2024-05-31

Sotirios Pastakas (POETS OF THE PLANET)

Sotirios Pastakas

 Sotirios Pastakas (Larissa, Greece, 1954), poet. He studied Medicine in Rome and Psychiatry in Athens. He has published 18 poetry collections. It has been translated into 20 languages and has taken part in international poetry festivals (San Francisco, Sarajevo, Izmir, Rome, Naples, Siena, Cairo, Istanbul, Medellin, Caracas etc.). Four poetry collections (Corpo a corpo, Jorge, Monte Egaleo, Isola di Chios) are published in Italy, where he won the NordSud Prize in 2016, one in the USA (Food Line), and one in Spain (Cuerpo a cuerpo). In 2019 he donated his library to the Municipal Library of Rapsani. He is a member since 1994 of the Greek Writers’ Society and from 2021 to 2023 National Coordinator of the World Poetry Movement (WPM) for Greece. From 2023 member and coordinator of Poets of the Planet (POP) for Greece. Won poetry prize “Makis Lachanas” in Thessalian Poetry Festival 2023.
from FOOD LINE ( Forepaw Press, San Francisco, USA, 2014)
(Translated by Jack Hirschman and Aggelos Sakis)


An apple-core.
Someone was sitting here
biting an apple.
Then he disappeared. The same day
that History recorded three
deaths in the center of Athens.
Someone else at another
spot left his cigarette butt
before he disappeared too.
History only records:
apple-cores, cadavers, ashes.

Croí úill.
Bhí duine éigin ina shuí anseo
is bhain plaic as úll.
Ní fhacthas ó shin é. An lá céanna
nuair a thaifid an Stair
gur tharla trí bhás i lár na hAithne.
Duine eile in áit eile
d'fhág sé nuta de thoitín ina dhiaidh
ní fhacthas eisean ó shin ach oiread.
Níl á thaifeadadh ag an Stair ach:
croíthe úill, corpáin, luaithreach


2024-05-30

Eliot Katz (POETS OF THE PLANET)


Called “another classic New Jersey bard” by the late Allen Ginsberg, Eliot Katz is the author of seven books of poetry, including Love, War, Fire, Wind and Unlocking the Exits, as well as a prose book, The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg. His most recent poetry book was a free pdf volume posted on his website before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, entitled: President Predator: Poems to Help Make America Trump-Free Again. He was a co-founder, with Danny Shot, of the long-running Long Shot literary magazine, and was a co-editor with Allen Ginsberg and Andy Clausen of Poems for the Nation. In the mid-1990s, he coedited an anthology of U.S. protest poetry, Changing America, that was published as a bilingual anthology in France. Katz, whose late mother was a Holocaust survivor, has worked for many years as an activist for a wide range of peace and social-justice causes, including helping to create several housing and food programs for homeless families in Central New Jersey that remain ongoing.


     

Imagine Again



Imagine
a de-militarized
Middle
East
and
then
imagine
a completely
de-militarized
world.
It’s not
so
easy
these
days,
but
please
try.

Samhlaigh Arís

 
Samhlaigh
an Meánoirthear
dímhíleataithe
agus
samhlaigh
ansin
domhan
atá
dímhíleataithe
ar fad
ar fad.
Níl sé
éasca
na
laethanta
seo,
ach
déan
iarracht
le
do
thoil.

 

2024-05-29

Dunlap

DUNLAP is a bilingual anti-war poem, in Irish and English, written and recorded by  Gabriel Rosenstock (POETS OF THE PLANET)  which remembers Ulsterman John Dunlap,  the man who printed the first copies of the American Declaration of Independence. 

Dunlap

Fear as an Srath Bán
Co. Thír Eoghain
John Dunlap
A chlóbhuail Forógra Saoirse Mheiriceá.

Amhantraíocht in eastát réadach
a dhein fear an-saibhir de.

Ó shin i leith
Tá an tSaoirse á scaipeadh ag Meiriceá
I gcogaí éagsúla.

Agus an Forógra á chlóbhualadh aige
Ar shamhlaigh Dunlap riamh go dtarlódh Cogadh Vítneam
Go dtarlódh Cogadh san Iaráic
Go dtarlódh  . . .
Tá liosta díobh anseo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States
Leanfar de  . . .



Dunlap

A man from Strabane
Co. Tyrone
John Dunlap
Printed the American Declaration of Independence.

Speculation in real estate
Made him a very rich man.

Since then
America is propagating Freedom
In various wars.

Whilst printing the Declaration
Did Dunlap envision the war in Vietnam
The war in Iraq
The war in  . . .
There's a list of them here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States
To be continued . . .

https://www.antiwar.com/



2024-05-28

Vailintín

(après Gertrude Stein)

Is é atá binn
Mo Vailintín
Mo Vailintín
Is é atá binn
Is é atá mín
Mo Vailintín
Mo Vailintín
Is é atá mín
Mín binn binn mín–mo Vailintín!

 

 

2024-05-27

Paidir de chuid na nDúchasach Meiriceánach

       Edward Curtis 

Cabhraigh linn

chun na ceachtanna atá fágtha agat

i ngach duilleog

is i ngach carraig

a fhoghlaim

2024-05-26

Furuike ya


lochán ársa
léim frog
tuilleadh froganna


old pond
a frog jumps in
more frogs

2024-05-25

Beannacht Cherokee

             Edward Curtis 


Beannacht Cherokee

Bainfead an dealg as do chos.

Siúlfaimid cosáin ghréine an tsaoil
tamall eile i dteannta a chéile.

Beidh gean agam ort mar dheartháir, mo chuid fola féin.

Nuair a bheidh ísle brí ort, glanfadsa na deora de do shúile.

Agus más róthrom ort an brón, suaimhneoidh mé an croí pianmhar ionat.