Tuesday Poem: "I am Raftery . . . "

Translated from the Gaelic of Anthony Raftery (1784-1835)

I am Raftery the poet,

Full of hope and love,

My eyes without sight,

My soul without torment,

Going westward on my journey

By the light of my heart,

Weary and tired

To the end of my road.

Behold me now

With my back to the wall

Playing songs

To empty pockets.

******

Is Mise Raifteirí an file,

Lán dúchais is grádh,

Le súile gan solas,

Le ciúnas gan crá.

Ag dul síar ar m'aistear

Le solas mo chroí

Fann agus tuirseach

Go deireadh mo shlí

Féach anois mé

Is mo chúl le bhfalla

Ag seinm ceoil

Do phócaí folamh.

For "Tuesday Poem" based in New Zealand.

Tuesday Poem: Dimitrova's "Deserts"

Blaga Dimitrova

Deserts

I was born for love--

to give and to receive it.

Yet my life has passed

almost without loving.

So I've learned forgiving:

even the deserts

I have crossed

I feel no scorn for.

I just ask them

with astonished eyes:

What gardens were you born for?

(Translated from the Bulgarian by Heather McHugh)

Tuesday Poem, a community of poets, is based in New Zealand.

Tuesday Poem: Alan Dugan's "One used to . . . "

Untitled Poem

One used to be able to say

what Seneca said to Nero:

"However many people you kill

you can never kill your successor."

But now the joke may not

be necessarily true: we might

have done it already. So let's

remember what the poet Oppian said:

"The hunting of Dolphins is immoral

and the man who wilfully kills them

will not only not go to the gods

as a welcome sacrifice, or touch

their altars with clean hands, but will

even pollute the people under his own roof."

Tuesday Poem, a community of poets, is based in New Zealand.

Tuesday Poem: "I'm Nobody!"

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

Are you - Nobody - too?

Then there's a pair of us!

Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!

How dreary - to be Somebody!

How public - like a Frog -

To tell one's name - the livelong June -

To an admiring Bog!

--Emily Dickinson

I never get tired of this poem! If Dickinson was told to be sparing of exclamation points, she did not obey!

Tuesday Poem is a community of poets!