The Old Guard Poetry Blog

Will be reblogging poems or art that reminds me of The Old Guard characters! | Ask box is open, please send poetry suggestions my way!

[joenickypoems]

I Loved You Before I Was Born

I loved you before I was born. It doesn't make sense, I know.

I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see. And I've lived longing for your every look ever since. That longing entered time as this body. And the longing grew as this body waxed. And the longing grows as the body wanes. The longing will outlive this body.

I loved you before I was born. It doesn't make sense, I know.

Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes. And I've been lonely for you from that instant. That loneliness appeared on earth as this body. And my share of time has been nothing but your name outrunning my ever saying it clearly. Your face fleeing my ever kissing it firmly once on the mouth.

In longing, I am most myself, rapt, my lamp mortal, my light hidden and singing.

I give you my blank heart. Please write on it what you wish.

-Li-Young Lee (1957- )

[joenickypoems]

I love you ’cause I changed my life

to love you

because you saw me one Friday

afternoon and decided that I would

love you

I love you I love you I love you

—from Nikki Giovanni’s Resignation

[joenickypoems]

Variation on the Word Sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,

which may not happen.

I would like to watch you,

sleeping. I would like to sleep

with you, to enter

your sleep as its smooth dark wave

slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent

wavering forest of bluegreen leaves

with its watery sun & three moons

towards the cave where you must descend,

towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver

branch, the small white flower, the one

word that will protect you

from the grief at the center

of your dream, from the grief

at the center. I would like to follow

you up the long stairway

again & become

the boat that would row you back

carefully, a flame

in two cupped hands

to where your body lies

beside me, and you enter

it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air

that inhabits you for a moment

only. I would like to be that unnoticed

& that necessary.

—Margaret Atwood, 1939-

[joenickypoems]

Text ID: It’s heart that discerns between evil and good, so work to develop your heart./How many are there who heartless destroy, and think their destruction a start?

Shmuel HaNagid (Samuel ibn Naghrillah, c.a. 993-1056CE)

image credit

[joenickypoems]

Supplications

O God Help me resist them

They slaughtered my camel and

authorized the shedding of my blood

in places where you forbade the spilling of blood on its prayer rugs.

O God

I seek refuge in you from the evil of my people

They sell bad wine, and spoil the drunkards' innocuous night.

O God

The tickets for the Afterlife were sold out

and I did not have the money, the time, and the reason

to buy one

so please, tear their tickets, O God

and let my heart rejoice

did you not promise us forgiveness.

O God

Send locusts to devastate all the fields

and to erase all the points

send droughts for all seasons

and swarms of birds to destroy their supplies.

O my God, you spoke the truth

kings, like presidents

when they conquer a village

they ruin it

so O my God, please destroy their palaces

so that order shall be restored in villages.

O God

Let maggots grow instead of dates

We all went to cast our votes

but no one elected those who won.

O God

My love

My support

I published a new collection

So, please let it sell without limitation

O God, you were taken prisoner by the prophets

O God, you were taken prisoner by the Caliphs

O God, you were taken prisoner by the princes

O God, you were taken prisoner by the presidents

O God, you were taken prisoner by the ministers

Why did you descend to their land

and housed me in a heavenly cloud.

O God

I heard the pious people saying frightful things about you

so when I threw my book at them, it turned into a snake

that bit them and turned back into a book.

O God, the Most High

Am I not a prophet indeed?

—Ouled Ahmed, b.1955 d.2016

translated by Houssem Ben Lazreg

[poetryofpoland]

The Letters of the Dead by Wislawa Szymborska

We read the letters of the dead like helpless gods, but gods, nonetheless, since we know the dates that follow. We know which debts will never be repaid. Which widows will remarry with the corpse still warm. Poor dead, blindfolded dead, gullible, fallible, pathetically prudent. We see the faces people make behind their backs. We catch the sound of wills being ripped to shreds. The dead sit before us comically, as if on buttered bread, or frantically pursue the hats blown from their heads. Their bad taste, Napoleon, steam, electricity, their fatal remedies for curable diseases, their foolish apocalypse according to St. John, their counterfeit heaven on earth according to Jean-Jacques… We watch the pawns on their chessboards in silence, even though we see them three squares later. Everything the dead predicted has turned out completely different. Or a little bit different – which is to say, completely different. The most fervent of them gaze confidingly into our eyes: their calculations tell them that they’ll find perfection there.

(Translation by Stanislaw Baranczak & Clare Cavanagh)

[joenickypoems]

I Die of Love for Him

I die of love for him, perfect in every way,

Lost in the strains of wafting music.

My eyes are fixed upon his delightful body

And I do not wonder at his beauty.

His waist is a sapling, his face a moon,

And loveliness rolls off his rosy cheek

I die of love for you, but keep this secret:

The tie that binds us is an unbreakable rope.

How much time did your creation take, O angel?

So what! All I want is to sing your praises.

—Abu Nuwas (ca. 756-813)