but first, who does the dishes

whoever wants to do them, go ahead
see ya later, alligator
and we’re right back to being enemies

00 00 00

~Nicanor Parra~
(translation by Liz Werner)

Chronos

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In Santiago, Chile
The days are interminably long:
Several eternities in a day.

Like the vendors of seaweed
Travelling on the backs of mules:
You yawn – you yawn again.

Yet the weeks are short
The months go racing by
And the years have wings.

~Nicanor Parra~

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Nicanor Parra was a beautiful poet, often overshadowed by his more famous compatriot and comrade, Pablo Neruda.

Born in a small town of southern Chile in 1914, Nicanor Parra “has taught us – has forced us – to come to poetry with new eyes. More than that, he has made us look with new eyes at all the things of this world : airplanes and pencils, crankshafts and flies and pianos. He has redefined the poem in such a way as only a few have done. And in doing so he has redefined the world in which the poem is written and the hand that writes it …”

There was this one line in a poem I read by him as a teenager which has stayed with me forever

In America liberty is a statue

unfortunately, I just can’t seem to find the poem now.

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Do not stand by my grave and weep

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Do not stand at my grave and weep:
I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the softly falling snow,
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the field of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,
I am in the grateful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight.
I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom.
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing.
I am in each lovely thing.

So do not stand by my grave and cry.
I am not there.
I did not die.

Mary E. Frye

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Again this is a poem which I have not read earlier, but discovered it while spending a whole evening aimlessly wandering the internet. There was this post-script at the end of this poem:
Throughout the years, this poem has appeared in many places and in many forms. The original was written in 1942 by Baltimorean Mary Frye on the back of a brown paper bag. Frye wrote the poem for a friend whose mother had died in Germany; the daughter had been unable to attend the funeral because of World War II.

HOW LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD CAME TO BE EATEN

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Most worthy of praise
Were the virtuous ways
Of Little Red Riding Hood’s Ma,
And no one was ever
More cautious and clever
Than Little Red Riding Hood’s Pa.
They never mislead,
For they meant what they said,
And would frequently say what they meant:
And the way she should go
They were careful to show,
And the way that they showed her, she went.
For obedience she was effusively thanked,
And for anything else she was carefully spanked.

It thus isn’t strange
That Red Riding Hood’s range
Of virtues so steadily grew,
That soon she was prizes
Of different sizes,
And golden encomiums, too!
As a general rule
She was head of her school,
And at six was so notably smart
That they gave her a cheque
For reciting, “The Wreck
of the Hesperus,” wholly by heart!
And you all will applaud her the more, I am sure,
When I add that this money she gave to the poor.

At eleven this lass
Had a Sunday-school class,
At twelve wrote a volume of verse,
At thirteen was yearning
For glory, and learning
To be a professional nurse.
To a glorious height
The young paragon might
Have grown, if not nipped in the bud,
But the following year
Struck her smiling career
With a dull and a sickening thud!
(I have shed a great tear at the thought of her pain,
And must copy my manuscript over again!)

Not dreaming of harm
One day on her arm
A basket she hung. It was filled
With jellies, and ices,
And gruel, and spices,
And chicken-legs, carefully grilled,
And a savory stew,
And a novel or two
She’d persuaded a neighbor to loan,
And a hot-water can,
And a Japanese fan,
And a bottle of eau-de-cologne,
And the rest of the things that your family fill
Your room with, whenever you chance to be ill!

She expected to find
Her decrepit but kind
Old Grandmother waiting her call,
But the visage that met her
Completely upset her:
It wasn’t familiar at all!
With a whitening cheek
She started to speak,
But her peril she instantly saw: –
Her Grandma had fled,
And she’d tackled instead
Four merciless Paws and a Maw!
When the neighbors came running, the wolf to subdue,
He was licking his chops, (and Red Riding Hood’s, too!)

At this terrible tale
Some readers will pale,
And others with horror grow dumb,
And yet it was better,
I fear, he should get her:
Just think what she might have become!
For an infant so keen
Might in future have been
A woman of awful renown,
Who carried on fights
For her feminine rights
As the Mare of an Arkansas town.
She might have continued the crime of her ‘teens,
And come to write verse for the Big Magazines!

The Moral: There’s nothing much glummer
Than children whose talents appall:
One much prefers those who are dumber,
But as for the paragons small,
If a swallow cannot make a summer
It can bring on a summary fall!

Guy Wetmore Carryl (1873-1904)

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The note at the end of the poem said “”How Little Red Riding Hood Came to Be Eaten” is reprinted from Grimm Tales Made Gay. Guy Wetmore Carryl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1902.

Many of you would be familiar with the “politically correct fairy tales” which have become so popular these days, poking self conscious fun at our political correctness. But this poem has a freshness from the pre-post-modern era which is so charming.

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The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

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The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful Pea-green boat:
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“Oh, lovely Pussy, oh, Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,
You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing!
Oh, let us be married; too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away for a year and a day,
To the land where the bong-tree grows;
And there in the wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,
His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,
The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

~ Edward Lear ~

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ON A TIRED HOUSEWIFE

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Here lies a poor woman who was always tired,
She lived in a house where help wasn’t hired:
Her last words on earth were: ‘Dear friends, I am going
To where there’s no cooking, or washing, or sewing,
For everything there is exact to my wishes,
For where they don’t eat there’s no washing of dishes.
I’ll be where loud anthems will always be ringing,
But having no voice I’ll be quit of the singing.
Don’t mourn for me now, don’t mourn for me never,
I am going to do nothing for ever and ever.’

An anonymous poem

I have no idea about this poem and found it while searching for some poems posted in this blog. But since I like lyrical manifestos, I decided to post it too…. Does anyone know anything about this poem?

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Raat Tinter Sonnet (Sonnets for 3 A.M.)

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Shudhu tai pobitro, ja byaktigoto| gobheer sondhyay
norom, achchonno aalo; holde-mlan boi-er patay
lukono nakkhatro ghirey akasher mato andhokar;
athoba atwar chithi, madhyoraate lajuk tandray

durer bondhu ke lekha| Jishu ki paropokari
chhilen, tomra bhabo? Na ki Buddha kono samitir
manoniyo bachal, porishromi, asheetir
mohogrosto sabhapoti? uddharer sottadhikari

byatibyasto pandader jagajhompo, chamor, pahara
eriye achhen tNara udasin, shanto, channachhara|

~ Buddhadeva Bose ~
……………………………..

Only the personal is holy.
A shaded lamp
Then evening deepens: darkness spread like a sky
Around the hidden star of a yellowed page;
A letter written in the shy half-sleep of midnight,
Idly, to a distant friend. Do you think that Christ
was a philanthrophist? Or Buddha a committee chairman, hard-working,
venerable, loquacious,
nibbling vain saliva? Far from the drums and watchmen
All the wholesale vendors of salvation,
Deftly they walk their ways of vagrancy.

(Translation from Bengali by poet himself)

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Thanks to Bishnu for sharing this poem.

A Few Words on the Soul

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We have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.

Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.

Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.

It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.

We can count on it
when we’re sure of nothing
and curious about everything.

Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.

It won’t say where it comes from
or when it’s taking off again,
though it’s clearly expecting such questions.

We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.
 ~ Wislawa Szymborska ~

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Thanks Arjun for introducing me to this poem.

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Skipping Without Ropes

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I will, I will skip without your rope
Since you say I should not, I cannot
Borrow your son’s skipping rope to
Exercise my limbs; I will skip without

Your rope as you say, even the lace
I want will hang my neck until I die;
I will create my own rope, my own
Hope and skip without your rope as

You insist I do not require to stretch
My limbs fixed by these fevers of your
Reeking sweat and your prison walls;
I will, will skip with my forged hope;

Watch, watch me skip without your
Rope; watch me skip with my hope –
A-one, a-two, a-three, a-four, a-five
I will, a-seven, I do, will skip, a-ten,

Eleven, I will skip without, will skip
Within and skip I do without your
Rope but with my hope; and I will,
Will always skip you dull, will skip

Your silly rules, skip your filthy walls,
You weevil pigeon peas, skip your
Scorpions, skip your Excellency Life
Glory. I do, you don’t, I can, you can’t,

I will, you won’t, I see, you don’t, I
Sweat, you don’t, I will, will wipe my
Gluey brow then wipe you at a stroke
I will, will wipe your horrid, stinking,

Vulgar prison rules, will wipe you all
The hop about, hop about my cell, my
Home, the mountains, my globe as your
Sparrow hops about your prison yard

Without your hope, without your rope,
I swear, I will skip without your rope, I
Declare, I will have you take me to your
Showers to bathe me where I can resist

This singing child you want to shape me,
I’ll fight your rope, your rules, your hope
As your sparrow does under your super-
vision! Guards! Take us for a shower!

~ Jack Mapanje ~

A Malawian poet.

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Aparna who introduced me to this poem had this to say “he was imprisoned by the malawian government for a while. the reason this poem is so dear to me is that it narrates the reselience of the human spirit even when faced with the worst of situations. imprison, kill, torture, demean, do whatver you want, but the human spirit never dies, never stops hoping and most importantly never burns out!”

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