A city – its name
keeps it intact. Don’t
touch it. Let the muezzin’s
cry, the blood call
of the Christian, the wind
from sources desiccated
as the spirit drift over
its scorched walls. Time
devourer of its children
chokes here on the fact
it is in high places love
condescends to be put to death.
by R. S. Thomas
from Experimenting with an Amen (1986)
Scorched, by searing rays of sun, bleached white;
Exposed, to elements of wind and rain, stood firm;
Forgotten, by generations of man and beast, eerily lonely;
Await, fateful destiny for restoration and use, obediently silent;
Forever beckoning to the heaven’s universe,
through merciful abeyance;
Disturbed, spirits of ancestors long gone, wailing on the breeze;
Groaning, amongst debris of machinery derelict, voices unclear;
Mesmerized, by haunting moonlit shaded, in peaceful bliss;
Carefree, days bygone on forefathers’ land, in reminiscence;
Witness, the ultimate destruction of Naoero land, for gains;
Leaving only birds afraid, hunted by man with aid;
To forever linger, undisturbed, until rehabilitation proper.
by His Excellency Ludwig Derangadage Scotty, former president of Nauru
In a book titled ‘World Leaders’ Favourite Poems’ he chose one he wrote himself…
At blazing noon, in Dagestan’s deep valley,
a bullet in my chest, dead still I lay,
as steam yet rose above my wound, I tallied
each drop of blood, as life now now seeped away.
Alone I lay within a sandy hollow,
as jagged ledges teemed there, rising steep,
with sun-scorched peaks above me, burning yellow,
I too was scorched, yet slept a lifeless sleep.
I dreamt of lights upon an evening hour,
a lavish feast held in my native land,
and fair young maidens garlanded with flowers:
their talk of me was merry and off-hand.
But one of them, not joining their free chatter,
sat timidly apart, bemused, alone,
sunk in a dream, her soul by sadness shattered:
God only knows what made her so forlorn;
she dreamed of sand in Dagestan’s deep valley,
a gorge in which a man she knew lay dead,
black steam still rose above the wound’s scorched hollow,
as blood streamed down and cooled like molten lead.
by Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов (Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov)
(1841)
translated by Alexander Levitsky
Rambling At The Bridge Head 