Category: Other People’s Poetry

Other People’s Poetry

Posted on by Rocco

 GENESIS

 
by David Day

 

Before Raven there was nothing much
It was quite dark

There was no mountain. There was no earth.
There was no sun or fish. There was
no dog or rainbow. There was no
noisy bird or tree. There
was no wind, stone or
Rain. There was no
people or
bugs.

It was pretty damn quiet
I’m telling you
I was bored

***

Then I did something – which
I’m not going to tell

Anyway, after that
Then there are things

Like the ocean, for instance
Like the earth – etcetera, for instance

And still later, there was
You – that is, humans, for instance

I make lots of other mistakes too
But at least I was not bored anymore

Which is better than nothing
As they say
And I think I know nothing
well enough to say
it also

 

 

As appeared in David Day’s collection, The Animals Within (Penumbra Press). For more information about the author, please click here.

Other People’s Poetry

Posted on by Rocco

by Gerhard Ruhm

 
Flower Piece
for gunter brus

 

the tulip shits on the lawn
the violet farts in the gardener’s hand
the forget-me-not vomits into the tissue paper
the pink sucks on it stem
the orchid masturbates between the lady’s fingers and drips on her sleeve,
the rose stinks of sweat and menstrual blood
the snow drop snots on the flesh tablecloth
the lily pisses in the vase
the hyacinth belches

 

 
Translation from the German by Rosmarie Waldrop

 

Other People’s Poetry: Luciano Iacobelli

Posted on by Rocco

Two Poems:
 

      End of the Line

      Night Walk

 

 
 
Luciano Iacobelli is a poet, playwright and visual artist. In 1986 his first play, The Porch, was staged in Toronto. In 2000 he founded Lyricalmyrical Press, a grass-roots publishing company specializing in handcrafted chapbooks. More than 80 books have appeared under this imprint, many by very young writers whose work he has nurtured throughout his career as a creative writing and literature teacher at SEED, Toronto’s oldest public alternative school. Author of 7 chapbooks, The Angel Notebook, his first full-length poetry collection, was published in March of 2007 by Seraphim Editions.

 
 

Other People’s Poetry

Posted on by Rocco

 
Second Series

 
Yannos Ritsos 1909-1990
 

14.

In the white egg,
a yellow chick
a blue song

26.

The new moon
hides up its sleeve – you saw it? –
a knife

52.

Naked, astride an elephant,
the moon crosses the river.
Dewdrops shimmering at its feet.

61.

Guatemala, Nicaragua, Salvador.
Where did so many bodies go? On a tree, wind-swept,
a pair of worn trousers.

63.

Where is the time to light a cigarette,
to look at a star, to speak with a turtle,
to scratch your nose, and fart?

80.

Seek not, want not, be not.
I bite – he says – a bitter apple.
Freedom

104.

They tagged you an illiterate, those idle bureaucrats.
Unaware how on arid islands you memorized
the twelve Gospels of the Struggle.