Elegy Poems
Duino Elegies: The First Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
......
Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we thrust ourselves into the wind
and fall to earth into indifferent ponds.
Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one.
And somewhere lions roam, quite unaware,
in their magnificence, of any weaknesss.
But we, while wholly concentrating on one thing,
......
Blank - Shot
by Divyosmi Goswami
Have you lost your way
Trodding across the fumes of frost?
Or it is fashion to arrive unannounced,
From across the foggy horizon.
But now that you have arrived,
Take refuge behind that lone palm tree.
And look on at the person,
Fluttering like a fish out of pond at the corner.
......
Duino Elegies: The Tenth Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
That some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision
I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!
That of the clear-struck keys of the heart not one may fail
to sound because of a loose, doubtful or broken string!
That my streaming countenance may make me more resplendent
That my humble weeping change into blossoms.
Oh, how will you then, nights of suffering, be remembered
with love. Why did I not kneel more fervently, disconsolate
sisters, more bendingly kneel to receive you, more loosely
surrender myself to your loosened hair? We, squanderers of
......
Elegy Iii: Change
by John Donne
Although thy hand and faith, and good works too,
Have seal'd thy love which nothing should undo,
Yea though thou fall back, that apostasy
Confirm thy love; yet much, much I fear thee.
Women are like the Arts, forc'd unto none,
Open to'all searchers, unpriz'd, if unknown.
If I have caught a bird, and let him fly,
Another fouler using these means, as I,
May catch the same bird; and, as these things be,
Women are made for men, not him, nor me.
......
Blank - Shot
by Divyosmi Goswami
Have you lost your way
Trodding across the fumes of frost?
Or it is fashion to arrive unannounced,
From across the foggy horizon.
But now that you have arrived,
Take refuge behind that lone palm tree.
And look on at the person,
Fluttering like a fish out of pond at the corner.
......
English Translations of Uyghur Poems by Michael R. Burch
by Michael R. Burch
These are modern English translations of Uyghur poems by Michael R. Burch, an American translator, editor and publisher of Holocaust and Nakba poetry.
Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Tursun has been described as a "self-professed Kafka character" and that comes through splendidly in poems of his like "Elegy." Unfortunately, Tursun has been "disappeared" into a despicable Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. According to a disturbing report he was later "hospitalized."
Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
"Your soul is the entire world."
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
......
Death in the New Year
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Our hands are tied, Death
Since you dawned on us this New Year . . .
Shapely bottles of champagnes have shone
And have broken to fragments with the ululation
Of firecrackers that warmed cold and dark wintry skies.
Now, aphonia sets in from unending lamentations.
Headlines, buried by the chilly bones of winter,
Are barren of good tidings.
A chionophile besieges the rim of a sedulous Yuletide
......
Sorrow
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
The webs are obstinate
And refuse a hug of the
Broomsticks, besmirched
By diluted coal tar.
Grey walls fascinate dancing
Grimes before your pupils
Dilating even at daytime
To screen the woes on such
Walls painted by dilemmas
That pruned the vestiges of
......
Elegy for November
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
The shoals below the horrid caverns of a lagoon
usurp all terraces and embankments,
just for the feast on bloodꓽ
crimson atoll
and cremated corals.
Ecclesiastes of the third age is unknown to them —
they who in all seasons,
without respite,
have feasted in flesh and blood,
including that of a famous guru
......
