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by TONY SINGLE & TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2024
Tag Archives: Writing
TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // A Crazed Girl by William Butler Yeats
That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.
No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, “O sea-starved, hungry sea.’
by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939)
Public Domain Poetry
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GUEST POST // Reflections: A Walk-Through Life by Tessie
When the last grain of sand finally falls,
through the cracks of the hourglass,
I hope it finds me grateful, content,
having lived a life that’s truly been mine.
With no regrets, I’ll cherish memories:
breaking rules, stealing smiles, and free.
I jumped the gun, fell deeply in love,
and watched sunrise, euphoric and above.
On rooftops, I danced with morning dew,
felt life’s pulse, and let my spirit renew.
My time’s been filled with laughter, tears,
and moments that dispel all fears.
When my hour’s up, I’ll greet death’s gentle keeper,
with cheer, and finally, eternal sleep’s whisper.
I’ll ask to haunt old libraries’ hallowed halls,
play with the clouds, and hear their gentle calls.
Till then, I live. I laugh, cry, smile,
at life’s beauty, and it’s worthwhile.
by TESSIE
© All rights reserved 2024
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TATI’S TRANSLATIONS // Young Ukrainian Poets: Darii Lazhnevskyi
Literary classics aren’t always created by the greying elder statesmen and women of the writing world. You know the ones. They’re all wise and wrinkly and impassive, and woe betide the scholar who dares mount an honest critique of their bodies of work.
You see, literary classics are also written by upstart youngsters. These youngsters are full of vitality and creativity. They live fully awake and fully aware during these very difficult times. Nothing escapes their notice and they’re unafraid to share what they really think. They walk among us right now, breathing, smiling and crying, loving and hating, experiencing the full range of their humanity without apology.
This series presents names that you won’t find in textbooks or on Wikipedia, but these are the very youngsters who are creating modern Ukrainian literature right now. Trust us, you will want to check them out because it’s only a matter of time before they become household names. When we go back to these writers in two hundred years, we have no doubt that they’ll be mentioned in the same breath as luminaries such as Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka.
the last letter to K
dear friend,
i miss
your dreams come no more
to me in reality.
if you knew
how many fates were twisted,
smoked away, half-eaten by dogs
how many letters gather dust in mailboxes
concolourous with dried blood
and how many vows left behind only poetries
somewhere in the bowels of my telegram.
i am much the same as usual
outside the window are the crooked teeth of apartments
with leftovers of the staled unsaid
just got more quiet
it nestles on my knees, purrs,
eats away all my hunger
and i feel the thirst for life no more.
dear friend,
god turns off the light
sleep, i will carry your love protest
i will carry your hate
i will carry your sexual desire
depart with ease
let your fear continue hereafter
suffocate in oblivion.
останній лист до К
милий друже,
я сумую
твої сни уже більше не проходять
до мене на яву.
знав би ти
скільки доль скручено,
скурено, виїдено собаками
скільки листів запилюжені у скринях
кольору засохлої крові
і від скількох клятв залишились лиш вірші
десь у надрах мого телеграму.
у мене ж усе так само
за вікном нерівні зуби квартир
із недоїдками закипілої недосказаності
лише от більше спокою
він моститься у мене на колінах, муркотить,
з’їдає мій весь голод
і я уже не відчуваю спрагу до життя.
любий друже,
бог вимикає світло
засинай, я берегтиму твій протест любові
я берегтиму твою ненависть
я берегтиму твоє сексуальне бажання
помирай спокійно
нехай твій страх і надалі
задихається у забутті.
Original poem by DARII LAZHNEVSKYI
Translation by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2024
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TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // I Have No Power by Nizar Qabbani
“I have no power to change you
or explain your ways
Never believe a man can change a woman
Those men are pretenders
who think
that they created woman
from one of their ribs
Woman does not emerge from a man’s ribs, not ever,
it’s he who emerges from her womb
like a fish rising from depths of water
and like streams that branch away from a river
It’s he who circles the sun of her eyes
and imagines he is fixed in place
I have no power to tame you
or domesticate you
or mitigate your first instincts
This task is impossible
I’ve tested my intelligence on you
also my dumbness
Nothing worked with you, neither guidance
nor temptation
Stay primitive as you are
I have no power to break your habits
for thirty years you have been like this
for three hundred years
a storm trapping in a bottle
a body by nature sensing the scent of a man
assaults it by nature
triumphs over it by nature
Never believe what a man says about himself
that he is the one who makes the poems
and makes the children
It is the woman who writes the poems
and the man who signs his name to them
It is the woman who bears the children
and the man who signs at the maternity hospital
that he is the father
I have no power to change your nature
my books are of no use to you
and my convictions do not convince you
nor does my fatherly council do you any good
you are the queen of anarchy, of madness, of belonging
to no one
Stay that way
You are the tree of femininity that grows in the dark
needs no sun or water
you the sea princess who has loved all men
and loved no one
slept with all men… and slept with no one
you are the Bedouin woman who went with all the tribes
and returned a virgin
Stay that way.”
by NIZAR QABBANI (1923-1998)
Public Domain Poetry
unbolt me 