1st lines read this morning
Work is a incurable
architecture inflicted
on ourselves ...
I would like to be inside
an insanity that works
like a sky above
my head,
possessed by a nameless acceleration.
From Time by Etel Adnan tr by Sarah Riggs 2019
#Booksky #1stline #poetry #translation #French
1st lines read this morning
Surprised by the persistence
of the waves the sea recedes
to the skyline
The heart sets up its equations
while history unfurls
in the bedroom
From Time by Etel Adnan tr by Sarah Riggs 2019
#Booksky #1stline #poetry #translation #French
1st lines read this morning
There are no frogs
in this vast sky
no messages
there is no sky
in this brain
no words
no brain
in this body
no connection
...
From Time by Etel Adnan tr by Sarah Riggs 2019
#Booksky #1stline #poetry #translation #French
1st lines read this morning
limits everywhere; how to reconcile
soul and body, what to do between
two white sheets?
She said, standing in the middle of her ranch
how black it is,
eternity!
...
From Time by Etel Adnan tr by Sarah Riggs 2019
#Booksky #1stline #poetry #translation #French
1st lines read this morning
summer came and went leaving its traceries on his fall
if the pear tree didn't stand so tall outside the study window he might well have gone off to bed thinking he had invented its midnight presciences ...
from The Pear Tree Poems Roy Kiyooka 1987
#1stline #poetry
1st lines read this morning
tall as a telephone pole and as old as the oldest house on the block the pear tree lights up the whole sky above our alley every spring and every fall it's a pear a day for every kid who saunters down the alley
from The Pear Tree Poems Roy Kiyooka 1987
#1stline #poetry
1st line of poetry read this morning
they said: he had swept armfuls of snow up around himself to
insulate his body from the bitter cold.
they said: they had to break his limbs to lay him flat
from Struck from the Heat of a Cold December Sun, Roy Kiyooka 1983
#1stline #poetry
1st line of poetry read this morning
It is all a dream
that springtime at Naniwa
is the land of Tsu
the dry rustling of the wind
over withered leaves of reeds
Saigyo Hoshi 西行 法師 about 1100 tr by Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen
#1stline #poetry #waka #Japan #translation
1st line of poetry read this morning
Bamboo grass leaves
the very mountain air seems astir
with a wild rustling
as longing grips my mind
for the wife I left behind
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro 柿本 人麻呂 about 700 tr by Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen
#1stline #poetry #waka #Japan #translation
1st line of poetry read this morning
On Mount Yoshino
it's turned to springtime
for the second time
From within the old year
already I greet a new year
Go-Toba about 1190 tr by Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen
#1stline #poetry #waka #Japan #translation
1st line of poetry read this morning
what the beloved said
cannot be recorded what she said
she whispered in my ear
only her breath blows
through these words only
her breathing stirs the night air
From K, Roy Kiyooka, 1964
#1stline #poetry #Kyoto #Vancouver #Canada
1st line of poetry read this morning
pulling the
tasselled cord
he summoned
the god
palmed
six sticks
of incense
then
bowed his
bald head.
From Kyoto Airs, Roy Kiyooka, 1964
#1stline #poetry #Kyoto #Vancouver #Canada
1st line Technicians of the Sacred, Jerome Rothenberg
Thunder rolls along the bottom of the clouds, the wide expanse of water ...
Thunder shaking the clouds, and the lightening snake flashing through them ...
Large snake, at the billabong edged with bamboo
Arnhem Land Australia
#1stline #poetry
1st line Technicians of the Sacred, Jerome Rothenberg
I got up this morning
woke up early this morning
rinsed my eyes out with water
kneeled down before the saints
threw on a white gown
ran over to the church
stepped across the threshold
nobody there had seen me
Rumanian
#1stline #poetry
1st line Technicians of the Sacred, Jerome Rothenberg
Hesiod Theogony
children of Zeus
grant me song
of the gods who are forever
who were born out of earth and the star-lit sky
dark Night and Salt Sea
Speak tell me
how we were born in the beginning
Greek
#1stline #poetry #classics
1st line Technicians of the Sacred, Jerome Rothenberg
old man with visored hat
setchin old singer
for whom these words come:
in the old man's house
prince of the town they made
the clawed beast sit
ferocious claws they set up
in the old man's house
Vogul
#1stline #poetry #Asia
1st line Technicians of the Sacred, Jerome Rothenberg
1
That's the big
bosses house
shining with the money
studded in it
rolls bank notes
papered on it
his cows even
shit gold
2
The carnival was
a sad old man it was
under the bridge
sniffing around he was
Quechua
#1stline #poetry #Americas
1st line from Technicians of the Sacred, Jerome Rothenberg
Below the sea is the mouth of a cave
In which all the winds are born.
He comes below the sea and mounts up
To where there is no sun.
But the cave is light, like the sun.
Seri
#1stline #poetry #Americas
1st line from Technicians of the Sacred, Jerome Rothenberg
Burts of twilights frantic wing-beats, submit to me, I am Youri
I am as the arching sky, as encounter of crossroads in space
Green savanna, entirely fresh, green savanna entirely outstretched
Bamana
#1stline #poetry #Africa
1st line from Technicians of the Sacred, Jerome Rothenberg
The Fall of the Little Creeper
(1) is one called 'rascal of the circle'
(2) is a calf that doesn't frolic, doesn't come out of the village
(3) then it frolics and goes back to its post
Basuto
#1stline #poetry #Africa #Basuto
1st line from Technicians of the Sacred, Jerome Rothenberg
Ghosts in this forest, shadows
thrown back by the night
Or in daylight
like bats that drink from our veins
& hang from moist walls in deep caves
Behind this green moss, these awful white stones
Gabon Pygmy
#1stline #poetry
1st line from Technicians of the Sacred collected by Jerome Rothenberg
For the Rain God Tlaloc
In Mexico we beg a loan from the god.
There are the banners of paper
and at the four corners
men are standing.
Now is the time for you to weep!
Aztec
#1stline #poetry #Aztec
1st line from Technicians of the Sacred collected by Jerome Rothenberg
The String Game
These were people
Who broke the string for me.
Therefore
This place became like this for me,
On account of it.
Because the spring broke for me,
Bushman, Africa
#1stline #poetry
1st line of poetry read this morning
the image
held up the loss
<<it was there>>
eaten by his question
From <<The Maternal Drape>> or the Restitution by Claude Royet-Journoud translated by Charles Bernstein 1983
#1stline #poetry #France #translation
1st line from Technicians of the Sacred collected by Jerome Rothenberg
Mirror Stone
Its name comes from nowhere. This can be excavated from mines; it can be broken off. Of these mirror stones, one is white one is black.
Aztec Definition
#1stline #poetry
1st line of poetry read this morning
the first lines of day
he searches for his language
before the <<fire>>
nearly nothing
this is their language
From <<The Maternal Drape>> or the Restitution by Claude Royet-Journoud translated by Charles Bernstein 1983
#1stline #poetry #France #translation
1st line from Technicians of the Sacred collected by Jerome Rothenberg
Come, ascend the ladder: all come in: all sit down.
We were poor, poor, poor, poor, poor,
When we came into this world through this poor place,
Where the body of water dried for our passing.
Zuni
#1stline #poetry
1st line
Before you are set an apple, a gold coin, and a book
So there we are with raptors on a string and you said "your daughter is a hypocrite" and I said "pleasantries won't make you free."
From The Unfollowing by Lyn Hejinian 2016
#1stline #poetry
1st line
I make this translation myself, and if there are parts that should be renounced, tell me and I'll renounce them
An ink man on paper, a chalk man on the sidewalk, and a shadow man, a sleeping man, an ash man, a man of bones
From The Unfollowing by Lyn Hejinian 2016
#1stline #poetry
1st line of poetry read in morning
A blown single apple drops from a surly bough
Sleep then, X, as we drive out of the mountains
If we'd been armoured with understanding, we might have taken up the art of scrounging
From The Unfollowing by Lyn Hejinian 2016
#1stline #poetry #SanFrancisco
