Poetry In Struggle - 3

Go, brave man! Go, giant! Go, loving
madman! And tread the venomous brambles
that like poison gnaw the soles
of the criminal in that grim domain
where murderers must walk forever!

Go! - and those six luminous stars
shall follow and guide you, and your
shoulders will be helped to bear their burden
by all who've ever drunk the bitter wine of life!

Jose Marti (Cuban Poet)

I HATE THE SEA

(1882)

Jose Marti

I hate the sea, beautiful only when it howls

beneath the cleaving keel of a conquering

ship and like some fantastic demon

cloaked in colossal black

bends in the winds of night

before the sublime victor who passes:-

and by the light of stars enclosed

in crystal globes, upon the bridge,

a man, impassive, turns the page of a book.

I hate the sea: huge and flat, cold and level,

not as the leafy jungle, stretching branches

like arms to clasp the sad soul

that comes wounded by men's hardness

and doubts the good life,

nor as an honourable fighter, firm

on the ground, solid-chested, does it wait us,

but on perfidious shifting sands

like the deadly snake.- The sea, too,

and the sun, and Nature

must be frank to move man

to virtue, must live in honour.

No palm trees, no flowers: to me

it is ever a dark and abandoned soul.

That I am a dead man, still walking, is clear and matters not,

even to me; but for its beauty, fire,

variety and deathlessness, I love life.

It isn't living that pains me: it hurts

to live and not do good. I love my pain,

the pain that is my noble coat of arms.

I will not blame provident life

for my own misfortune, or poison

others' joy with my sorrows.

The earth is good, existence is holy.

And in sorrow itself new reasons

to live are discovered, and highest joy,

clear as a dawn and penetrating.

May they die once and for all, those fools

who think the tears that spill from their eyes

a greater and more beautiful thing

than the blue sky and thronging sea!

I hate the sea, enormous corpse, sad corpse

where hateful creatures dwell,

torpid and gluttonous: like the eyes

of a fish dying of its own excesses

are those of love's hired hand who trembles

in the arms of some horrid, rutting woman:-

I see it and I said it: some men are cowards,

and silence what they see and feel.

Not I: if I find a wicked man before me,

I say so in clear speech: there walks a wicked man.

Unlike the sea I do not hide my breast

or clutter my sacred verse with trifles,

weaving rosaries for the ladies

and masks of honour for thieves:

I hate the sea, which unraging bears

on its complacent back the ship

that 'mid flowers and music brings a tyrant.

('Free Verses', Selected Writings, Ed. and Trans. by Esther Allen, pp. 67-69, Penguin Books, 2002.)

A CHILD IS LOOKING AT ME

(2012)

G. Harikrishnan

A child is looking at me:

Bloated head wrinkled body twisted arms and legs

- A kid or elder?

Is it a hushed scream in your gaze? A question?

I glance at the footnote:

Who's your mother-

nuclear fall, leaked gas or chemical rain?

From the lap of a faceless

A child is looking at me:

You're clasping your frail hands around that body

-This much trust in the world

that hacks away in the dark

at your genetic steps?

You're clasping your cold hands

around me

Crawling for a morsel,

Paling before a loaded gun,

Melting beneath a bomb,

Through closed yet unsealed eyes

A child is looking at me

Is it your face glimpsed

beyond the window pane of my secured room?

Your feeble cry echoed?

Child,

Shall I step out of this room,

walk into the forest

and prostrate

before the first tiger?

-to fling at your outstretched hand

this fading metaphor mint?

Only when drinking

in dimmed and chilled rooms

that my throat cracks and eyes burn,

and I remember you?

Where am I

in blazed and heated streets?

Raising you off the lap

and putting you down on the bare ground

passes by the faceless in the picture

You're looking at me.

('Nimishangalude Pusthakam', pp. 103-104, Insight Publica, 2012. Translated from the malayalam by the poet himself.)