Three things Enchanted Him by Anna Akhmatova (1911)

Three things enchanted him;
white peacocks, evensong,
and faded maps of America.
He couldn't stand bawling brats,
or raspberry jam with his tea,
or womanish hysteria. And he was tied to me.

The Old Playhouse by Kamala Das

The Old Playhouse

You planned to tame a swallow, to hold her
In the long summer of your love so that she would forget
Not the raw seasons alone, and the homes left behind, but
Also her nature, the urge to fly, and the endless
Pathways of the sky. It was not to gather knowledge
Of yet another man that I came to you but to learn
What I was, and by learning, to learn to grow, but every
Lesson you gave was about yourself. You were pleased
With my body's response, its weather, its usual shallow
Convulsions. You dribbled spittle into my mouth, you poured
Yourself into every nook and cranny, you embalmed
My poor lust with your bitter-sweet juices. You called me wife,
I was taught to break saccharine into your tea and
To offer at the right moment the vitamins. Cowering
Beneath your monstrous ego I ate the magic loaf and
Became a dwarf. I lost my will and reason, to all your
Questions I mumbled incoherent replies. The summer
Begins to pall. I remember the rudder breezes
Of the fall and the smoke from the burning leaves. Your room is
Always lit by artificial lights, your windows always
Shut. Even the air-conditioner helps so little,
All pervasive is the male scent of your breath. The cut flowers
In the vases have begun to smell of human sweat. There is
No more singing, no more dance, my mind is an old
Playhouse with all its lights put out. The strong man's technique is
Always the same, he serves his love in lethal doses,
For, love is Narcissus at the water's edge, haunted
By its own lonely face, and yet it must seek at last
An end, a pure, total freedom, it must will the mirrors
To shatter and the kind night to erase the water. 

~Kamala Das

SEASONS* K. Satchidanandan

It was in summer that
death first came 
to take him away.
“ Look”, he told death,
“as long as this sunlight
continues to dance like this,
sending butterflies fluttering
around the brows of the living,
and lets the waves shimmer
like leaping silvery fishes
and generates eyes
all over the seashore,
I shall not come to
your island of night.
No, not in this hour of the sun
and of violets.”

Next death came
during the rains.
“Look”, he told death,
“as long as the rain’s serenade
thrills even the stones
and even dead trees hide buds
yearning to burst forth
and the crickets’ morning carol turns
night into day,
I shall not come to
your woodless land.
No, not in this time of elephants
and of drums”

When death came again in winter,
“Look”, he told death,
“as long as the moon turns
the mist into sugar-lumps
and the sand to silver
and the earth with her hair of shadows
dreams of jasmine buds,
I shall not come to
your dreamless land.
No, not in this season of nativity
and of snow.”

Death came back in spring.
“Look”, he told death,
“As long as even the grass
grows self-aware and the crow’s cawing
sounds like a melody and love fills even
the serpents’ poison glands with honey,
I shall not come to
your abode of frozen hearts.
No, not in this moment of flower
and of wine. ”

Each time he drove death back
with his passion for life. But
in autumn death slithered towards him,
a hissing breeze over the fallen leaves
and struck him. This ecstasy, he knew,
was his end and he now lay
among those yellow leaves,
staring at the rainbow
that blossomed above him.

*The original title is ritusamhara, the title of Kalidasa’s long Sanskrit poem about the seasons.

( Translated from Malayalam by the poet )

Pathways

Understand, I'll slip quietly 
away from the noisy crowd 
when I see the pale 
stars rising, blooming, over the oaks. 

I'll pursue solitary pathways 
through the pale twilit meadows, 
with only this one dream: 
You come too.

© Rilke

DECISIONS-Boris Novak

Between two words
choose the quieter one.

Between word and silence
choose listening.

Between two books
choose the dustier one.

Between the earth and the sky
choose a bird.

Between two animals
choose the one who needs you more.

Between two children
choose both.

Between the lesser and the bigger evil
choose neither.

Between hope and despair
choose hope:
it will be harder to bear.

-Boris Novak 
(translated from Slovene by Mia Dintinjana)

The Plain Sense of Things by Wallace Stevens

  

After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things. It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir.
 
It is difficult even to choose the adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
The great structure has become a minor house.
No turban walks across the lessened floors.
 
The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.
The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.
A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition
In a repetitiousness of men and flies.
 
Yet the absence of the imagination had
Itself to be imagined. The great pond,
The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves,
Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence
 
Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see,
The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this
Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge,
Required, as a necessity requires.

so you want to be a writer? by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.