Greatpoets X 3

You're here, still

Throw your fear
into the air

Soon
your time is over
soon
heaven grows
under the grass
your dreams fall
into nowhere

Still
the carnation smells sweetly
the thrush sings
still you may love
give words away
you are here, still

Be what you are
Give what you have

Rose Ausländer
(translated by Julia Samwer)

Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

John Berryman


En Paz (In Peace)

So near to my decline, I bless you, life
because you never gave me false hope
or work unjust or punishment undeserved;

because I see at the end of my harsh path
that I was the architect of my own destiny;
that if I extracted bitterness or sweetness of things,
it was because, in them, I placed a bitter or sweet taste;
when I planted rosebushes I always harvested roses.

It’s true though, after my blooming there will be winter
but you never told me May was so eternal!

I found nights of worry long,
but you never promised otherwise,
yet I had some that were sacredly serene…

I loved, I was loved, the sun fondled my face.
Life, you owe me nothing! Life, we are at peace!

Amado Nervo