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Poor Black 1 Skin By Ilija Jovanovic Translated by A.Z. Foreman Poor black skin it sticks in the white of the eye like a needle like a nail like a knife A little black man didn't want to be alone anymore. His back loaded with books, he went to live among white people. He wanted to study with them, to live with them. They asked each other with hardened looks: what's that black doing here? Poor black skin it sticks in the white of the eye like a knife like a needle like a nail. Notes: 1 - The word for black,  kalo,  is used as an endonym by some Roma groups such as those of Finland and Spain.  The Original: Cori Kali Morci Cori kali morci phusaves e parnen ande jak sar jek churi sar jek dopo sar jek suv. Jek cikno kalo cikamla maj but korkoro te trajil. Lija pese lila talaj khank gelo maskar e parne manuso len�ar te trajil len�ar te sicol. Von phucle pes e zoraja so cerel kadava kalo kadathe. Cori kali morci phusaves e parnen ande jak sar jek suv sar jek churi sar jek ...

"May all the Jews have  Two hundred blessed Sabbaths." ~Rumi Rosh Hashanah or Jewish New Year begins on Sunday, October 2, 2016. I sincerely wish all the Jews throughout the world a happy and blessed Jewish New Year 2016.  Happy Rosh Hashanah 5777! Related post:   Jews and Hebrew Bible in Rumi�s Poetry "??? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?? ????"  ?????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ??? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ?? ??? ?????? 577 7  ????? ??????? ????? ???

The Gift of Languages By Jean-Yves Masson Translated by A.Z. Foreman Walk toward the light, the light that will not betray you, O my friend, in tingles and in tears, across blind landscapes, amid sighing bodies, in the dark of flesh, in the vagaries of pleasure. By evening on a dreamer sea, the sails waken and tremble by the thousand like words, like flames: Ah, word sails where a promised sun takes shelter! Walk forth toward the light, the light that will not betray you. Among the songs, the dances, get drunk on tongues unknown, ask the dead tongues, the extinguished syllables for the key to their slumber. The Original : Le Don des Langues Marche vers la lumi�re, celle qui ne te trahira pas, � mon ami, dans les frissons et dans les larmes, � travers les paysages aveugles, au milieu des corps qui soupirent dans les t�n�bres de la chair, dans les m�andres du plaisir. Le soir, sur une mer songeuse, les voiles se r�veillent et tremblent par milliers comme des mots, des flammes: ah! voiles...

There are two different Romani texts of this poem in print, and I give both for the sake of completeness. The first given here is in the poet's own dialect, with its heavy adstratum of Slavic loans, and uses the orthography one would expect. The other is in the metaphonological supradialectal orthography promoted by the IRU (the so-called "Warsaw Alphabet" created seemingly with the paradoxical aim of promoting Romani literacy by making the language harder for most speakers to spell, the delusion of the Mentally Coutiarded.) Unsurprisingly for a version in so ostentatiously standardized an orthography, every single Slavic loan is in this version replaced by a pre-European equivalent, along with other differences in morphology. I gave priority to the more dialectal version, which I not only thought was a better poem all round but also seemed to me much more in keeping with Sejdic's attitude toward orality in poetic language, as well as the reality of Romani literature ...

This poem was written in 756 or shortly thereafter during the An Lushan rebellion. Du Fu was trapped in Chang'an after it had fallen to the rebels. An Lushan had ordered that all Tang royalty be executed. His killing-squads were sweeping the city, hunting down members of the House of Tang, and executing them on sight. The "stanzaic" divisions in this poem correspond to a formal division in the original. The Chinese is rhymed AAbAcAdA...etc as one might expect. However, each section separated by an empty line in my translation begins with another AA internally rhymed couplet in the original. These seem to correspond to thematic or dramatized shifts in the original and I felt it important to mark them as such. The term used for "prince" here ?? (recurring four times throughout the poem) calls to mind the theme, quite old in Chinese poetry, of the "wandering prince." The "wandering prince" is often a man roaming somewhere in the wilderness, bein...

      Ilija Jovanovic was born in 1950 in Rumska, Serbia, the only child of a penurious Romani family. He worked as a farmhand until 1971 when he moved to Vienna and worked first in a metal factory, then as a pharmacist's assistant. He served as cultural advisor and secretary general of the Romano Centro and in 1999 won Austria's prestigious Theodor-K�rner prize for cultural contribution. He died in 2010 after a protracted illness. The Romani text reproduced here, in Gurbeti dialect, is taken from his collection  Bud�o  (Landeck, 2000.)       The crucial Romani word in this poem, them, is one that I find quite impossible to translate with a single English word. It occurs four times in the poem, and in many dialects seems to have a semantic range covering everything from "place, land" to "city, country, realm" to "nation" to "world" depending on context. (Interestingly, and possibly not coincidentally, this semantic range overlaps a great...

This poem was written under siege. It is late in 756. The Tang government had failed in an attempt to recapture Chang'an from the An Lushan rebels. Du Fu, whom the rebels are holding prisoner there, is now faced with the possibility that he might never get out.  Facing the Snow By Du Fu Translated by A.Z. Foreman Above the battlefield many a fresh ghost wails Sunk in his sorrow one lone old man chants Toward the twilight clouds in upheaval founder In blowback winds driven snowblasts dance The ladle lies useless green of rice-wine is drained The coal stove remains I imagine red fire there No news gets through from anywhere this winter In sorrow I sit scrawling words in thin air The Original: ?? ?? ?????, ?????? ?????, ?????? ?????, ?????? ?????, ??????

Shakespeare By Muhammad Iqbal Translated by A.Z. Foreman The river's sweep is mirror to the morning's breaking light The evening silence: mirror to the song of eventide The rose's petal: mirror to the beauteous cheek of spring The handsome server: mirror to the gorgeousness of wine. Beauty is mirror to the truth and the heart mirrors beauty. Your turned words' beauty mirrors all the heart of humankind. Existence finds perfection in your star-bestriding thought. Is your creation's splendor why the universe was wrought? The eye that wanted to behold you, when it looked to you, Saw but the sun by its own brilliance hidden everywhere. You kept yourself well hidden to the eyes of all the world But with your own two eyes you saw the world laid clear and bare. The watchful hand of Nature guards its secrets jealously. Never again will it make one so versed in mystery. The Original: Click to show Romanization �afaq-i subh ko darya ka xaram ayina Na?ma-i �am ko xamo�i-i �am...

The Romani text here given is as it occurs in the author's book Suno  "Dream" (Prague, 2000.) Alight by a Fire By Margita Reiznerov� Translated by A.Z. Foreman (Thanks to Qristina Zavackov� Cummings  for help understanding the nuances of the original) In a little hut Find a place to sleep, Clasp your baby boy to your breast. Hungry eyes Are covered by the night. The Original: Thanoro Jaguno Andro cikno kheroro ko soviben o than keres, chavores ke tiro kolin ispides, jakha bokhale e rat zaucharel.

Meditation on the Past at Tong Pass By Zhang Yanghao Translated by A.Z. Foreman Peaks and ridges mass together River breakers blast in wrath In and out through river and hill Goes the road through old Tong Pass I gaze at the western capital All my thought distraught This is the place that breaks the heart Where Han and Qin marched past Palaces and towers and halls All turned dirt at last Dynasties rise The people suffer Dynasties fall The people suffer The Original, with transcribed Yuan Dynasty pronunciation: ??????? ????, fu? l?n ry dzy ????, pw? daw ry nu ???????? ?an ?? p?w li du? kuan lu ???, wa? si tu   ???? i d?iw d?y  ???????, ?a? sim dzin xan kji? ?ji? t??y ????????? kyu? ky?' wan kjan tu tsaw' l?w t?u ?, xji? ???; paj' si? k?u ?, wa? ???! paj' si? k?u

Wishing all Muslims a very happy Eid al-Adha or Feast of Sacrifice 2016.  Eid Mubarak! For Rumi Poems on Eid al-Fitr- Feast of Breaking the Fast- please see my previous post: Rumi on Feast of Breaking the Fast Eid Al-Adha, Eid Qurban in Persian/Farsi, or Islamic Festival of Sacrifice commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son, Ishmael, at God's Command (according to Biblical teachings and within the Judeo-Christian traditions, Abraham's other son, Isaac was offered by Abraham to be sacrificed). Within the Islamic traditions, at the end of Hajj (Muslims' annual Pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia), the three-day Festival of Sacrifice is commemorated throughout the Islamic world by offering prayers, visiting families and friends, and exchanging of 'Eid Mubaraki' greetings and gifts. As an integral part of the sacrificial ceremony to remember and honor Abraham's willingness to obey God's Command, an animal- traditionally a ram, goat, lamb, c...

Prisoner's Song By Vittorio Mayer Pasquale Translated by A.Z. Foreman A bird is at my window  in song.  The heart in me is weeping along. I spot a flower downed in dirt With two tears keeping it alive. Dear flower me and you   are alike...  Taken from the green field, I'm dying. The Original: Ap mar f�nstri jek t�kno c�rklo giv�la. Mur Herz an m�nde rov�la. Hacj�m jek bl�ma ab i cik... Duj su� di�nla i d�ib�n. Me hom har du o bl�ma... Vri fon i v�za mer�va !

Tanhai k aik samandar main dil mera basta hai, Safar ki uljhan kaisi, jab tere ghar ka rasta hai, Perdai k peeche jis dil ki siskiyan sunai deti hain, Mehfil main wohi dil muskurata hai, hasta hai, Yeh maana k dil mera aap ki humdardi k qabil nahi, Mager qabol ker lejyeh, maal yeh paidar aur sasta hai, Maut ki rasomaat tou riwayat main mili theen hum ko, Dastoor-e-ishq main mager aashiq khud kafan kasta hai, Berukhi main unki, lehaaz kis tarhan ka? Najaaane kyu mager aik umeed si wabasta hai, In the sea of solitude, my heart does exist, What pain of traveling, when the road is to your abode, Behind the curtain, the heart whose sighs can be heard, In company that very heart smiles and laugh as well,  We agree that our heart is not worthy of your affection, But accept it for the good is durable and available for cheap, The rituals of death, we were given in tradition, Yet in the way of love, the dead tie their own burial shroud, In their aloofness, there is no relenting, Unknown to m...