Mihai Eminescu (Romanian pronunciation: [miˈhaj emiˈnesku] (listen); born Mihail Eminovici; 15 January 1850 – 15 June 1889) was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, generally regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul ("The Time"), the official newspaper of the Conservative Party (1880–1918).[2] His poetry was first published when he was 16 and he went to Vienna to study when he was 19. The poet's manuscripts, containing 46 volumes and approximately 14,000 pages, were offered by Titu Maiorescuas a gift to the Romanian Academy during the meeting that was held on 25 January 1902.[3] Notable works include Luceafărul (The Vesper/The Evening Star/The Lucifer/The Daystar), Odă în metru antic (Ode in Ancient Meter), and the five Letters (Epistles/Satires). In his poems he frequently used metaphysical, mythological and historical subjects.
(source of the bio: Wikipedia)


​“no copyright infringement is intended for the photo”

​In the poet’s memory, whose anniversary is today, let’s read one of his romantic poems:

Down where the lonely poplars grow
How often have I erred;
My steps that all the neighbours know
You only have not heard.
Towards your window lighted through
How oft my gaze has flown;
A world entire my secret knew
You only have not known.
 
A word, a murmur of reply
How often did I pray!
What matters then if I should die,
Enough to live that day;
 
To know one hour of tenderness,
One hour of lovers' night;
To hear you whisper's soft caress
One hour, then come what might!
 
Had you but granted me a glance
That was not filled with scorn,
Out of its shinning radiance
A new star has been born.
 
You would have lived through lives untold
Beyond the ends of time;
O deity with arms so cold,
O marble form sublime!
 
An idol of some pagan lore
As now no more is seen,
Come down to us from times yore,
From times that long have been.
 
My worship was of ages gone,
Sad eyes by faith beguiled,
Each generation handed on
From father unto child.
 
But now I very little care
To walk along that lane,
Nor heed the face I found so fair
Looks out for me in vain;
 
For you are like them today
In bearing and in guise,
And I but look on your display
With cold and lifeless eyes.
 
You should have known to value right
With wondering intent,
And lit your candle at night
To Love that God had sent.
 
Published in:
https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-9858
 

​Ann Christine Tabaka has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, has been internationally published, and won poetry awards from publications. She lives in Delaware, USA.  She loves gardening and cooking.  Chris lives with her husband and two cats. Her most recent credits are: Ariel Chart, Page & Spine, West Texas Literary Review, Oddball Magazine, The Paragon Journal, The Literary Hatchet, The Stray Branch, Trigger Fish Critical Review, Foliate Oak Review, Better Than Starbucks!, Anapest Journal, Mused, Apricity Magazine, The Write Launch, The Stray Branch, Scryptic Magazine, Ann Arbor Review, The McKinley Review.

​Picking up pieces after
madness plays its hand.
Hate planted seeds sprout deep
in the confines of a fearful heart.
 
Born within love’s borders,
not stranger or refugee.
Seething words rip open
truth, exposing deceit. 
 
BEHOLD, the prophesy!
BEHOLD, it lives again!
Words incite much suffering.
Tens of thousands must die.
 
So versed are you in the
ways of the callous. 
A vulgar stain upon
the floor of creation.
 
Remembrance will scream
your name in anguish.
Betrayal now lies cold upon fallow
fields once sown with hope.
 
A storm of vast proportions
as you sweep across the land.
Damage beyond imagination
amasses before our eyes.
 
You wear your camouflage so well.
Disbelief turns to horror.
Sickness of spirit penetrates
a nation fighting for its life
against an unspeakable aftermath.
 
 

​It’s Friday night.
The wolves have devoured their
portion. Now it’s time for the
scavengers to come out and feed.
 
Ignoring a distant storm,
eyes close, ears shut. Pain
forgotten, but not erased.
.
Beyond all comprehension
night breaks through the
dawn, with only so much
salvation to go around
 
The smallness of our lives,
filled with such desires and
greed.  Yearning for
Friday night once again.
 
 
 

​Night keeps her secrets
that daylight tells,
hiding lovers from themselves.
 
Truth breaks through,
streaming between tiny cracks.
Walls cannot hold back the sun.
 
Darkness hides among its fears,
silencing morning’s knock.
Yet morning is persistent.
 
The lies we tell are buried there,
deep within festering wounds.
Wounds that weep lustful tears.
 
Night keeps her secrets,
that morning tells.
Night shall not open her eyes for you. 

​ignite the cliff on my arm
burn me well
I have need of it
over my skin

open the freezing window
identify the pedestrian
twenty yards out
take back your arm with the rock

we shall stone the Canadians
in their homes
with cannabis and freezing whiskey
and rocks

and french rolls
shoving their queen up their arse
until they can shit only money

burn the ladders which reach my chest
fire your arrows to my battlements
I am Jerusalem
every dusk is mine

​burn the stake
and all the remnants of the poem
shake the ashes into the earth
spike the trees with your lips
throw off the cloak of history
and take your shirt into the cloister of the rapids' steam:

heave ho, on the dot
row the might out of the apartment
out of the description
into the broken red light flowering beneath the trees
blood and geese shaking their feathers in the stream

Sibanda is the author of Love O’clock, The Dead Must Be Sobbing and Football of Fools.
Ndaba Sibanda`s work is featured in The New Shoots Anthology, The Van Gogh Anthology edited by Catfish McDaris and Dr. Marc Pietrzykowski, Eternal Snow, A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Poetic Intersections with Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma scheduled for publication in Spring/Summer 2017 by Nirala Press and Seeing Beyond the Surface Volume II.

​Fresher and faster buses overtook it as if it were still  
The old bus was ‘snailing’ on, travellers sniveling feebly 
There was a monster sinking their hearts on that bus    
They had been travelling for long without reaching
Their destination, a terminus of relief, joy and peace
  
The passengers were fatigued, frantic and furious   
but an unmoved and hard-hearted driver moved on
The driver was a Goliath who trampled on their pleas
The MEAN mover held on to the wheel like a tick-- 
and never stopped when the call of nature required

that they visit ladies` rooms or gents` rooms or cafes--
As a result of the driver`s malice and obstinacy the bus
was not only carrying helpless, hungry and angry souls--
it was also battling with a cholera of stench and scarcities
It was wondering what crime it had committed to deserve that!

  
“Mqumqumba! Mqumqumba! -- it`s too messy here, please,
please stop, we`re starving to death and weak and suffering,
 besides, you`re running over poor pedestrians, valuable souls;
running down our glorious amenities, farms, bridges and all by 
virtue of your awful driving, your selfishness, your stoniness”  
  

The passengers would plead with the driver to at least stop 
in the light of such disastrous but daily happenings and losses
But Mqumqumba-- typical of a giant grain of bean that scarcely
yields to any kind of cooking, never mind the hours it is exposed
to heat--would drive on and on as if nothing awry had arisen! 

The old driver drove on and dozed off, rubbing sleep out of his eyes 
One day Windi, for that was the bus conductor`s business name--
pushed old Mqumqumba out, to the delight of some passengers--
as if to mark the end of their woes, but alas that was never to be--
For Windi, too, fooled and fumbled as things fell apart without a halt …    

If Mqumqumba had had the bus literally lagging behind every vehicle,
Windi had it on a reverse mode, away from credence into catastrophe --
crushing into whatever remnants of facilities and faculties were there
after Mqumqumba`s trail of demolition, and that was not all, for Windi
called for a wild fare rise which travellers had to top up there and then!     

​They ask: is it another sorrow
Or a better tomorrow?

They ask: is this another offenders` defender?
Or every poor man`s servant and lender?

Is this our world, our commonality?
Or our own and theirs, no one humanity?  

The response is: let it mirror our climate
Let words be used to their nth degree  

I believe in making this world a better place for all
For each of us in this sphere is a work in progress 

Continuously evolving, developing into the best person
And star we want to be in order to radiate a bright bequest

That is how he assured her
That is how he ensnared her
For words hold like adhesives
For words yelp like explosives  

Please forget life`s dreariness 
I know we can have our heaven
Grant me the little chance to open
The sole key to your dear cheeriness
It will cure you of all strains of loneliness 
And sweetly unlock our mutual happiness 
Call me your prescribed wholesomeness!  
Enter and let us roar into our rousing safari
Our starry start, let me see your queenly hurry 
I promise nothing short of paradise, don’t worry
I pledge to pamper you as your thirty’s quencher  
Love is my request, I am your conquest and quest 
Every single day I promise to prepare our love`s feast  
This is our destiny, a life of merriment and adventure 

She longed for a life of fulfilment and adoring wholeness  
But later she discovered that the much- vowed venture 
Did not in any way translate into a life of awesomeness 
It led straight into a dim den of tormented lonesomeness! ​

The New Year is always a time for considerations and resolutions
A moment to rededicate oneself to the ideals & causes one holds dear

His mystified grandson sought insights into the sticky bugs and snags
Holding the world hostage in this so-called generation of information

“Grandpa, what are the solutions to the problems facing the world today?”
“Grandson, you`re skipping a crucial step: the identification of those snags”

“Grandpa, I`m talking of climate change, poverty, inequality and conflicts”
“Grandson, the greatest challenge facing humanity is human exploitation”
      
He added, “Dishonesty breeds uncertainty. The only certainty in all this fracas
is uncertainly itself. Let`s walk our talk & tackle politics, economics and religion first.”  

​Carmen Tania Grigore is almost an unearthly apparition with a penchant toward deep feelings, without reserves. She’s got a child’s delicate soul and is always looking for herself. With a keen observation of details and full of sensibility, I would call her strong in her fragility, and her poems resemble her entirely.  

M ereu mă întreabă codrul de tine
I nvoc universul spiritul tău să-l renască!
H yperion te-a absorbit în vecie
A poi a deschis steaua divină
I ubirii dăruindu-te!
 
E multă înserare între cuvinte
M iroase a tei în fiecare suspin;
I nundă marea cu dor înspumat
N isipul scurs din clepsidre!
E stimp Cosânzene mângâiate de lună
S uav îți doinesc, aducând aproape
C erul, să aline lacul
U nde flori de nufăr încă îl rănesc!
 

​

​​el ne face semn
de departe
câteodată surâde
câteodată oftează
e loc de multă trăire
în numele lui
din clipă în clipă
așteptăm secunda
fără prihană,
florile de gheață
să le transforme
în flori delicate de tei

​Ken Allan Dronsfield is a disabled veteran, prize winning poet and fabulist from New Hampshire, now residing on the plains of Oklahoma. He has three poetry collections, "The Cellaring", 80 poems of light horror, paranormal, weird and wonderful work. His second book, "A Taint of Pity", contains 52 Life Poems Written with a Cracked Inflection. Ken's third poetry collection, "Zephyr's Whisper", 64 Poems and Parables of a Seasonal Pretense, and includes his poem, "With Charcoal Black, Version III", selected as the First Prize Winner in Realistic Poetry International's recent Nature Poem Contest. Ken loves writing, hiking, thunderstorms, dabbling in digital art and spending time with his cats Willa and Yumpy. 

​Without a thought or a word,
she let go of the fear and the judgments; 
she let be the opinions of others swarming around her head.
She let go of the indecision within.
She let go of all "of the ‘right’ reasons".
Completely, without hesitation or worry, she let it go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back;
of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward;
of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She made no promises to let go. She didn’t write about it.
Like leaves falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it be.
A small smile came over her face. A light breeze enveloped her.
And the Sun and the Moon shall forever shine…
Because she just let go and let it be.

​Vermilion tears stain unblown dust,
acquiesced moment of life's ending.
Hallucinated dreams of flying in space,
hoist a mug to those who rode the fire.
Memories jostling in a hazy foggy mist;
wondrous thoughts of questionable lore.
Melancholy taint in the winter of my days;
gifted choices remain in a full denial.
Kneel before the flickering flames of gold;
soft whispers echo through the empty cellar.
Lucifer pursues begging for our souls
dodging his temptations, we run home.
Dad's wash cars with rain clouds showing
Mom calls him stubborn, but gives him a kiss
After fall and Thanksgiving, winter is afoot
we start on the hill and begin the long ride down
the toboggan finds a six-foot drift burying us all
climb in the cold snow, sliding down laughing
waxing the sleds, hot cocoa warms our hearts
good memories grasp the winter of my days.
 
 

​When grasping for the bones
Eagerly I looked for the bonds
Ah, distinctly I was incensed
They are perfumed from palms
And the suspense never tilting
Ah, distinctly I was begging
I craved the idle, lazy insecurity
The ready brought such sorrow
Of the tranquil bones humming,
Buried deep in the earth tomorrow.
Shed no tears upon my passing;
for I now go where poetry is born.
There, where a zeppelin rises high
and the swallows spiral all about.
Crimson and amber leaves soar
where a tear of joy once lavished
and pillows of clouds drift onward
I'll take my leave writing eternally.