Tag Archives: Vers Libre

BOOK: “The Pocket Rumi” ed. / trans. by Kabir Helminski

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The Pocket Rumi (Shambhala Pocket Library)The Pocket Rumi by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Shambhala

This is a selection of writings (mostly poetry) of Rumi (formal name: Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī.) Rumi was a mystic of Sufi Islam, and so the poems tend toward the devotional — though with more reference to the experience of intoxication than one might expect from a 13th century Islamic poet.

This selection consists of three sections organized by poetic form, each section progressively longer than the preceding one. The first section is ruba’i, the second is ghazals, and the last is from Rumi’s Mathnawi.

The “Pocket” of the book’s title and series is figurative as the paperback is too big of both format and thickness for any pocket I own, personally, but the point is that it’s a quick read at only about 200 pages of (mostly) poetry [meaning white space abounds.]

I enjoyed reading this selection. I can’t say how true to message the translations are as I have no knowledge of Persian. I can point out that the translators opted to abandon form in favor of free verse. Hopefully, this gave them the freedom of movement to approach the message and tone of the originals.

If you are interested in a short, readable English translation of Rumi’s poetry, this book offers a fine place to start.

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“Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]

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The houses are haunted   
 By white night-gowns.   
 None are green,
 Or purple with green rings,   
 Or green with yellow rings,   
 Or yellow with blue rings.   
 None of them are strange,   
 With socks of lace
 And beaded ceintures.
 People are not going
 To dream of baboons and periwinkles.   
 Only, here and there, an old sailor,   
 Drunk and asleep in his boots,   
 Catches tigers
 In red weather.

Empty Chairs [Free Verse]

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I watch the chairs
   That watch the ocean,
 Wondering whether 
   Some passerby will take 
   A seat to admire
      The turquoise water
      & crashing surf.

No one does.

Tourist and local alike
   Spill by in a rush to get
   Through paradise to
   Somewhere else --
   Probably a cruddy
       Hotel room or
       Unloved job. 

Of course, if someone 
   Did take a seat,
   They might be run off
   On the grounds that
      These are proprietary
      Chairs.

[That's just the petty world
   In which we live;
      Where a business will
      Protect its space for 
      Exclusive use by 
      Nonexistent customers.]

One might suggest that
   It's too hot to sit 
   And admire the ocean,

But by the time those chairs
   Have cooled,
   The view will be 
      Blackness.

On Tourists & Travelers [Free Verse]

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A tourist looks back fondly upon 
      A favorite destination;
 A traveler is always at it. 

A tourist loathes travel hiccups;
 A traveler calls them stories.

A tourist jumps from one
      Postcard vista to the next;
 A traveler moves through the world.

A tourist collects knicknacks & geegaws;
 A traveler collects experiences.

A tourist, between sights, seeks
      A life experience as close to 
      Their homelife as possible.
 A traveler wants a life experience
      As close to local as possible.

A tourist has a favorite meal;
 A traveler assumes he hasn't
      Crossed paths with it yet.

A tourist leaves nothing to chance;
 A traveler embraces the spontaneous.

A tourist takes comfort as a main course;
 A traveler uses it like a condiment.

Green Door [Free Verse]

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What mysteries lie behind
  That old green wooden door:
    Carved elaborately 
     In bygone days?
 
On a street that features only sights
   Both newer and more decrepit,
   It stands out as a grand entrance 
     That begs something special 
      Beyond.

I’d hate to think it’s just 
   Old paint cans —
     Half empty and congealed 
      Beyond usefulness.

I doubt it’s a brothel or speakeasy —
         Too silent…
   But a vault of lost masterpieces,
     Inhabited by a hairy-legged spider,
     Might not be too much to ask.

“The Death of a Soldier” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]

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Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.
 
He does not become a three-days personage,
Imposing his separation,
Calling for pomp.
 
Death is absolute and without memorial,
As in a season of autumn,
When the wind stops,
 
When the wind stops and, over the heavens,
The clouds go, nevertheless,
In their direction.

“Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War Is Kind” by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]

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Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
 Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
 And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
 Do not weep.
 War is kind.

      Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
      Little souls who thirst for fight,
      These men were born to drill and die.
      The unexplained glory flies above them,
      Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom—
      A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
 Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
 Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
 Do not weep.
 War is kind.

      Swift, blazing flag of the regiment,
      Eagle with crest of red and gold,
      These men were born to drill and die.
      Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
      Make plain to them the excellence of killing
      And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
 On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
 Do not weep.
 War is kind.

This poem opens War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899.)

“The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]

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One must have a mind of winter
 To regard the frost and the boughs
 Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
 To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
 The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
 Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
 In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
 Full of the same wind
 That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
 And, nothing himself, beholds
 Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Tree Flight [Free Verse]

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On a hike,
    I come upon a tree
       Raised up on its roots,
       As if in mid-stride --
       A long, cartoonish stride
   That stretches across the trail.

But the tree doesn't stir -- 
   No matter how quietly I wait;
   No matter how long I wait.

Oh, how I wish to catch the tree
   As it flees.

River Vision [Free Verse]

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in a flat, wide river:
   something juts up
   from the water --
   far in the distance

for an instant,
   i startle:
   seeing it as an
   extended arm...

like that Stevie Smith
   poem, but i discover
   it's neither waving,
   nor drowning, but 
   merely protruding...

a dead limb
   stuck in the river,
   drag & pull balanced,
   waiting to be 
   carried away.