Life poems
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The Electric Slide Boogie
© Audre Lorde
New Year's Day 1:16 AM
and my body is weary beyond
time to withdraw and rest
ample room allowed me in everyone's head
The Horses
© Edwin Muir
Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
The Good Man in Hell
© Edwin Muir
If a good man were ever housed in Hell
By needful error of the qualities,
Perhaps to prove the rule or shame the devil,
Or speak the truth only a stranger sees,
Scotland's Winter
© Edwin Muir
Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill,
The sun looks from the hill
Helmed in his winter casket,
And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky.
The Satrapy
© Constantine Cavafy
What a misfortune, although you are made
for fine and great works
this unjust fate of yours always
denies you encouragement and success;
They Should Have Provided
© Constantine Cavafy
I have almost been reduced to a homeless pauper.
This fatal city, Antioch,
has consumed all my money;
this fatal city with its expensive life.
He Vows
© Constantine Cavafy
Every so often he vows to start a better life.
But when night comes with her own counsels,
with her compromises, and with her promises;
but when night comes with her own power
of the body that wants and demands, he returns,
forlorn, to the same fatal joy.
Anna Comnena
© Constantine Cavafy
Her soul is dizzy. "And with rivers
of tears," she tells us "I wet
my eyes... Alas for the waves" in her life,
"alas for the revolts." Pain burns her
"to the the bones and the marrow and the cleaving of the soul."
Hidden
© Constantine Cavafy
From all I've done and all I've said
let them not seek to find who I've been.
An obstacle stood and transformed
my acts and way of my life.
But Wise Men Perceive Approaching Things
© Constantine Cavafy
Men know what is happening now.
The gods know the things of the future,
the full and sole possessors of all lights.
Of the future things, wise men perceive
approaching things. Their hearing
On An Italian Shore
© Constantine Cavafy
Kimos, son of Menedoros, a young Greek-Italian,
devotes his life to amusing himself,
like most young men in Greater Greece
brought up in the lap of luxury.
Voices
© Constantine Cavafy
Ideal and beloved voices
of those who are dead, or of those
who are lost to us like the dead.
Poseidonians
© Constantine Cavafy
The Poseidonians forgot the Greek language
after so many centuries of mingling
with Tyrrhenians, Latins, and other foreigners.
The only thing surviving from their ancestors
Che Fece ... Il Gran Rifiuto
© Constantine Cavafy
For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It's clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,
Hidden Things
© Constantine Cavafy
Let them not seek to discover who I was
from all that I have done and said.
An obstacle was there that transformed
the deeds and the manner of my life.
As Much As You Can
© Constantine Cavafy
Even if you cannot shape your life as you want it,
at least try this
as much as you can; do not debase it
in excessive contact with the world,
in the excessive movements and talk.
The City
© Constantine Cavafy
You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.
Understanding
© Constantine Cavafy
In the dissolute life of my youth
the desires of my poetry were being formed,
the scope of my art was being plotted.
Thermopylae
© Constantine Cavafy
Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
Hope
© Siddharth Anand
Do you believe, in what you see
do you believe in reality
do you believe in the sun thats bright
do you believe in the stars in the night
