AFRICAN WRITINGS

Related poetry:

1. Agapanthus – african lily [from agape (love); anthus (flower)] You may not be willing to notice me I have an awkward sense of myself My name can be hard on the tongue I do not grow easily in places Where the sun only fitfully appears I’ve come a long way northwards Gardens do not flatter my needs I am […]...
2. Two Kopjes (Made Yeomanry towards End of Boer War) Only two African kopjes, Only the cart-tracks that wind Empty and open between ’em, Only the Transvaal behind; Only an Aldershot column Marching to conquer the land. . . Only a sudden and solemn Visit, unarmed, to the Rand. Then scorn not the African kopje, The kopje that […]...
3. To S. M., A Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works O show the lab’ring bosom’s deep intent, And thought in living characters to paint, When first thy pencil did those beauties give, And breathing figures learnt from thee to live, How did those prospects give my soul delight, A new creation rushing on my sight? Still, wond’rous youth! each noble path pursue, On deathless glories […]...
4. Ka ‘Ba A closed window looks down On a dirty courtyard, and black people Call across or scream or walk across Defying physics in the stream of their will Our world is full of sound Our world is more lovely than anyone’s Tho we suffer, and kill each other And sometimes fail to walk the air We […]...
5. Dream Song 14: Life, friends, is boring Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, We ourselves flash and yearn, And moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored Means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no Inner resources, because I am […]...
6. Conversion African Guardian of Souls, Drunk with rum, Feasting on strange cassava, Yielding to new words and a weak palabra Of a white-faced sardonic god Grins, cries Amen, Shouts hosanna....
7. Limitless There is nothing, I hold, in the way of work That a human being may not achieve If he does not falter, or shrink, or shirk, And more than all, if he will believe. Believe in himself and the power behind That stands like an aid on a dual ground, With hope for the spirit […]...
8. Silence When I was cub reporter I Would interview the Great, And sometimes they would make reply, And sometimes hesitate; But often they would sharply say, With bushy eyebrows bent: “Young man, your answer for to-day Is – No Comment.” Nigh sixty years have called the tune, And silver is my pate; No longer do I […]...
9. Resolve Build on resolve, and not upon regret, The structure of thy future. Do not grope Among the shadows of old sins, but let Thine own soul’s light shine on the path of hope And dissipate the darkness. Waste no tears Upon the blotted record of lost years, But turn the leaf, and smile, oh! smile, […]...
10. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
11. MOTIVES IF to a girl who loves us truly Her mother gives instruction duly In virtue, duty, and what not, And if she hearkens ne’er a jot, But with fresh-strengthen’d longing flies To meet our kiss that seems to burn, Caprice has just as much concerned As love in her bold enterprise. But if her mother […]...
12. Psalm 12 The saint’s safety and hope in evil times. Lord, if thou dost not soon appear, Virtue and truth will fly away; A faithful man amongst us here Will scarce be found, if thou delay. The whole discourse, when neighbors meet, Is filled with trifles loose and vain; Their lips are flattery and deceit, And their […]...
13. A precious mouldering pleasure 'tis A precious mouldering pleasure ’tis To meet an Antique Book In just the Dress his Century wore A privilege I think His venerable Hand to take And warming in our own A passage back or two to make To Times when he was young His quaint opinions to inspect His thought to ascertain On Themes […]...
14. ABOUT WHAT RUNS AWAY To think that Spinoza died polishing eyeglasses. That Blake got tired at a printer’s shop Waiting for that day’s conversation with the angels. That just to live Baudelaire humiliated before his mother. That Rimbaud was silenced by Rimbaud So that his candor talked to me about literature. As if something else were possible other than […]...
15. Exiles It goes on being Alexandria still. Just walk a bit Along the straight road that ends at the Hippodrome And you’ll see palaces and monuments that will amaze you. Whatever war-damage it’s suffered, However much smaller it’s become, It’s still a wonderful city. And then, what with excursions and books And various kinds of study, […]...
16. CONSTRUCTIONS/RECONSTRUCTIONS I Living in a land Where only the dying correspond I am borne on the wings of love II I cannot join in a poem The interstices of clouds I watched a lapwing Hover in the air Glide in an arc Veer from the sheer cliff III Who shall I meet On this journey to […]...
17. On A Political Prisoner She that but little patience knew, From childhood on, had now so much A grey gull lost its fear and flew Down to her cell and there alit, And there endured her fingers’ touch And from her fingers ate its bit. Did she in touching that lone wing Recall the years before her mind Became […]...
18. Wants Beyond all this, the wish to be alone: However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards However we follow the printed directions of sex However the family is photographed under the flag-staff – Beyond all this, the wish to be alone. Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs: Despite the artful tensions of the calendar, […]...
19. The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye To His Poetry Students Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me Snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting You were beautiful; goodbye, Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain Brown envelopes for the return of your very Clinical Sonnet; goodbye, manufacturer Of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues Give the fullest treatment in literature yet To the sagging-breast motif; goodbye, you […]...
20. My Earlier Life I’ve been home a long time among the vast porticos, Which the mariner sun has tinged with a million fires, Whose grandest pillars, upright, majestic and cold Render them the same, this evening, as caves with basalt spires. The swells’ overwhelming accords of rich music, Heaving images of heaven to the skies, Mingle in a […]...
21. Variation On The Word Sleep I would like to watch you sleeping, Which may not happen. I would like to watch you, Sleeping. I would like to sleep With you, to enter Your sleep as its smooth dark wave Slides over my head And walk with you through that lucent Wavering forest of bluegreen leaves With its watery sun & […]...
22. Escaping backward to perceive Escaping backward to perceive The Sea upon our place Escaping forward, to confront His glittering Embrace Retreating up, a Billow’s height Retreating blinded down Our undermining feet to meet Instructs to the Divine....
23. Neither Snow When all of a sudden the city air filled with snow, The distinguishable flakes Blowing sideways, Looked like krill Fleeing the maw of an advancing whale. At least they looked that way to me From the taxi window, And since I happened to be sitting That fading Sunday afternoon In the very center of the […]...
24. The Voice of the Waters WHERE the Greyhound River windeth through a loneliness so deep, Scarce a wild fowl shakes the quiet that the purple boglands keep, Only God exults in silence over fields no man may reap. Where the silver wave with sweetness fed the tiny lives of grass I was bent above, my image mirrored in the fleeting […]...
25. CESAR VALLEJO Walking along the corridors of imagination, Free and alone forever, as when he was And didn’t know he was a child, Until forgetting that I’m imagining. That this heavy flesh, that urinates and sweats, Be resumed in one or two ideas Or comes right back, to that almost nothing That sees almost nothing in its […]...
26. Absence My shadow I woke to a wind swirling the curtains light and dark And the birds twittering on the roofs, I lay cold In the early light in my room high over London. What fear was it that made the wind sound like a fire So that I got up and looked out half-asleep At […]...
27. To Delia: On Her Endeavouring To Conceal Her Grief At Parting Ah! wherefore should my weeping maid suppress Those gentle signs of undissembled woe? When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, Ah, why forbid the willing tears to flow? Since for my sake each dear translucent drop Breaks forth, best witness of thy truth sincere, My lips should drink the precious mixture up, And, ere […]...
28. On Opening a Place for Social Prayer Jesus! where’er Thy people meet, There they behold Thy mercy seat; Where’er they seek Thee, Thou art found, And every place is hallow’d ground. For Thou, within no walls confined, Inhabitest the humble mind; Such ever bring Thee where they come And going, take Thee to their home. Dear Shepherd of Thy chosen few! Thy […]...
29. Psalm Three On the day when my words Were earth… I was a friend to stalks of wheat. On the day when my words Were wrath I was a friend to chains. On the day when my words Were stones I was a friend to streams. On the day when my words Were a rebellion I was […]...
30. Still I Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like […]...
31. Epistle to Neruda Superb, Like a seasoned lion, Neruda buys bread in the shop. He asks for it to be wrapped in paper And solemly puts it under his arm: “Let someone at least think That at some time I bought a book…” Waving his hand in farewell, Like a Roman rather dreamily royal, In the air scented […]...
32. Man Listening To Disc This is not bad Ambling along 44th Street With Sonny Rollins for company, His music flowing through the soft calipers Of these earphones, As if he were right beside me On this clear day in March, The pavement sparkling with sunlight, Pigeons fluttering off the curb, Nodding over a profusion of bread crumbs. In fact, […]...
33. Overhead The Tree-Tops Meet Overhead the tree-tops meet, Flowers and grass spring ‘neath one’s feet; There was nought above me, and nought below, My childhood had not learned to know: For what are the voices of birds -Ay, and of beasts,-but words-our words, Only so much more sweet? The knowledge of that with my life begun! But I had […]...
34. To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Triumph Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wintgs on, Testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade, And think of that first flawless moment over the lawn Of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made! There below are the trees, as awkward as camels; And here are the shocked starlings pumping past And think of […]...
35. The Score Because I’ve come to eighty odd, I must prepare to meet you, God. What should I do? I cannot pray, I have no pious words to say; And though the Bible I might read, Scriptures don’t meet my need. Please tell me God what can I do To be acceptable to you? I’ve put in […]...
36. 5.7 I don’t care if you are you and I am I. I am not some exotic flower. Whatever coat you have on, I will put it on to warm me… and the shoes however small… I will walk in them to balance our height difference. You don’t need to convert for me; I have already […]...
37. Longing to be with Christ To Jesus, the crown of my hope, My soul is in haste to be gone; O bear me, ye cherubim, up, And waft me away to His throne! My Saviour, whom absent I love, Whom, not having seen I adore; Whose name is exalted above All glory, dominion, and power; Dissolve thou these bonds that […]...
38. For Hans Carossa Losing too is still ours; and even forgetting Still has a shape in the kindgdom of transformation. When something’s let go of, it circles; and though we are rarely the center Of the circle, it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous curve....
39. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
40. On a certain Lady at Court I know the thing that’s most uncommon; (Envy be silent and attend!) I know a Reasonable Woman, Handsome and witty, yet a Friend. Not warp’d by Passion, aw’d by Rumour, Not grave thro’ Pride, or gay thro’ Folly, An equal Mixture of good Humour, And sensible soft Melancholy. ‘Has she no Faults then (Envy says) […]...