Poems Rethabile Likes

Bui Thi Kim Thanh by Rethabile Masilo Bui Thi Kim Thanh translated by Pamela Mordecai Dem go inna yu ouse, and take yu inna one trunk to de clinic at BiênHòa. De self same day rain come: de rain god did get drunk for so! Dem go inna yu ouse, and take yu inna one trunk pass de DôngNai valley fill up wid junk fran di war, out to de place where de rain chop ’way bark and bast same way. Some man —dem go inna yu ouse, and take yu inna one trunk to de clinic at BiênHòa de self same day. Poet: Rethabile Masilo Source: Qoaling (Collection) Book: Buy on Amazon The poem was inspired by this article .

Prayer by Carol Ann Duffy Prayer Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself. So, a woman will lift her head from the sieve of her hands and stare at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift. Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth enters our hearts, that small familiar pain; then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth in the distant Latin chanting of a train. Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales console the lodger looking out across a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls a child’s name as though they named their loss. Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer — Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre. Poet: Carol Ann Duffy Source: @CamdenPublicLibrary Books: @AbeBooks

In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke In a Dark Time In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood-- A lord of nature weeping to a tree, I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. What's madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall, That place among the rocks--is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have. A steady storm of correspondences! A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon, And in broad day the midnight come again! A man goes far to find out what he is-- Death of the self in a long, tearless night, All natural shapes blazing unnatural light. Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, lik...