Short Poems

A MAN will trust another man, and show
His secret thought and act, as if he must;
A woman—does she tell her sins? Ah, no!
She never knew a woman she could trust.

one of Lorca's best lines
is,
"agony, always
agony ..."

These be
three silent things:
The falling snow . . . the hour
Before the dawn . . . the mouth of one
Just dead.

Tremble, oh my gravemound,
in time my cries will be
only this autumn wind

No mortal tree, you will keep growing
inside me,
branching in my veins.
Inside me I hear
the rustling of your leaves.

[Translated by Ranjit Hoskote]

the wind blows hard tonight

Article 12 expressly forbids the digging of traps in public gardens. Article 13, in apparent contradiction to 12, declares that all traps in public gardens must be camouflaged with the leaves of banyan trees, oak leaves never, under any circumstances, to be used for this purpose.

Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.
Tiddle-id dle, tiddle-iddle,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.

Near a shrine in Japan he'd swept the path
and then placed camellia blossoms there.

Or -- we had no way of knowing -- he'd swept the path
between fallen camellias.

Au Nord au sud
Zénith Nadir
Et les grands cris de l'Est
L'Océan se gonfle à l'Ouest
La Tour à la Roue
S'adresse