HAPPINESS

Stephen Dunn

A state you must dare not enter

with hopes of staying,

quicksand in the marshes, and all

the roads leading to a castle

that doesn’t exist.

But there it is, as promised,

with its perfect bridge above

the crocodiles,

and its doors forever open.

Stephen Dunn

1939-

Dunn is an American poet who has written fifteen collections of poetry. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 2001 collection, Different Hours and has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Among his other awards are three National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Rockefeller Foundations Fellowship. 

OCEANS

I have a feeling that my boat 

has struck, down there in the depths,

against a great thing.

And nothing

happens! Nothing . . . Silence . . .Waves . . .

- Nothing happens?

Or has everything happened,

and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?

Juan Ramon Jiminez

1881-1956

‘Oceans’  translated from the Spanish by  Robert Bly

Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956.

CONCH

In front of the mirror in my parents’ bedroom lay a pink conch. I used to approach it on tiptoes, and with a sudden movement put it against my ears. I wanted to surprise it one day when it wasn’t longing with a monotonous hum for the sea. Although I was small I knew that even if we love someone very much, at times it happens that we forget about it.


Zbigniew Herbert
1924-1998


‘Conch’ translated from the Polish by John and Bogdana Carpenter

 Zbigniew Herbert was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer, author of plays, and moralist. A member of the Polish resistance movement during World War II, he is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers.

RELATIONSHIP

What a silence, when you are here, What

a hellish silence.

You sit and I sit.

You lose and I lose.

Janos Pilenszky

1921-1981

translated from the Hungarian by Peter Jay

WATER-BURN

The large blue Horse*

We should have been galloping on horses, their hoofprints

Splashes of light, divots kicked out of the darkness,

Or hauling up lobster pots in a wake of sparks. Where

Were the otters and seals? Were the dolphins on fire?

Yes, we should have been doing more with our lives.

Michael Longley

1939-

*The Large Blue Horse 

by  Franz Marc

1880-1916

German Expressionist Painter

DELAY

The Hubble Extreme Deep Field*

The radiance of that star that leans on me

Was shining years ago. The light that now

Glitters up there my eye may never see,

And so the time lag teases me with how

Love that loves now may not reach me until

Its first desire is spent. The star’s impulse

Must wait for eyes to claim it beautiful

And love arrived may find us somewhere else.

Elizabeth Jennings

1926-2001

*The Hubble Extreme Deep Field

NASA, ESA, UCSC, Leiden Obs and the XDF Team.

This image by the Hubble Space telescope is the deepest image of the far Universe ever taken in visible light.   The faintest galaxies formed 13 billion years ago, just a few percent of its present age.  

I’LL BE A WICKED OLD WOMAN

I’ll be a wicked old woman,

thin as a rail,

the way I am now.

Not one of those big-assed ones

with buttocks churning behind them,

as Celine said.

Not one of the good-natured grandmas and aunties

against whose soft and plump arms

it is nice to lay one’s cheek.

I’m more like a scarecrow

in our gardens full of rosy tomatoes

like children’s cheeks.

There are some old crones

who are both vivacious and angry as a bee

with eyes on top of their heads

who see everything, hear everything and have an opinion -

grumblers since birth.

I’ll squawk and chatter all day,

cackle like a hen over her chicks

about the days when I was

a young, good-looking girl.

When I led boys by the nose.

Colts and stallions I tamed,

with the flash in my eyes, the flash of my skirt,

passing over infidelities and miseries

the way a general passes over his lost battles.

I’ll be free to do anything as an old woman,

among things I still can and want to do

like playing bridge or dancing

the light-footed dances of my days.

I’ll spin and trip on my stick-like legs,

attached to my body like toothpicks to a kabob.

That old hag sure can boogie!

The young smarties gathered around me

will shout and applaud.

An old woman like a well-baked bun with sesame seeds,

that’s what I’m going to be like.

I’ll stick between everyone’s teeth, as I did before,

while with a wide hat and dresses down to the ground

I stroll through the landscapes of my past life.

Smelling the furze, admiring the heather,

on every thistle catching my undergarment - my soul.

Radmila Lazic

1949

translated from the Serbian by Charles Simic 

BEING ALIVE

Bloodaxe Books

Radmila Lazic is a leading Serbian poet and activist. Born in 1949, she has published six award-winning poetry collections as well as anthologies of anti-war letters and women poets. She is founder and editor of the journal Profemina.

Born in Serbia, Charles Simic is one of America’s leading poets. He won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. His own poetry is published in Britain by Faber. He teaches at the University of New Hampshire.