English Poems

[Saeed Khan]

A widow bird sat mourning for her Love


A widow bird sate mourning for her Love
Upon a wintry bough;
The frozen wind crept on above,
The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
No flower upon the ground,
And little motion in the air
Except the mill-wheel's sound.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

[IamDZJ]

I have fallen into unconsciousness
Rumi

I have got out of my own control, I have fallen into unconsciousness; in my utter unconsciousness how joyful I am with myself!
The darling sewed up my eyes so that I might not see other than him, so that suddenly I opened my eyes on his face.
My soul fought with me saying, “Do not pain me”; I said, “Take your divorce.” She said, “Grant it”; I granted it.
When my mother saw on my cheek the brand of your love she cut my umbilical cord on that, the moment I was born.
If I travel to heaven and read the Tablet of the Unseen, O you who are my soul’s salvation, without you how I am ruined!
When you cast aside the veil the dead become alive; the light of your face reminded me of the Covenant of Alast.
When I became lost, O soul, through love of the king of the peris, hidden from self and creatures, I am as if peri-born myself.
I said to the Tabriz of Shams-e Din, “O body, what are you?” Body said, “Earth”; Soul said, “I am distraught like the wind.”

[IamDZJ]

Escape me?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear—
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed—
But what if I fail of my purpose here?

It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,—
So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me—
Ever
Removed!
R B

[Abdul Haq]

John Fletcher (1579 � 1625)
Weep no more
WEEP no more, nor sigh, nor groan
Sorrow calls no time that�s gone
Violets pluck�d the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again
Trim thy locks, look cheerfully
Fate�s hid ends eyes cannot see
Joys as winged dreams fly fast
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a wound to woe;
Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe.


.

[Abdul Haq]

Helen Hoyt
Rain at Night
Are you awake? Do you hear the rain?
How rushingly it strikes upon the ground
And on the roof, and the wet window-panel
Sometimes I think it is a comfortable sound,
Making us feel how safe and snug we are:
Closing us off in this dark, away from the dark outside.
The rest of the world seems dim tonight, mysterious and far.
Oh, there is no world left Only darkness, darkness stretching wide
And full of the blind rain�s immeasurable fall!

How nothing must we seem unto this ancient thing!
How nothing unto the earth � and we so small!
Oh, wake, wake! � do you not feel my hands cling?
One day it will be raining as it rains tonight; the same wind blow �
Raining and blowing on this house wherein we lie, but you and I �
We shall not hear, we shall not ever know.
O love, I had forgot that we must die.

[eyeliner]

I love this poem, shooting stars is meant to be a metaphor of jews being shot, the star of david being symbolic of jews. Its to do with the holocaust.


Shooting stars
By Carol Ann Duffy

After I no longer speak they break our fingers
to salvage my wedding ring. Rebecca Rachel Ruth
Aaron Emmanuel David, stars on all our brows
Beneath the gaze of men with guns. Mourn for our daughters,

upright as statues, brave. You would not look at me.
You waited for the bullet. Fell. I say, Remember.
Remember those appalling days which make the world
forever bad. One saw I was alive. Loosened

his belt. My bowels opened in a ragged gape of fear.
Between the gap of corpses I could see a child.
The soldiers laughed. Only a matter of days separate
this from acts of torture now. They shot her in the eye.

How would you prepare to die, on a perfect April evening
with young men gossiping and smoking by the graves?
My bare feet felt the earth and urine trickled
down my legs. I heard the click. Not yet. A trick.

After immense suffering someone takes tea on the lawn.
After the terrible moans a boy washes his uniform.
After the history lesson children run to their toys the world
turns in its sleep the spades shovel soil Sara Ezra…

Sister, if seas part us, do you not consider me?
Tell them I sang the ancient psalms at dusk
inside the wire and strong men wept. Turn thee
unto me with mercy, for I am desolate and lost.

[IamDZJ]

O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give
That due to thee which thou deservest alone.
O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here who doth hence remain!

[IamDZJ]

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wond'ring at the present, nor the past,
For thy records, and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste:
This I do vow and this shall ever be:
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.

[IamDZJ]

Christopher Brennan

I am shut out of mine own heart
because my love is far from me,
nor in the wonders have I part
that fill its hidden empery:

The wildwood of adventurous thought
and lands of dawn my dream had won,
the riches out of Faery brought
are buried with our bridal sun.

And I am in a narrow place,
and all its little streets are cold,
because the absence of her face
has robb'd the sullen air of gold.

My home is in a broader day:
at times I catch it glistening
thro' the dull gate, a flower'd play
and odour of undying spring:

The long days that I lived alone,
sweet madness of the springs I miss'd,
are shed beyond, and thro' them blown
clear laughter, and my lips are kiss'd:

And here, from mine own joy apart,
I wait the turning of the key: -
I am shut out of mine own heart
because my love is far from me.

[Alchemist]

The Question

Love, a question

has destroyed you.


I have come back to you

from thorny uncertainty.



I want you straight as

the sword or the road.


But you insist

on keeping a nook

of shadow that I do not want.


My love,

understand me,

I love all of you,

from eyes to feet, to toenails,

inside,

all the brightness, which you kept.


It is I, my love,

who knocks at your door.

It is not the ghost, it is not

the one who once stopped

at your window.

I knock down the door:

I enter your life:

I come to live in your soul:

you cannot cope with me.


You must open door to door,

you must obey me,

you must open your eyes

so that I may search in them,

you must see how I walk

with heavy steps

along all the roads

that, blind, were waiting for me.

Do not fear,

I am yours,

but

I am not the passenger or the beggar,

I am your master,

the one you were waiting for,

and now I enter

your life,

no more to leave it,

love, love, love,

but to stay.


-Pablo Neruda

[PETER.PHIL]

Meanwhile, at social Industry's command
How quick, how vast an increase. From the germ
Of some poor hamlet, rapidly produced
Here a huge town, continuous and compact
Hiding the face of earth for leagues -

[eyeliner]

Wickedness tried to kill greatness.

In a corner of South Africa

Where they believed there were

No mothers and fathers

No sisters and brothers

And

Where they believed

One could not hear the cries of another,

Wickedness tried to kill greatness.



Wickedness tried to build a nation

Of white tyrants.

In a corner of the planet

They arrogantly downpressed

They did not overstand

As they suffered the illusion of the God complex,

But these words are not for wickedness.



These words are for greatness,

The greatness that inspired doctors and nurses

To become educated in the art of freedom getting,

The greatness that inspired educators to become liberators

And a nation of children to become great themselves.

South Africans in the valley of the shadow of death

Feared no wickedness

Because greatness was at their side

And greatness was in their hearts,

When the wind of change went south

Greatness was it's trustee, guided by truth.



Now we who witnessed the greatness

Sing and dance to his legacy,

We who muse his intelligence

Spread the good news in Reggae, Soul, Marabi

And the theatre of liberation,

Knowing that nobody dies until they're forgotten

We chant Biko today

Biko tomorrow

Biko forever.



Wickedness tried to kill greatness

Now wickedness is dead

And greatness lives

In Islington

As he lives in Cape Town.

[IamDZJ]

VV Hen to the Seſſions of ſweet ſilent thought,
I ſummon vp remembrance of things paſt, I ſigh the lacke of many a thing I ſought,
And with old woes new waile my deare times waſte:
Then can I drowne an eye( vn-vſ'd to flow )
For precious friends hid in deaths dateles night,
And weepe afreſh loues long ſince canceld woe,
And mone th'expence of many a vanniſht ſight.
Then can I greeue at greeuances fore-gon,
And heauily from woe to woe tell ore
The ſad account of fore-bemoned mone,
Which I new pay as if not payd before.
But if the while I thinke on thee ( deare friend)
All loſſes are reſtord,and ſorrowes end

[IamDZJ]

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

[IamDZJ]

"All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart."