Ode by Attila József

“Every single smile, movement, word of yours
I keep like the earth keeps all fallen matter.
Like acids into metal
so my instincts have burnt
your dear and beautiful form into my mind,
and there your being fills up everything.

Moments pass by, rattling
but you are sitting mutely in my ears.
Stars blaze and fall
but you stand still in my eyes.
Like silence in a cave,
your flavour, now cool,
still lingers in my mouth
and your hand upon the waterglass
and the delicate veins upon your hand
glimmer up before me again and again…”

I cannot know by Miklós Radnóti

„I cannot know what this land means to other people.

For me, it is my birthplace, this little nation embraced

by flames, the world of my childhood rocking in the distance.

I grew out of her like a tender branch from a tree

and I hope one day my body will sink into her.

I am at home. And if a shrub happens to kneel down

beside my foot, I know both its name and its flower;

I know who walks on the road and where they are going,

and what it might mean when in the summer sunset

the house-walls shimmer and drip with crimson-agony…”

Dawnstruck by Dezső Kosztolányi

“I would tell you this – I hope it won’t bore you.

Last night I stopped working at three.

And went to bed.

But the machine in the mind was rattling on,

and though I tried to sleep, all I managed

was tossing and turning furiously

instead.

Yet I went on with drugs invoking,

calling out to sleep to come, imploring,

counting up to a hundred –

no use. With a hundred

eyes the words I had written gazed at me,

and the toxin of forty cigarettes were working in me,

as well as other things. The darkness. Everything…”

I Want to be Loved by Endre Ady

“I am no heir, no proud ancestor,

I have no friend, no brother, sister,

I have never belonged,

I have never belonged.

I am, like every human: Highness,

Iceberg, enigma, strange and timeless,

Distant will-o’-the-wisp,

Distant will-o’-the-wisp.

But, oh, I can’t remain unspoken,

I have to bare myself wide open,

Behold me, everyone,

Behold me, everyone.

In all self-torture, in every song,

I want to be loved, to belong.

Belong to somebody,

Belong to somebody.”

Poetry bridges through time and distance: by capturing the depth of the human soul, it connects us all, whoever we may be, however we may feel, wherever we may live. Fates, beliefs, feelings and thoughts collide in a few lines only, with the throbbing rhythm of our two most hidden and valuable possessions: emotions and imagination.

William Ernest Henley: Invictus

Pablo Neruda: XVII (I do not love you…)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Shakespeare: Sonnet 75

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ‘twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure:
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

E. Cummings: i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

Have you ever felt like your loved one never really leaves your side but ensconce themselves into all your thoughts, feelings and actions?

„i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Walt Whitman: A Glimpse

Maya Angelou: Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.