As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Max M recomended by my dad.
Comment by 7english — October 17, 2007 @ 4:01 am
| Reply
Matsuo Basho- Untitled
年暮れぬ
笠きて草鞋
はきながら
Toshi kurenu
Kasa kite waraji
Hakinagara
Another year is gone;
and I still wear
straw hat and straw sandal.
Kureru: – get dark, comes to an end. The nu suffix expresses
completeness: toshi kurenu – The year has come to an end.
Anton Ivkov’s, fathers favourite poem (Milan Ivkov)
Comment by 7english — October 17, 2007 @ 4:01 am
| Reply
Posted by Hugh G
This was recomended to me by my Brother
Let No-one Steal Your Dreams
By
Paul Cookson
Let no-one steal your dreams
Let no-one tear apart
That burning of ambition
That fires the drive inside your heart
Let no-one steal your dreams
Let no-one tell you tat you can’t
Let no-one hold you back
Let no-one tell you that you won’t.
Set your sights and keep them fixed
Set your sights on high
Let no-one steal your dreams
Your only limit is the sky
Let no-one steal your dreams
Follow your heart
Follow your soul
For only when you follow them
Will you feel truly whole.
Set your sights and keep them fixed
Set your sights on high
Let no-one steal your dreams
Your only limit is the sky
Comment by 7english — October 17, 2007 @ 4:15 am
| Reply
To paint a bird’s portrait (Jacques Prévert)
First of all, paint a cage
with an opened little door
then paint something attractive
something simple
something beautiful
something of benefit for the bird
Put the picture on a tree
in a garden
in a wood
or in a forest
hide yourself behind the tree
silent
immovable…
Sometimes the bird arrives quickly
but sometimes it takes years
Don’t be discouraged
wait
wait for years if necessary
the rapidity or the slowness of the arrival
doesn’t have any relationship
with the result of the picture
When the bird comes
if it comes
keep the deepest silence
wait until the bird enters the cage
and when entered in
Close the door softly with the brush
then remove one by the one all the bars
care not to touch any feather of the bird
Then draw the portrait of the tree
choosing the most beautiful branch
for the bird
paint also the green foliage and the coolness
of the beasts of the grass in the summer’s heat
and then, wait that the bird starts singing
If the bird doesn’t sing
it’s a bad sign
it means that the picture is wrong
but if it sings it’s a good sign
it means that you can sign
so you tear with sweetness
a feather from the bird
and write your name in a corner of the painting
Reccomded to Maxim Sheko
Comment by 7english — October 17, 2007 @ 4:20 am
| Reply
Mulga Bill’s Bicycle
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, `Excuse me, can you ride?
‘
`See, here, young man,’ said Mulga Bill, `from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy’s Gap to Castlereagh, there’s none can ride like me.
I’m good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I’m not the one to talk — I HATE a man that blows.
But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wild cat can it fight.
There’s nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There’s nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I’ll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I’ll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight.’
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above the Dead Man’s Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ere he’d gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope, towards the Dead Man’s Creek.
It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man’s Creek.
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, `I’ve had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I’ve rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five pound bet,
But this was the most awful ride that I’ve encountered yet.
I’ll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it’s shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It’s safe at rest in Dead Man’s Creek, we’ll leave it lying still;
A horse’s back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill.’
Comment by 7english — October 24, 2007 @ 4:10 am
| Reply
Daniel – This is a Maltese Poem that my Grandmother has reccomended to me.
MORR HAFNA U NAQRA HLEWWA
Habbejt, habbejt zaghzugha
bil-hegga taz-zghozija.
Qaltli bil-hars t’ghajnejha
xi thoss kienet ghalija.
U kollox, issa, qieghed
fi gmiel il-gmiel jitrabba’,
ghax donnu l-holqien kollu
qed jizra’ biss l-Imhabba.
‘Mma jghidu li l-Imhabba
tqattar id-dmugh u d-dnewwa
u hemm fil-bewsa taghha
morr hafna u naqra hlewwa.
Morr hafna u naqra hlewwa
mel’ ghad irrid insib.
X’jimporta! Ghall-hlewwa nahlef
li ngorr taghha s-Salib.
Joe Saliba
Comment by 7english — October 25, 2007 @ 12:18 am
| Reply
Daniel – This is a love poem that my Mum has told me about.
ALWAYS AND FOREVER
Freida Martinez
Basking in the warmth of your smile
And the music of your laugh
I feel your tenderness
And your oh so witty style
I don’t know why god blessed me
With such a friend as you
But it makes my pleasure complete
And very happy too
The way you always know me
And exactly what to do
When my loneliness gets me down
And I’m so very blue
The way you see into my soul
And looked behind my eyes
And I don’t have to hide my feelings
And put on a disguise
With you I learned to trust
And as I person I have grown
Who could have possibly told me
How could I have known
That you would come in to my life
And my beauty would start to bloom
And like a pretty butterfly
Come out of my cocoon
To share your tender heart
The warmness of your smile
The courage of your wisdom
For these I’d walk for miles
To be thinking of a time
When you’d no longer be there
For me to gaze upon in delight
And all our feelings share
Is not acceptable to me
Because in my life
Is where I want you to be
Always and forever.
Comment by 7english — October 25, 2007 @ 12:19 am
| Reply
Richard – a poem my dad recommended
My Country
The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of rugged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze…
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly
Dorethea Mackella.
Comment by 7english — October 31, 2007 @ 1:33 am
| Reply
Adam- My dad recommended this poem
The Tiger
By William Blake
1757-1827
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Comment by adam — October 31, 2007 @ 1:46 am
| Reply
Ithaka – C P Cavafy (1863-1933)
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Max M recomended by my dad.
Comment by 7english — October 17, 2007 @ 4:01 am |
Matsuo Basho- Untitled
年暮れぬ
笠きて草鞋
はきながら
Toshi kurenu
Kasa kite waraji
Hakinagara
Another year is gone;
and I still wear
straw hat and straw sandal.
Kureru: – get dark, comes to an end. The nu suffix expresses
completeness: toshi kurenu – The year has come to an end.
Anton Ivkov’s, fathers favourite poem (Milan Ivkov)
Comment by 7english — October 17, 2007 @ 4:01 am |
Posted by Hugh G
This was recomended to me by my Brother
Let No-one Steal Your Dreams
By
Paul Cookson
Let no-one steal your dreams
Let no-one tear apart
That burning of ambition
That fires the drive inside your heart
Let no-one steal your dreams
Let no-one tell you tat you can’t
Let no-one hold you back
Let no-one tell you that you won’t.
Set your sights and keep them fixed
Set your sights on high
Let no-one steal your dreams
Your only limit is the sky
Let no-one steal your dreams
Follow your heart
Follow your soul
For only when you follow them
Will you feel truly whole.
Set your sights and keep them fixed
Set your sights on high
Let no-one steal your dreams
Your only limit is the sky
Comment by 7english — October 17, 2007 @ 4:15 am |
To paint a bird’s portrait (Jacques Prévert)
First of all, paint a cage
with an opened little door
then paint something attractive
something simple
something beautiful
something of benefit for the bird
Put the picture on a tree
in a garden
in a wood
or in a forest
hide yourself behind the tree
silent
immovable…
Sometimes the bird arrives quickly
but sometimes it takes years
Don’t be discouraged
wait
wait for years if necessary
the rapidity or the slowness of the arrival
doesn’t have any relationship
with the result of the picture
When the bird comes
if it comes
keep the deepest silence
wait until the bird enters the cage
and when entered in
Close the door softly with the brush
then remove one by the one all the bars
care not to touch any feather of the bird
Then draw the portrait of the tree
choosing the most beautiful branch
for the bird
paint also the green foliage and the coolness
of the beasts of the grass in the summer’s heat
and then, wait that the bird starts singing
If the bird doesn’t sing
it’s a bad sign
it means that the picture is wrong
but if it sings it’s a good sign
it means that you can sign
so you tear with sweetness
a feather from the bird
and write your name in a corner of the painting
Reccomded to Maxim Sheko
Comment by 7english — October 17, 2007 @ 4:20 am |
Mulga Bill’s Bicycle
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, `Excuse me, can you ride?
‘
`See, here, young man,’ said Mulga Bill, `from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy’s Gap to Castlereagh, there’s none can ride like me.
I’m good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I’m not the one to talk — I HATE a man that blows.
But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wild cat can it fight.
There’s nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There’s nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I’ll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I’ll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight.’
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above the Dead Man’s Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ere he’d gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope, towards the Dead Man’s Creek.
It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man’s Creek.
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, `I’ve had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I’ve rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five pound bet,
But this was the most awful ride that I’ve encountered yet.
I’ll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it’s shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It’s safe at rest in Dead Man’s Creek, we’ll leave it lying still;
A horse’s back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill.’
Comment by 7english — October 24, 2007 @ 4:10 am |
Daniel – This is a Maltese Poem that my Grandmother has reccomended to me.
MORR HAFNA U NAQRA HLEWWA
Habbejt, habbejt zaghzugha
bil-hegga taz-zghozija.
Qaltli bil-hars t’ghajnejha
xi thoss kienet ghalija.
U kollox, issa, qieghed
fi gmiel il-gmiel jitrabba’,
ghax donnu l-holqien kollu
qed jizra’ biss l-Imhabba.
‘Mma jghidu li l-Imhabba
tqattar id-dmugh u d-dnewwa
u hemm fil-bewsa taghha
morr hafna u naqra hlewwa.
Morr hafna u naqra hlewwa
mel’ ghad irrid insib.
X’jimporta! Ghall-hlewwa nahlef
li ngorr taghha s-Salib.
Joe Saliba
Comment by 7english — October 25, 2007 @ 12:18 am |
Daniel – This is a love poem that my Mum has told me about.
ALWAYS AND FOREVER
Freida Martinez
Basking in the warmth of your smile
And the music of your laugh
I feel your tenderness
And your oh so witty style
I don’t know why god blessed me
With such a friend as you
But it makes my pleasure complete
And very happy too
The way you always know me
And exactly what to do
When my loneliness gets me down
And I’m so very blue
The way you see into my soul
And looked behind my eyes
And I don’t have to hide my feelings
And put on a disguise
With you I learned to trust
And as I person I have grown
Who could have possibly told me
How could I have known
That you would come in to my life
And my beauty would start to bloom
And like a pretty butterfly
Come out of my cocoon
To share your tender heart
The warmness of your smile
The courage of your wisdom
For these I’d walk for miles
To be thinking of a time
When you’d no longer be there
For me to gaze upon in delight
And all our feelings share
Is not acceptable to me
Because in my life
Is where I want you to be
Always and forever.
Comment by 7english — October 25, 2007 @ 12:19 am |
Richard – a poem my dad recommended
My Country
The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of rugged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze…
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly
Dorethea Mackella.
Comment by 7english — October 31, 2007 @ 1:33 am |
Adam- My dad recommended this poem
The Tiger
By William Blake
1757-1827
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Comment by adam — October 31, 2007 @ 1:46 am |