Stir in Stillness by Shruti Talnikar

STIR IN STILLNESS Silent shimmers, silent shine Silent words & silence- mine Silent city, silent rush Silent me, silent blush Silent rains, silent clay Silence digs in-a silent play Today I wanna untie the lace of moroces Wanna bid bie evrey malacy that crosses Today I let my emotions play Today, I don’t wanna fix […]

Statistic by Shivam Pandya

A statistic maketh a man The man becometh a number. The track is long, winding, With numerous hurdles thrown in at will, And running, slaving on it, Are the zombies, toiling with an inked till. A statistic maketh a man The man becometh a number A blasphemy it is, on the track, To have an […]

Stir in Stillness by Shruti Talnikar

STIR IN STILLNESS Silent shimmers, silent shine Silent words & silence- mine Silent city, silent rush Silent me, silent blush Silent rains, silent clay Silence digs in-a silent play Today I wanna untie the lace of moroces Wanna bid bie evrey malacy that crosses Today I let my emotions play Today, I don’t wanna fix […]

Noe more unto my thoughts appeare by Sidney Godolphin

Noe more unto my thoughts appeare by Sidney Godolphin NOE more unto my thoughts appeare, Att least appeare lesse fayre, For crazy tempers justly feare The goodnesse of the ayre; Whilst your pure Image hath a place 5 In my impurer Mynde, Your very shaddow is the glasse Where my defects I finde. Shall I […]

Statistic by Shivam Pandya

A statistic maketh a man The man becometh a number. The track is long, winding, With numerous hurdles thrown in at will, And running, slaving on it, Are the zombies, toiling with an inked till. A statistic maketh a man The man becometh a number A blasphemy it is, on the track, To have an […]

Night At The Marina by Shreekumar Varma

He plucks a flower from her hair finds her soul embedded; “I’d rather have a flat for us, what will your father spare?” The waters crunch into the night soaking up a tremble, She takes his hand upon her cheek “I haven’t had a bite.” The moon is pale upon her smile; stomach gives a […]

Kumarakom (after the boat tragedy) by Shreekumar Varma

days after the drowning when companion villages raised the memory of their various dead, and boats and blame were re-examined, and officials packed up, exhausted, dredging out certificates and compensations; one evening when the wails had stilled the sky like ghost singers fading out, and the lamp reached the threshold like any other evening, the […]

Noe more unto my thoughts appeare by Sidney Godolphin

Noe more unto my thoughts appeare by Sidney Godolphin NOE more unto my thoughts appeare, Att least appeare lesse fayre, For crazy tempers justly feare The goodnesse of the ayre; Whilst your pure Image hath a place 5 In my impurer Mynde, Your very shaddow is the glasse Where my defects I finde. Shall I […]

Night At The Marina by Shreekumar Varma

He plucks a flower from her hair finds her soul embedded; “I’d rather have a flat for us, what will your father spare?” The waters crunch into the night soaking up a tremble, She takes his hand upon her cheek “I haven’t had a bite.” The moon is pale upon her smile; stomach gives a […]

Kumarakom (after the boat tragedy) by Shreekumar Varma

days after the drowning when companion villages raised the memory of their various dead, and boats and blame were re-examined, and officials packed up, exhausted, dredging out certificates and compensations; one evening when the wails had stilled the sky like ghost singers fading out, and the lamp reached the threshold like any other evening, the […]

On Rabbi Kook’s Street by Yehuda Amichai

On Rabbi Kook’s Street I walk without this good man– A streiml he wore for prayer A silk top hat he wore to govern, fly in the wind of the dead above me, float on the water of my dreams. I come to the Street of Prophets–there are none. And the Street of Ethiopians–there are […]

Of Three Or Four In The Room by Yehuda Amichai

Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at the window. Forced to see the injustice amongst the thorns, The fires on the hills. And people who left whole Are brought home in the evening, like small change. Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at […]

My Child Wafts Peace by Yehuda Amichai

My child wafts peace. When I lean over him, It is not just the smell of soap. All the people were children wafting peace. (And in the whole land, not even one Millstone remained that still turned). Oh, the land torn like clothes That can’t be mended. Hard, lonely fathers even in the cave of […]

Memorial Day For The War Dead by Yehuda Amichai

Memorial day for the war dead. Add now the grief of all your losses to their grief, even of a woman that has left you. Mix sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history, which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning on one day for easy, convenient memory. Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread, in sweet milk […]

Jerusalem by Yehuda Amichai

On a roof in the Old City Laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight: The white sheet of a woman who is my enemy, The towel of a man who is my enemy, To wipe off the sweat of his brow. In the sky of the Old City A kite. At the other end of […]

I Want To Die In My Own Bed by Yehuda Amichai

All night the army came up from Gilgal To get to the killing field, and that’s all. In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead. I want to die in My own bed. Like slits in a tank, their eyes were uncanny, I’m always the few and they are the many. I must answer. […]

God Full Of Mercy by Yehuda Amichai

God-Full-of-Mercy, the prayer for the dead. If God was not full of mercy, Mercy would have been in the world, Not just in Him. I, who plucked flowers in the hills And looked down into all the valleys, I, who brought corpses down from the hills, Can tell you that the world is empty of […]

Forgetting Someone by Yehuda Amichai

Forgetting someone is like forgetting to turn off the light in the backyard so it stays lit all the next day But then it is the light that makes you remember. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository […]

Ein Yahav by Yehuda Amichai

A night drive to Ein Yahav in the Arava Desert, a drive in the rain. Yes, in the rain. There I met people who grow date palms, there I saw tamarisk trees and risk trees, there I saw hope barbed as barbed wire. And I said to myself: That’s true, hope needs to be like […]

Do Not Accept by Yehuda Amichai

Do not accept these rains that come too late. Better to linger. Make your pain An image of the desert. Say it’s said And do not look to the west. Refuse To surrender. Try this year too To live alone in the long summer, Eat your drying bread, refrain From tears. And do not learn […]

Before by Yehuda Amichai

Before the gate has been closed, before the last quetion is posed, before I am transposed. Before the weeds fill the gardens, before there are no pardons, before the concrete hardens. Before all the flute-holes are covered, beore things are locked in then cupboard, before the rules are discovered. Before the conclusion is planned, before […]

A Precise Woman by Yehuda Amichai

A precise woman with a short haircut brings order to my thoughts and my dresser drawers, moves feelings around like furniture into a new arrangement. A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided into upper and lower, with weather-forecast eyes of shatterproof glass. Even her cries of passion follow a certain […]

A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention by Yehuda Amichai

They amputated Your thighs off my hips. As far as I’m concerned They are all surgeons. All of them. They dismantled us Each from the other. As far as I’m concerned They are all engineers. All of them. A pity. We were such a good And loving invention. An aeroplane made from a man and […]

In Defense of Santa Claus

Not fully rhymed though edited translated by © Fledermaus, Евгений Сухарников, Poetry Monster, 2021 The Russian original, by Agnia Barto, is perfectly rhymed though… My brother (he outgrew me) Brings everyone to tears. He told me that Santa Claus Is not what he appears! He told me: -Don’t believe in him! — But then suddenly […]