The following is actually a song, but by - I feel - the best poet/singer/songwriter still alive today: Bob Dylan. This poem has it all, powerful words, images, metaphores, spirituality, and so much more. It's called: "Every Grain of Sand"

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair

Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer’s dream, in the chill of a wintry light
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand

Last day of the giveaway! If you haven't entered it yet, today is your last chance. Since there are some great pieces submitted in this thread, I'll add another game to the giveaway as a bonus. The sixth winner will win Hamilton's Great Adventure (Steam Key).

Not participating. Also not much into english poetry, so I have to clumsily translate french/greek poetry instead, which tone their quality down quite a notch.

Anyway.

"Long was the road to here, very long, my brother
The cuffs were harming our hands.
On the evenings where the small bulb was moving its head
Saying "time has passed"
We were reading the history of the world in little words
In some chronologies carved with the nail on the walls of the prison
In some childish sketches from the condemned to death
A heart, an arrow, a ship that certainly crossed time
In some verses that were left halfway for us to end them
In some verses that were ended for us not to end

Long was the road to here, difficult road
Now this road is yours. You keep it,
Like you keep the hand of your companion, and measure his pulse
Over the marks that the handcuffs have left
Normal pulse, sure hand
Normal pulse, sure road
Now this road is yours."


and


"We smile on the inside.
This smile, we hide it now.
Forbidden smile. Forbidden as the sun has become.
Forbidden the truth aswell.
We hide the smile, like we hide in our pocket
The photography of our beloved one
Like we hide the idea of liberty
Between the two leaves of our heart

All around here have one sky and the same smile

Tomorrow they may kill us
This smile and this sky, they can't take them away from us"


both written by Yannis Ritsos during his incarceration in the island political camps of the greek civil war.

I haven't read Brautigan before, so thank you for the poem. Murakami cites him as one of his influences. Thank you for the translation.

"First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me."

I'm not that keen on poetry so I like this one for the message it gives rather than the way it sounds.
Throughout history and even today people allow horrible things to happen because it doesn't directly effect themselves. It's an unfortunate part of the human concious that needs to change.

Still not entering. But, I can't translate Ritsos without translating my favorite greek poet, Nikos Kavvadias. Ritsos impresses me as a huge humanist, writing dark, brutal and hopeful poems related to the greek civil war and his own deportation. But Kavvadias writes about life aboard the ships where he worked as a radio, and that's a universe that moves me specifically. He also has a darkness, a bitterness and a cynicism (especially expressed in his novel "the shift") that touches me a lot. However, he's very difficult to translate and sometimes to decypher, due to liberal use of maritime jargon.

Anyway, he's awesome at early century nautical atmospheres.


"Willie, the black boilerman from Djibouti
When he was done with his night shift
In my cabin would come laughing to find me
And for hours be telling me of strange things

He was telling me how they smoke hashish in Algeria
And how in Aden they snort white powder, dancing
And then how they shout and monologue
When dizziness surrounds them with weird dreams

He also told me how he saw, one night where he had smoked,
That he was riding horses on the back of the sea
And behind, were chasing him gorgons with wings
"When we'll go to Aden, he was saying to me, you will try it."

I was giving him cakes, and razor blades
And was telling him how hashish kills its man
Then he would proceed, laughing heartily
With one hand, very high, to lift me.

In this humongous body of his, he had an kind heart
Some night in the Regina Bar, in Marseille
To protect me from a spaniard,
He took himself a strong bottle hit on his head.

Some day we've left him, dry of fever,
Beyond the far east, to melt and rot
God of the Black, do forgive the good Will,
And offer him, wherever he is, some of that white powder."


or


"You were travelling, chased by your destiny
Towards the white but grieving Switzerland
Always on the deck, slumped in a chaise-longue, livid
For a well-known and painful reason.

Always anxious, your relatives were running around you
But you always looking at the distance, you ignored it
To whatever they were saying, you laughed bitterly, because you felt
How you were journeying for the shores of death.

Some evening where we were passing in front of the Stromboli
You told someone, laughing, with a joking tone
"How similar they are, my sick burning body
and the ablaze peak of the volcano."

Later I saw you, vanishing in Marseille,
Into the crowd without giving a glance back
And I, who have only ever loved the watery stretches
I say that you I could have loved."

Just wanted to let you know that the giveaway will be closed in an hour. After it's closed, I'll announce the winners. Final chance!

W H Auden - The Unknown Citizen

1st read at school many years ago, and has stayed with me ever since. I take it as a warning against society destroying individualism. The pictures that it brings to mind are very powerful - for me, it's wonderful :)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

The giveaway has ended. The winners are:

Wartath - Syberia (Steam)
Psyspace - Postal 2: Complete (Desura)
TheSupremeForce - Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (Steam)
Theta_Sigma - Avencast: Rise of the Mage (Steam)
dusk1978 - Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee + Exoddus (Steam)
Vorax - Hamilton's Great Adventure (Steam)

Thank you all who have participated in the giveaway. Congratulations to all the winners. Your PMs are on their way!

In Hazzlitt's words, "all that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it".

Shocking!

Wow, thanks a lot. You've successfully ended my recent run of not winning things.

Congratulations to the winners :)

Congrats and have fun ! Thank you again Accatone :-)

Accatone, thank you for the giveaway and congratulations to the other winners.

Thank you Accatone!

Now I'm off to Syberia.. ;)