To the Looking Glass World
by Lewis Carroll

To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said
"I've a sceptre in hand, I've a crown on my head.
Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be
Come dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen and Me!"

Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,
And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran:
Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea--
And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three!

"O Looking-Glass creatures," quoth Alice, "draw near!
'Tis an honour to see me, a favour to hear:
'Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea
Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and Me!"

Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink,
Or anything else that is pleasant to drink:
Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine--
And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine!

Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

I Wanted
by Roque Dalton

I wanted to talk about life of all its melodious
corners I want to gather in a river of words
the dreams and the names what is left unsaid
in the newspapers the pains of the solitary
surprised in the nooks of the rain
rescue the leafless parabolas of lovers and give them to you
laid before the games played by a child
elaborating his sweet daily destruction
I wanted to pronounce the syllables of the people
the sounds of its grief
show you where their hearts limp
insinuate those who only deserve a bullet
in the back tell you of my own countries
impose on you from the exoduses from the great
emigrations which opened up all the roads of the world
of the love of even the bedraggled one over there
by the ditches
speak to you of the trains
of my friend who killed himself with another’s knife
of the history of all the men broken
by blindness by myth’s reefs
of the century which my three sons will outlast
of the bird’s tongue and the furious foam
in the stampede of the great four-legged beast
and I wanted to talk to you of the Revolution
of Cuba and the Soviet Union
and of the girl that I love for her eyes
of shortened storm
and of your lives filled with dawns
and of people who ask who saw you who said that
how could it’ve been done I got here
before you
and of all of nature’s things
and of the heart and its testimonies
of the last fingerprints before total annihilation
of the tiny animals and of tenderness
I wanted to yes say to you all of that and tell you
lots of stories I know and in turn were told to me
or that I learned by living in that great room of pain
and things said by other poets before me
and that are good for you to know

And I can’t give you more — closed
door of poetry —
than my own corpse beheaded in the sand.

Like You
By Roque Dalton
(Translated by Jack Hirschman)

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

Diego Velasquez, La Venus de Espejo 1644-1648


To Camille Duplessis...

Sumptuous is the feast that your skin bares,

a soft expanse of refulgent whiteness,

laid out among the silken intricacies of Valenciennes lace.

Perfection conceived in my mind,

I relish dining on the succulence of your roseate flesh.

My ambidextrous hands, like the tenderness of cutlery

trace the delicate undulations of curving spine,

Consciously intimate of that sweetness imbuing your honeyed breasts.