Some Poems I Like

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

  ~ Philip Larkin

The Metaphysical Countrygirl

You, functional space
variants in voltage, the only light
Transitory effect of Love
several different lights
Sustain
Sustain them
you sustain them.

   ~ Omar Pérez, 2010
      translated by Krisitin Dykstra

Baudelaire

Poème dans mes désirs, paupières ouvertes, sur mon lit.
Poème / corps,
      Étrange comme la terre,
      Familier comme la terre.

Le sexe est un habit de lumière.

  ~ Adonis

Baudelaire

Poem in my desires, eyelids open, on my bed.
Poem / body
      Strange like the earth
      Familiar like the earth

Sex is a habit of light.

  ~ Adonis (my translation)

Falling from a Height, Holding Hands

What was that?
storms of flying glass
& billowing flames

a clear day to the far sky -

better than burning,
hold hands.

We will be
two    peregrines    diving

all the way down

  ~ Gary Snyder, Sep 2001.

filler

There are holes inside us
where hope used to be,
where we hid dreams
from those who would take them.

I sat on the floor
listening to Minor Threat
on a struggling cassette player.

I carried the music with me
like a secret heartbeat.

  ~ Bucky Sinister "All Blacked Out & Nowhere to Go"

Mort d'un Dieu

Un dieu est mort
tombé de là-haut
du crâne du ciel

Dans la terreur et la désolation
dans le désespoir des espaces déserts
peut-être un dieu nouveau surgira-t-il
de mes profondeurs

Peut-être
La terre est pour moi un lit
et une épouse
et tout l'univers s'incline

  ~ Adonis

Death of a God

A god is dead
fallen from on high
of the skull-covered sky

In terror and desolation
in the despair of empty spaces
perhaps a new god will burst through
from deep inside me

Perhaps
The earth is, for me, a bed
a spouse
on which the universe inclines

  ~ Adonis (my translation)

Verities

Into every life a little ax must fall.
Every dog has its choke chain.
Every cloud has a shadow.
Better dead than fed.
He who laughs, will not last.
Sticks and stones will break you,
and then the names of things will be changed.
A stitch in time saves no one.
The darkest hour comes.

  ~ Kim Addonizio, 2006 from "Poetry"