The Lord of the Isles: Canto VI.

I.
O who, that shared them, ever shall forget
The emotions of the spirit-rousing time,
When breathless in the mart the couriers met,
Early and late, at evening and at prime;
When the loud cannon and the merry chime
Hail'd news on news, as field on field was won,
When Hope, long doubtful, soar'd at length sublime,
And our glad eyes, awake as day begun,
Watch'd Joy's broad banner rise, to meet the rising sun!
O these were hours, when thrilling joy repaid
A long, long course of darkness, doubts, and fears!
The heart-sick faintness of the hope delay'd,
The waste, the woe, the bloodshed, and the tears,
That track'd with terror twenty rolling years,
All was forgot in that blithe jubilee!
Her downcast eye even pale Affliction rears,
To sigh a thankful prayer, amid the glee,
That hail'd the Despot's fall, and peace and liberty!

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poem by Sir Walter Scott
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Rainbow Coalition

Rainbow Coalition

On the border between Chile from Argentina
there is a long barbed wire fence full of plastic
bags, some from posh shops in Paris, London
and New York, There are Japanese bags too
and some with Arabic letters, you can say it is
international garbage fence, but not quite, it is
eerily beautiful like a pale sad rainbow.

There used to be skeletons here too they all had
broken bones as dropped from planes, but
they have been removed now if you are lucky
or ghoulish you might find a collar bone or two
or a skull cleans by the wind; indestructibly sacks
flap, so deafening that you can’t hear the song of
the condors.

poem by Oskar Hansen
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Queen of tango

I swap ten of my stories for one letter from you.
Letter and gingerbread heart with a mirror in it.
I want to do the tango, I'm tired of chess.
We can: Hidalgo, guitar and Argentina are close
for the souls that fly across the ocean.
Chess is better: a game in which the queen checkmates the king.
But the queen wants to dance, not play.
Make a move and dance, and I'm going to watch.
The queen goes to the dance floor with a pawn.
Here is my castle shooting at your pawn.
The pawn falls; the queen is going for a new one.
The king resigns: Do not go for a new pawn, we will do the tango.

Renku poetry: Tanja Bulovic Johannesburg
Zoran Jankovic Beograd

poem by Jankovic Zoran
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Ricardo

Ricardo is a poet from Argentina
And at South American dancing few with him compare
And he has become known around South Gippsland
And sad to say men like him now are rare.

Ricardo is a very funny fellow
And I mean funny in a humorous way
At parties and get togethers he's good value
And one has to laugh at some of the things he say.

He lives in Dalyston off of the Bass Coast Highway
And he has brought some culture to the place
He is an easy to like sort of fellow
And he always has a big smile on his face

Ricardo is a poet and a dancer
And to the culture he came from he's true
And he's the life and soul of every party
And he is very good at what he do.

poem by Francis Duggan
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Elath

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,
Hu Jintao of China,
Kgalema Motlanta of South Africa,
Cristina Kirchner of Argentina,
Stephen Harper of Canada,
Gorden Brown of Britain,
Lee Myung-Bak Of South Korea,
A loud wailing throughout the land!
And then we were scattered like the articles of silver and gold.

Elath, arise and try to learn more from others too;
For you have repaid me evil for righteousness.
Elath, sometimes you behave like an abnormal person;
But peace is better than war!
And we have to live very peaceful with one another on this earth.
Leaders may come and go and Kings may come and go as well,
But the heart should be very pure to all on this earth;
For morrow comes and we are no more.

poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Maradona, Maradona, Maradona…

This poem is dedicated to worldwide football fans.

Your left foot had the power
Of a great painter’s brush,
You made the football
To talk to your
Body’s changing moves.
Defenders all over the world
Tried to scare you, tackle you, fowl you,
Could they snatch your external body part,
A football?
You moved like a white lighting
In the dark cloud of opponent's defense;
Other strikers saw opponent's goal post,
You aimed to shoot there,
There was one word that fed you
In your entire football career –
Goal, goal, goal.
Not only Argentine fans
But football lovers worldwide

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poem by Biswajit Ganguly
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Oh What A Circus

Che: Oh what a circus
Oh what a show
Argentina has gone to town
Over the death of an actress called Eva Peron
We've all gone crazy mourning all day and mourning all night
Falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right

Oh what an exit that's how to go
When they're ringing your curtain down
Demand to be buried like Eva Peron
It's quite a sunset
And good for the country in a roundabout way
We've made the front page of all the world's papers today

But who is this Santa Evita
Why all this howling hysterical sorrow
What kind of goddess has lived among us
How will we ever get by without her

She had her moments she had some style

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song performed by Madonna from Evita Soundtrack (Part 1)
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Everybody Is Doing It

In Hawaii they Hula
They Tango in Argentina
They Reggae in Jamaica
And they Rumba down in Cuba,
In Trinidad and Tobago
They do the Calypso
And in Spain the Spanish
They really do Flamenco.

In the Punjab they Bhangra
How they dance Kathak in India
Over in Guatemala
They dance the sweet Marimba,
Even foxes dance a lot
They invented the Fox Trot,
In Australia it's true
They dance to the Didgeridoo.

In Kenya they Benga
They Highlife in Ghana

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poem by Benjamin Zephaniah
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Perons Latest Flame

(che:) at the watering holes of the well-to-do
I detect a resistance to
(aristocrats:) precisely
(che:) our heroines style
(aristocrats:) were glad you noticed
(che:) the shooting sticks of the upper-class
(aristocrats:) give her an inch
(che:) arent supporting a single ass
That would rise for the girl
(aristocrats:) shell take a mile
(aristocrats:)
Such a shame she wandered into our enclosure
How unfortunate this person has forced us to be blunt
No we wouldnt mind seeing her at harrods
But behind the jewelry counter, not in front
(che:) could there be in our fighting corps
A lack of enthusiasm for
(army:) exactly
(che:) perons latest flame
(army:) you said it brother

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song performed by Madonna
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Cultivated Is My Valley

Cultivated Is My Valley

Peaceful is the landscape and the lane that meanders
amongst olive trees, stone walls neatly divide the land
a bit for everyone, but not enough to make you rich.
Here dogs only bark at night have cowardly, yellow eyes
there is no wolf left in these subjugated canines.
In Stockholm when spring comes ice shards fall off roof
tops, split brains in half, gore on snow. On paradise
islands too one has to look out for falling coco- nuts
they can so easily kill a man; but here, in my valley, only
petals of the almond tree flower fall.

Birdsongs and breeze that caresses olive trees, now that’s
peace, ok, so should I not be happy as I contemplate
a carob tree? I see a woman bending down, weeding her
potato field, clouds on the sky are as soft as the mustachio
on a Romanian girl’s upper lip. All this herald peace so

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poem by Oskar Hansen
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Peron's Latest Flame

Che: At the watering holes
Of the well to do
I detect a resistance to

English: Precisely

Che: Our heroine's style

English: We're glad you noticed

Che: The shooting sticks
Of the upper class

English: Give her an inch

Che: Aren't supporting a single ass
That would rise for the girl

English: She'll take a mile

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song performed by Madonna from Evita Soundtrack (Part 1)
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Winter Sleep

When against earth a wooden heel
Clicks as loud as stone on steel,
When stone turns flour instead of flakes,
And frost bakes clay as fire bakes,
When the hard-bitten fields at last
Crack like iron flawed in the cast,
When the world is wicked and cross and old,
I long to be quit of the cruel cold.

Little birds like bubbles of glass
Fly to other Americas,
Birds as bright as sparkles of wine
Fly in the nite to the Argentine,
Birds of azure and flame-birds go
To the tropical Gulf of Mexico:
They chase the sun, they follow the heat,
It is sweet in their bones, O sweet, sweet, sweet!
It's not with them that I'd love to be,
But under the roots of the balsam tree.

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poem by Elinor Morton Wylie
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The ' Wise Men ' Stop Not...

The 'wise men' often tell me,
'You are absolutely ignorant'.
They quote the scriptures and state aloud,
'You are quite wrong, it`s the divine order'.
-The old wine in the old bottle.

I remain pensive for hours - new revelations set in.
Reflections of the distant lands Argentina and Somalia
Begin to haunt me - the cries of hunger become louder.
A calamity strikes a fauna and flora - a total wipe out!
-The divine order surpasses all reasons.

Eulogies are still aired and hymns are sung
The ones living in peace whisper and hail,
'God bless you' - and He becomes busy with the task.
A God to bless a fortunate block of race here!
-I don`t have 'the insight' to feel Him awake ever.

As the ' wise men ' continue to speak,
I hear a cradle song being sung from the skies

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poem by M.d Dinesh Nair
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Tango In Argentina

Tango in Argentina
It was eons ago, in Buenos Aires, many of us around a table at a cafe
I can’t remember why I was there think it was something to do with
buying race horses. A woman asked me up to dance I first declined,
shyness is my bane, after prodding I trotted up on the dance floor.
The band played a tango, not that I hadn’t dance before, mother was
a dance teacher, something happened, I forgot about my timidity
just danced floating on a cloud of pleasure. We’re alone on the floor,
when the music stopped, applause. Back at our table dad gave me
a glass of wine, the dream continued. I wanted to marry Dona Juanita,
my dancing partner; dad said no, she was married and too old for me.
But I have never since been able to emulate the magic of the moment
When I see a colt galloping across the pampas I know of the physical
pleasure it feels, once it was me feeling exuberant and timeless in
a world of everlasting youth.

poem by Oskar Hansen
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À Nîmes

Je me suis engagé sous le plus beau des cieux
Dans Nice la Marine au nom victorieux

Perdu parmi 900 conducteurs anonymes
Je suis un charretier du neuf charroi de Nîmes

L'Amour dit Reste ici Mais là-bas les obus
Épousent ardemment et sans cesse les buts

J'attends que le printemps commande que s'en aille
Vers le nord glorieux l'intrépide bleusaille

Les 3 servants assis dodelinent leurs fronts
Où brillent leurs yeux clairs comme mes éperons

Un bel après-midi de garde à l'écurie
J'entends sonner les trompettes d'artillerie

J'admire la gaieté de ce détachement
Qui va rejoindre au front notre beau régiment

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poem by Guillaume Apollinaire
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Oh

It is snowing and death bugs me
as stubborn as insomnia.
The fierce bubbles of chalk,
the little white lesions
settle on the street outside.
It is snowing and the ninety
year old woman who was combing
out her long white wraith hair
is gone, embalmed even now,
even tonight her arms are smooth
muskets at her side and nothing
issues from her but her last word - 'Oh.' Surprised by death.

It is snowing. Paper spots
are falling from the punch.
Hello? Mrs. Death is here!
She suffers according to the digits
of my hate. I hear the filaments
of alabaster. I would lie down
with them and lift my madness

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poem by Anne Sexton
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If I Win Tattslotto

If I win Tattslotto I'd travel far away
I'd visit South America home of mara and rhea
I'd buy a working Llama, I'd climb the mountain track
And Llama close behind me my luggage on his back.

Above the Andean mountains the hunting condor fly
For hours on end on windless day he hover in the sky
I'd travel this vast continent four thousand miles or more
The plains of Argentina the hills of Ecuador.

I would boat on the Amazon through forests of Brazil
Through deep and silent waters where one mistake can kill
Where lurk the small pirhana the cruelest killer known
A school of them in minutes would eat man to the bone.

The jungles of the jaguar the silent beast of prey
He hunt in darkened forest and hide from lamp of day
The fearless harpy eagle he fill his empty craw
On meat of forest dwellers the monkey and macaw.

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poem by Francis Duggan
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Disgrace There Is No Escape

Disgrace, there is no Escape.

There was this Norwegian, a gifted violinist he had won prizes in Moscow
and Warsaw, His debut was held in Oslo community hall, yes, the same
place the Nobel committee glad hands peace prizes to the mostly unworthy.
He played an Edward Grieg piece. Everything went well the public gasped
at his ability, then an accident, his trousers fell down, he wore pink lady
knickers. A shocked silence, then a titter, but soon laughter rolled around
the hall. The unlucky fiddler stopped playing couldn’t understand way
the audience laughed, till he looked down, saw his trousers rest on his shoes.
He tried to pull up his pants, lost his violin, stumbled and fell. The laughter
was merciless and never ending. He fled the country as a second cook on
ship bound for Argentina. There he got a job as a cowhand on a ranch in
the deepest pampas and grew a beard. Two years later thinking all was
behind him a newcomer came to the ranch, looked at the violinist and said:
” aren’t you the bloke who lost his trousers? ”

poem by Oskar Hansen
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Santa Evita

Children: Please gentle Eva will you bless a little child
For I love you tell Heaven I'm doing my best
I'm praying for you even though you're already blessed

Please Mother Eva will you look upon me as your own
Make me special
Be my angel be my everything wonderful perfect and true
And I'll try to be exactly like you

Please Mother Eva will you feed a hungry child
For I love you tell Heaven I'm doing my best
I'm praying for you even though you're already blessed

Please gentle Eva will you feed a hungry child
For I love you tell Heaven I'm doing my best
I'm praying for you even though you're already blessed

Che: Turn a blind eye Evita turn a blind eye

Chorus: Santa Santa Evita

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song performed by Madonna from Evita Soundtrack (Part 2)
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On The Balcony Of The Casa Rosada 2

(eva:)
Just listen to that, the voice of argentina
We are adored, we are loved
(officer:)
Statesmanship is more than entertaining peasants
(evas sister:)
We shall see little man
(crowd:)
[evita peron, la santa peronista ... ]
(eva:)
I am only a simple woman
Who lives to serve peron in his noble crusade
To rescue his people
I was once as you are now, and I promise you this
We will take the riches from the obligarchs
Only for you, for all of you
And one day, you too will inherit these treasures
Descamisados, mis companeros
When they fire those cannons, when the crowds sing of glory
It is not just for peron, but for all of us, for all of us

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song performed by Madonna
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