delga | { poetry haul. }

Moebius Strip
by Robert Desnos, trans. Amy Levin

The track I'm running on
Won't be the same when I turn back
It's useless to follow it straight
I'll return to another place
I circle around but the sky changes
Yesterday I was a child
I'm a man now
The world's a strange thing
And the rose among the roses
Doesn't resemble another rose.

Desnos was a French Surrealist poet. ~~If anyone has this in the original French, I would appreciate it if you'd drop me a line.~~ Many thanks to the resourceful tigetrapped; you can find the original French here.

My Dead
by Rachel, trans. Robert Friend

"Only the dead don’t die"

Only they are left me, they are faithful still
whom death’s sharpest knife can no longer kill.

At the turn of the highway, at the close of day
they silently surround me, they quietly go my way.

A true pact is ours, a tie time cannot dissever.
Only what I have lost is what I possess forever.

With thanks to noorie who recently introduced me to a whole slew of poets, a list that I am still ferreting through. For the original Hebrew, you can go here.

Do not go gentle into that good night
by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I know that everyone knows (or knows of) this last one, and I myself am quite fond of bastardising the title to my own ends, but I'm really just posting this because (a) it's MAGNIFICENT and (b) there is a marvellous reading of it here.