Punkpoem by Dambudzo Marechera

In the song
Are waterfruits;
In the plush and flow
Firestars eternally fixed.

Guitar strings lash
My back, draw blood -
The out-of-control voice
Skids shrieking across

Tarmac audiences.



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Opening lines from The Seafarer - three translations

one.
May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft...

trans. by Ezra Pound


two.
I can sing a true song about myself,
tell of my travels, how in the days of tribulation
I often endured a time of hardship...

trans. by Kevin Crossley-Holland


three.
This verse is my voice, it is no fable,
I tell of my travelling, how in hardship
I have often suffered laborious days...

trans. by Edwin Morgan


original.
Mæg ic be me sylfum soðgied wrecan,
siþas secgan, hu ic geswincdagum
earfoðhwile oft þrowade...

from the 10th Century Exeter Book



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THE WORLD TO BE STAMMERED AFTER by Paul Celan

THE WORLD TO BE STAMMERED AFTER
in which I'll have
been guest, a name,
sweated down from the wall
up which a wound licks.


trans. by Ian Fairley



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from Obeservations in the Art of English Poesie by Thomas Campion

Follow, followe,
Through with mischiefe
Arm'd, like whirlewind,
Now she flyes thee;
Time can conquer
Loves unkindnes;
Love can alter
Times disgraces;
Till death faint not
Then, but followe.
Could I catch that
Nimble trayter,
Skornefull Lawra,
Swift foote Lawra,
Soone that would I
seeke avengement?
Even submissely
Prostrate then to
Beg for mercye.



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To Fine Lady Would-Bee by Ben Jonson

Fine Madame Would-Be, wherefore should you feare,
That love to make so well, a child to beare?
The world reputes you barren; but I know
Your 'pothecarie, and his drug sayes no.
Is it the paine affrights? That's soone forgot.
Or your complexion's losse? You have a pot
That can restore that. Will it hurt your feature?
To make amends, yo'are thought a wholesome creature.
What should the cause be? Oh, you live at court,
And there's both losse of time and losse of sport
In a great belly. Write, then, on thy wombe,
Of the not borne, yet buried, here's the tombe.



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Oppenheim's Cup and Saucer by Carol Ann Duffy

She asked me to luncheon in fur. Far from
the loud laughter of men, our secret life stirred.

I remember her eyes, the slim rope of her spine.
This is your cup, she whispered, and this mine.

We drank the sweet hot liquid and talked dirty.
As she undressed me, her breasts were a mirror

and there were mirrors in the bed. She said Place
your legs around my neck, that's right. Yes.




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Climbing Suilven by Norman MacCaig

I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust
A mountain down and down.
Between my feet a loch shines in the brown,
It's silver paper crinkled and edged with rust.
My lungs say No;
But down and down this treadmill hill must go.

Parishes dwindle. But my parish is
This stone, that tuft, this stone
And the cramped quarters of my flesh and bone.
I claw that tall horizon down to this;
And suddenly
My shadow jumps huge miles away from me.



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