O Make Me A Mask by Dylan Thomas

O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies

Of the sharp, enamelled eyes and the spectacled claws

Rape and rebellion in the nurseries of the face,

Gag of a dumbstruck tree to block from bare enemies

The bayonet tongue in this undefended prayerpiece,

The present mouth, and the sweetly blown trumpet of lies,

Shaped in old armour and oak the counternance of a dunce

To shield the glistening brain and blunt the examiners,

And a tear-stained widower grief drooped from the lashes

To veil belladonna and let the dry eyes perceive

Others betray the lamenting lies of their losses

By the curve of the nude mouth or the laugh up the sleeve.

 

by Dylan Thomas

(Notebook version March 1933; rephrased and severely shortened November 1937)

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He seeks to defend his inner privacy against the sharp examination of strangers and critics.

Living in the Moment by Piet Hein

To live in the moment’s a well-worn routine

that most of the world has perfected;

for some, it’s the moment that’s already been,

for others, the one that’s expected.

 

Yet no sort of magic can kindle anew

a past that is over forever,

nor summon the future before it is due:

our moment is now – or it’s never.

 

So brief is the moment in which we may live,

and future or past it isn’t.

Whoever would know of what life hast to give

must gratefully welcome the present.

 

by Piet Hein a.k.a Kumbel (1905-1996), Denmark

Living In The Moment by Piet Hein

To live in the moment’s a well-worn routine

that most of the world has perfected;

for some, it’s the moment that’s already been,

for others, the one that’s expected.

 

Yet no sort of magic can kindle anew

a past that is over forever,

nor summon the future before it is due:

our moment is now – or it’s never.

 

So brief is the moment in which we may live,

and future or past it isn’t.

Whoever would know of what life hast to give

must gratefully welcome the present.

 

by Piet Hein (1905-1996), Denmark