Weekly Contest
Classic poem of the day
It looks like any building
When you pass it on the street,
Made of stone and glass and marble,
Made of iron and concrete.
But once inside you can ride
A camel or a train,
Visit Rome, Siam, or Nome,
Feel a hurricane,
Meet a king, learn to sing,
How to bake a pie,
Go to sea, plant a tree,
Find how airplanes fly,
Train a horse, and of course
Have all the dogs you'd like,
See the moon, a sandy dune,
Or catch a whopping pike.
Everything that books can bring
You'll find inside those walls.
A world is there for you to share
When adventure calls.
You cannot tell its magic
By the way the building looks,
But there's wonderment within it,
The wonderment of books.
member poem of the day
These are my modern English translations of poems by Hafez aka Hafiz.
The heart is the thousand-stringed lyre
Tuned to the chords of Love.
—Hafez, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
***
Dispensing Keys
by Hafez
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The imbecile
constructs cages
for everyone he knows,
while the sage
(who has to duck his head
whenever the moon glows)
keeps dispensing keys
all night long
to the beautiful, rowdy,
prison gang.
***
Infectious!
by Hafez
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I became infected with happiness tonight
as I wandered idly, singing in the starlight.
Now I'm wonderfully contagious—
so kiss me!
*
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