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A POET'S CREED
The deep felt scream which in the hue of the square
remains unheard and silent grows deeper,
the sigh of a bird struck in the sky
by who and why unknown, the blood trickling,
the tears of a woman in love pained,
the tears of her husband, a marriage in the endless gaol,
the hunger of the famished, the sickness of the diseased,
the long trecking of horrified refugees
approaching the frontier of their own death,
the defeat of he who fell forever
struck down by the burning shot from a rifle,
the slaves of views incarcerated
to pay for the alluring sin of their thoughts,
solitude, the pain, the weariness
of he who walks and stumbles
rising and stumbling again right up to the hilltop
where a cross and three nails await him
- grist to the mill to the poet.
To ensure that all he has done he has done well,
a poet presses words together and produces fire
burning his hands. A poet removes words from their place
and wrings them until tears begin to trickle.
A poet stabs words deep with a blade
until blood ebbs and endlessly flowing.
If his words possess fire, tears and blood,
a poet rests his mind and writes on.
***
Oliver Friggieri, born in Malta in 1947, studied Philosophy and Literature and is Professor and Head of the Department of Maltese at the University of Malta. His works have been translated into numerous languages. Author of numerous books of poetry, criticism, novels, short stories, and scholarly articles published in various countries. Winner of various prizes, including Premio Mediterraneo InternazionaIe (Palermo), Malta Government Literary Award, Premio Internazionale Trieste Poesia. Member of the National Order of Merit (Government of Malta). The list of his books includes Koranta and other Short Stories from Malta (Mireva Publications, Malta), La menzogna (Genova), A Turn of the Wheel (Paisley), Storie per una sera (Treviso), Le rituel du crépuscule (Paris), Nous sommes un désir (Luxembourg), A Distraught Pilgrim (Missouri), La voce deli' onda (Alghero), Sotto l’ombra degli occhi (Trieste), and various novels such as ġiżimin li Qatt ma Jiftaħ (Jasmins that never Bloom) and It-Tfal jiġu bil-Vapuri (Children come by ship). In 2002 Mireva Publications released his collected poems Il-Poeżiji Miġbura.
The poem above was published in the volume żiffa o Becalmed o Windstille o Acalmie, ISBN 3-930672-92-8, Verlag Radu Barbulescu, copyright © Munich 2005. All Rights reserved.
THE SEA
I have pain in my chest and the rest
Of my broken nest.
The recollections, nice and bad, better or best
Squeeze with no mercy. Push they, shock,
Disturb and colour and cover my life
With a very painful, thick and melancholic paint.
Other memories, seducing and tempting, also put pressure
Heavy upon my soul. They take me back to a certain beach,
Where white-grey sand is everywhere, dry or wet:
Depending on the sea stand and
On a deep tide dug inside my repressed pride.
The beach, the sun, the sand and the sea –
A temple and a temporal heaven for my heart
Which beats, bleeds..., bleeds and beats.
What a splendid combination!
What a fantastic mixture and merger of South and Nature!
What a beautiful blend of a temperate climate and
A natural texture round the year occurs in an open air.
Heaven? The world above? No. Not better.
I am the Sophist with two large and keen eyes,
Overlooking the world up and down.
My heaven is on our Earth, nor fine neither sad,
Under my feet or over my head.
Yes, I am...
The poor Sophist with two large black gouged eyes out.
I see and smell over and under the SEA.
My life and my grave
Emerged from and built over sea sand:
Strength in the start...
Weakness and death in the END.
***
Adnan Al Dhahir, Ph. D. Born December 17th 1935 in Al Hillah, Iraq. He studied Chemistry at Baghdad University, Iraq (B. Sc.), Moscow State University, Russia (Ph. D) and California State University, USA. He has also carried out academic research at Cardiff and Sheffield, Great Britain as well as in Tripoli, Libya. He currently resides in Munich, Germany, where he writes articles and poems in both English and Arabic. A collection of his poems, Sorrencath, was published 1998 by the Minerva Press, London-Atlanta-Montreux-Sydney. “The Sea” was first published in his collected poems volume Poems – Gedichte – Shaar, ISBN 3-930672-65-0, © 2000, Radu Barbulescu Publishing House, Munich. All Rights reserved.
A LIED
A violet butterfly
lightens our nights;
Your hands, resting on the
keys' mother-of-pearl are
soothening a sleep of sepias.
And it's no wonder, my love,
that roses had covered
the pillars
on an unusual step
of the year...
YOUR BODY
Your body: fruit of water.
Your body: sweet perfume.
Your body: yellow copper.
Your body: sound & fume.
Your body: light & thunder.
Your body: angel's dress!
Your body: warm, loved, tender
Shelter for my soul - through deaths.
From QUASIMODO.
21 de poeme / 21 Poems
scrise si traduse în engleza / written & translated into English
by Radu Barbulescu,
Jon Dumitru Editions, Munich 1981 (1982?)
LINKING
LYRICS
Poetical past will last
In
as much as Yeat's age
Deemed a necessity
Best
forgotten
Under the desk
Well rested I read on
Lyrical
significance
Creeked amidst storms
Of South Coast rain flowing
down
Internet wave of intensity
Set the lyrical
ballad
Forelore means more
Even this momentary
passion
Doing good all day long
Will last until the cock crows
Born in a trunk
Rolling along nicely
Lyrically limited
wordcount
Online with the game
I caught the rhythm
Between
my walks to the University
Cast a line
Reading the Litany
of Saints
Linking Lyrics in song
Holiness reigns
overall
Themes above all
Embody role models - Lyrics
feelings!
Awash in a sandstorm
I low cast rose fast
Love
you ... Poetica ...
____________________________________
Bio:
Published
in the UK and a poet of power and persuasion SM Thompson has
published a first book in America ... ROCK ME: www.publishamerica.com
and now a second book is to be published in the USA this year!
2009.
SM
Thompson is a poet in Southampton, Hampshire, England - an "emeritae
university lecturer - poetica!" Winner of Two Pens for Poetry
in Ireland and England 2005-6.
She is is a member of the London
Poetry Society and a London Poet published by www.unitedpress.co.uk.
Interestingly enough 16 poems penned by SM Thompson, and
published in Anthologies are now catalogued in The British Library
London from 2000 -2009!
Recent online poems have also been
published by penn.himalaya in 20th Edition of Pen Himalaya Nepal!
