WORLD POETS MAGAZINE

  Two Hearts I wish I had two hearts, For one heart is not enough to contain my love for you. I have been afflicted with this love, While love benefits others For they find in it contact, perfume, and tenderness But I only gain the anguish of separation... And also some poems. I am not a masochist like the poets Qais * or Jamil * To rejoice the fires kindled in my heart And I am not a platonic lover who finds sorrow pleasant But a poet who follows his mind, beside his heart, Singing praise to the Creator, like a bird Which continues to sing, even if traps abound around the fields. Let love contain us, For it does us no good to contain it, For love is difficult and stubborn With many snares. It does us no harm to end up as its prey. If it throws its nets upon us, It will feed us plentifully from its palms. And then we become bound in love. Neither the heart will be tortured, nor rejection possible. Our two hearts will then melt into one heart, Never afflicted by what come may. ...

Mother I have a mother in a blue coat. She takes my hand, I am small I am afraid, she leads me.   Her coat is sewn with stars. The snow is so high here when we walk in the Milky Way where no snow is cleared: She and I.     Time   Time comes on to the stage now. Stands a little at first and hesitates, looks closely at the doorplate in the house (a backdrop there on the stage) to make sure it is the right place, rings   and I open: Then the Time is in.   The stage curtain falls, it shines of moon and stardust trickles from the curtain, which is the universe´s glowing ground   the curtain glides up again and there stands the eternal clown: holds a shrieking newborn baby on the stage while Time bows down for applause. Then   the Time is out.       Old Lady at the Airport   She walks like a bird, flows forward with small jerks through the departure hall.   Her name is Hanna, she has a body almost without weight. She is on her w...

    When The Birds   When the birds leave my body I will lose the words To enter my memory   When the wheat part my fingers A landscape as old as the earth Will rise   When the secret hides Behind the trees You will tell me I am cold And the text will be swallowed up By the archeology of the seas There will be no more text   Only a botanic book That   will   be opened   To write about   the horizon   When the statues fall asleep In my hands When the flowers cover up the exile Hastily   Then Then I will come back Hanging on your youth As a surprised traveller I will plunge from the quays Not understanding The murmur of the sea   I – animal of the sands I – clay, argil, seaweed I will have seen nothing of the oceans   When the children on Good Friday Will make the bouquets fly into pieces   When the sap flows over The resin of the temples When water mixed with   earth Starts howling   Like   an ...

  The Queen   She gathers up her hair, slowly paints her lips the color of fruit -flesh of every peach, homeland of licentiousness, dream framed by a mouth’s corners-. Her body is blessed, her eyes large with new growth, her face, her word; and clothing makes her uncomfortable, her blood, her hair is eaten away by silence, her wounds fill up with holes... and she knows it. She cuts her arms, chews her legs, calls herself goddess, faultless fairy queen, like when she was a child... and she does not know it. She spits up bile on her miniskirt and stops being who she is so as to be who she thinks she should be; and yet she isn’t. But from one side of the mirror, blind to harvests gone by, untouched by the corruption of trickery, still innocent, everlasting, she is again the shy girl who said "no" with her silence, the unfinished woman who flees from love as from a punishment and who uses up the coherence of life among guilt and pills, among men and sorrow, among the shadows of...

         Academy Street                                                        to Michalis Ganas   As he walked down Academy Street, he didn’t feel the yellow acacia floret that came and settled in his hair.   He didn’t realize that people stepped aside for him to pass, his way clear - green, too, the next pedestrian light.   He was unaware of a host of erotic glances, of smiles never returned, of faces warmly beckoning with optimism, Confidence, and kindness.   Only when he entered the lift did he blush with shame, as he saw in the mirror the yellow floret caught on his tie; and he smiled, he, Tuesday’s honoured guest,   invested with the order of everydayness.                    ( From “ Learning to Breathe”, 1990)   (Translated from the Gr...

  The Dead Have No Telephones   Letters no one has written                              never arrive.                                         Snow covers the churchyard.                         A taxi waits outside          for ten years.                                         ...

                             Life Exists Due to the Primal Fear of Death   Life exist s due to the primal fear of death . Torn apart from the womb of the known, eternal and infinite And tossed into the chaos of the unknown, final and finite. Life sustains itself through pain, through series of pains of varying intensity that rhythmically bounce on the life line that limits us just like the unlit cigarette with pronounced facial expression bounces and performs acrobatic movements in the air. It depends on the force of gravity and the virtue with which you can hold that cigarette between your fingers for so long without lighting it. Will it hurt much if it lights up? And for how long is it safe to let it burn before it burns out and it’s gone before it burns out and we are gone, before life on this planet blazes out in a blazing flash?     Time That Slips From Our Palms (Incision 40)   ti...

  Hunting Scene   Blue mountains, bright moonlight Deer, argali, and bison Living on the snowy plateau And Bactrian camels are born to face the sun   Eagles, wolves, and wild horses Growing endlessly like grass and blossom s And the bow-drawn arrow— an image of hunting Like a shamanic dance, carved into the rock   Wolf Mountain   Black rocks but cold, and silence   Blue night, the moon is the wolf's lover     Turkic Stone Figure   The wind of the wilderness Blows gently   Above the tombstone Crows gaze at something   And beneath the tombstone Souls lie, not just bones   The rain falls Silently Beneath the sun     Author’s Bionote:   *Hadaa Sendoo is an internationally renowned Mongolian poet. Born in 1961, he is recognized as a leading voice in contemporary poetry and has lived in Ulaanbaatar since 1991. He is the founder of the World Poetry Almanac . His works have been translated into dozens of language...

    How to Write a Poem   I wish you could tell me how you write poems   since your hands cannot carry pencils anymore   and you cannot keep your eyes open.     Darkness throws light on my pupils;   it shows me the way I can take   without seeing where it will lead me.   Darkness lifts my pencil and it draws for me   beautiful scenes I never saw before.   I’m slowly starting to understand the story   the northeast wind told me   on that morning when it caught me taking the first steps.   I’m understanding how simple the tale is;   how light the notes of this song.   You don’t need much to write a poem:   You only need long, sleepless nights;   dark places you’ve never been;   visits from strangers and dead friends;   beautiful memories and live corpses   waiting amidst hordes of stopped clocks;   and the most beautifu...

  Recollection   This is the largest storehouse Between heaven and earth No dirt, wood, or metal can support Its innumerable drawers, tightly locked But keys aren’t necessary In this wordless memorial book Crisp characters appear at a moment’s notice Across its blank pages Projecting endless expressions   Of the tears that avalanche after laughter Of the silence after tears run dry Of the dance hall after folks leave And songs that refuse to dissipate Of the mess of footprints on the asphalt And that one deep tire groove   Of floodwater engulfing dry earth Leaving streaks never to repeat Of mad winds looting the woods And those leaves levitating   Of storm clouds that fail to cover the heavens The spray of faint starlight on the tapestry of night Of the arm that knows not how to swim Slapping hopelessly at the breakers, the heaving surface   Of the sudden struggle in a moment without gravity The nihilist sky shot by lightning, frozen Of the ...