Best Cervantes Poems
"Scratch, Quills of God". Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Rhymes scream like cats and wriggle out of
my arms. Words hide and sick. The stanza’s end
comes to dead-end… Oh, devilish standoff
of plans and pens! The spirit leaves me and
unfinished sonnet bleeds. The crumpled piece
of paper and another one… Why would
I write at all? What in the hell is this -
an intellectual sick, a fad, a good
way to increase a self-esteem or just
a sublimation of repressed libido?
Or maybe I crave fame? A golden dust
in spotlights, Mr. Nobel, the tuxedo,
etcetera…
Alas, the cause is quite
conspicuous: a quill cannot but write.
7/4/2019
Writing Challenge 2, November - A Poem Meaningful - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Dear Heart - Wiishkobi Ode
Categories:
cervantes, inspiration, poetry,
Form:
Rhyme
To Don Quixote, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet : A Don Quichotte
(Poem written in March 1861 that I would Verlaine had
dedicated to the Grand Dear Old Man of Letters : Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - with kind permission, of course, sought by me and which I know he wouldn’t withhold. T. Wignesan)
O ! Don Quixote, medieval princely champion, incomparable
Bohemian,
Only in vain does the absurd and vile crowd laugh at you :
You died as a martyr and your life remains a poem,
And the windmills wronged you, O ! King true !
Always keep going, keep going, protected by your faith,
Astride your fantastic charger that I cannot but love.
Sublime gleaner, forward ! – those the law wraps in moth
Balls are more numerous, more staggering than bygone days
enough.
Hurrah ! We follow in your steps, we, the saintly horde of poets
Dishevelled, our heads wrapped in verveine tights.
Lead us on to assault high-strung fantasies,
And soon enough, in spite of every form of treason,
Up on high will flap our winged standard of Poesies
Over the hoary skull of our inept reason !
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
Categories:
cervantes, fantasy, poets,
Form:
Sonnet
IF YOU THINK YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE…
“A quiet and modest life,” says he in German, the most successful of them/us all, “brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest.”
Albert Einstein’s hand-written tip to a courier at the Imperial Hotel
Tokyo, November 1922
If you think you’re the only one to record the way the world’s run
Know that every top’s naked spun when the wrapped string’s outrun
Everyone’s in such a hurry to step out of this collapsing quandary
Even if the one and only query is left without comforting certainty
Everybody wants a piece of posterity to be part of everlasting history
Even at the cost of mimicry if only to keep shoring up sheer vanity
Fire burns out in an empty shell the way the poem slim content quell
Who reads for meaning to feel well means to read more feeling swell
Roads lead to where one wants to go, lines come to an end in vertigo
To each ego own voice sounds best, who renounces the will but hobo
Tell this to a Cervantes five years in quarries after the Battle of Lepanto
Confront Dostoeyeski with firing squad again after four years in Siberia
Tear Theo from Van Gogh’s bosom after Gauguin’s bullish loud hysteria
Tease Mozart in his deathbed with the sleepless scores of his concerto
There’s no quiet in a modest life for billions will step eager on your face
Our world honours the sham strong the phoney the fake the half-baked
The weak work all day not to crave success but to fend off all disgrace
No true mother harassed by rape abandons the baby for rapists’ sake
Success is always drenched in sweat except for those fils de Putes
Who inherited the earth long before the oldest profession followed suit
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017
Categories:
cervantes, happiness, rights, success, women,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
Proyecto de tren instantaneo entre Santiago y Puerto Montt by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan
Soliloquio del Individuo by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T Wignesan
(Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of the "Cervantes Prize" (the highest literary honour for writers in Spanish), four times nominated for the Nobel Prize, studied Physics (Brown University), Cosmology (Oxford University) and taught maths and physics for some 40 years, but styles himself as the Poet who writes "Anti-Poems" - a fresh
chastising wind to debunk self-styled poets hardly born to the métier but drunk with their own effete and ephemeral voices. T. Wignesan, Paris, 2016.)
The Anatomy of the Instantaneous Train (plying) between Santiago and Puerto Montt
The engine of the instantaneous train
occupies the place of the destination (Pto Montt)
while the last coach
straddles the station of departure (Stgo)
This type of train affords the passenger
the advantage of arriving instantaneously at Puerto Montt
at the very moment he boards the last coach
in Santiago
The rub is in order to continue voyaging
the traveller has to keep moving with his luggage
through the train
until he gains the first coach
Once the passage has been realized
the passenger may proceed to exit
the instantaneous train
which has remained stationary
during the entire voyage.
• Observation: This type of (direct) train serves only the uni-directional journey.
Source: Poem read by Nicanor Parra as invitee to the International Poetry Festival in the Netherands in 1989 (?)
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2016
Categories:
cervantes, allegory, extended metaphor, imagination,
Form:
Free verse
Limerick crochet: Once budding Writer took private tuition
Once budding Writer took private tuition
Father wished him a Man of Distinction
He got straight As in school
No one thought him a fool
At higher studies won commendation
Got high-paying job in government
Promotions to highest firmament
Wished to be great writer
Looked around for tutor
Who showed the way out of predicament
“First enrol in creative writing schools
Where Shakespeare and Cervantes are thought fools:
They didn’t take tuition
Abhorred imitation –
Follow our advice and drool out stools!”
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Categories:
cervantes, irony,
Form:
Limerick
When I was a child along with my cousins we listen to heroic tales about our ancestors and in someway the mill was always mentioned. So we went to discover these EPIC Historic site. A glance of paradise The All Heaven -we were in heaven- As we start slopping down, and there's no heaven without snakes, lizards, all kind of reptiles endangered plants, birds of prey insects and sweet nature fruits (our only recommendation for the tour), scared till the bone we easy pass and then the Oasis: grapes all kind of apples, strawberries, oranges and what we were looking for coffee, yes Coffee our faith ( café fé Fé before praying WE drink coffee) and Tia Kindness serve cake port-wine conversation more coffee, fruits, more coffee and Uncle Fell Good BE Healthy preparing our bags with all the mentioned plus corn (a scream "please came back before going" ) and all the pluses associated with having a good time. After 5 hours (10 min) the oldest explorer Mario preoccupied, seeing vultures spectres and feeling worms crawling and I likewise after all it's 5 PM(+ 4 more summer day hours), We decided to leave forgetting all the etiquettes basic Inc. that will be solved in church with lot's of French style kisses(my cousins were born in France and the all village has 33 and 75 car plates)
Uphill and with all the Saints helping but we, as saints had only the help from the animal world it took me 15 minutes to get to Heavens View,
Than worried about my family I was feeling like Colombo or Saint Paul,
Alone not knowing where I was or birth place/date and The End was coming tormentors beatings a massacre we all being swallow alive by Komodo Dragons and for an entire hour Hallucinations Seizures almost passing out At Least My Cousins with morbid faces one hurt injured by thorns and all pricked by mosquitoes (they are always the ones to blame), happiness crying and relieve and a promise not to ever return -the next 48 hour was ever.
To Brunet Luiz Baby Tummy (Cuzz Cousin)
Categories:
cervantes, childhood, family, friendship, mountains,
Form:
Prose
These are just words:
Teacher and student,
Maestro and estudiante, and in
Life’s great song you are a but a precious
Fifteen notes in the
Monterrey of Mexico and I, some
Fifty sonatas in the waiting room of ever afters, where
Chords get harder to play in
English,
Espanol or even
Swahili, for that matter.
So this much I know: the
Great Conductor cannot miss the
Forever smile and wondrous lilt
Leaping
Endless, boundless, hate less into the
Joy you caress when he hears the
Lullaby of your
Sanguine youth.
Oh Yes! Let someone sing
“Maestro” and another
“Student”, and let too
Mozart waltz to
Shakespeare’s sonnets and
Handel serenade Cervantes, and when glorious
Bach opens heaven’s door to recite Senor Paz’s
“No More Cliches”,
Let’s join hands for the
Grand Concerto.
For I once met a man whose tongue,
Trilling with verse,
Taught me:
“Words are but
Melody in the symphony of the
Soul."
Categories:
cervantes, dedication, inspirational, , Lullaby,
Form:
Free verse
True Love Cento
There must be a million ways
To say I love you
But these words will suffice for now
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever wife loved man, then thee.
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine.
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.
Lying in bed I think about you,
Display thy breasts, there let me
Behold that circummortal purity.
Between whose glories, there my lips I’ll lay,
Ravished in that fair Via Lactea.
Rare bird,
extinct color, you stay in
my dreams in x-ray.
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!"
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,
Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,
Bright eyes, accomplish’ d shape, and dangerous waist!
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,
Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes.,
Poetic sources
Jake Cosmos Aller A Million Ways to Say I Love You
Joshua Beckman Lying in bed I think about you,
Anne Bradstreet To my husband
Valentine Lorna Dee Cervantes
Ben Jonson Song: to Celia [“Drink to me only with thine eyes”]
Morris Egan Bar Napkin Sonnet #11
Jennifer Michael Hecht Love Explained
Robert Herrick Upon Julia’s Breasts
John Keats The Day is Gone
William Shakespeare Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
William Shakespeare The Spring
(from Love's Labours Lost)
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
John Updike Penumbrae
Categories:
cervantes, love, marriage,
Form:
Free verse
Limericks crochetés : Once a French Goncourt telecast live
Once* a French Goncourt* telecast live:
“You don’t write from knowledge of (knowing) Life.
You write from reading books!”
Prize won for swagger looks?
Or longest novel on unlived strife?
Who takes the Cup for creating lives?
Should Shakespeare not read Plutarch’s lives?
Nor Cervantes adventure?
Greek tragedians Homer?
Watch! Which kurti* Goncourt henceforth survives!
• Once: Elisabeth Quin’s “28 Minutes” on ARTE channel,
Feb. 28, 2014
• Goncourt: Premier French literary award(ee)
• kurti: shirt (kurti) hanging out of long pants (salwar),
Indian style
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Categories:
cervantes, creation, writing,
Form:
Limerick
The Old Man and the Seine
For the legendary George Whitman
(1912 – December 13, 2011)
King George peered out of the oval of the hollow mile
And caught the Hunchback ogling Gina Lollobrigida;
Victor Hugo sat engrossed in his séance at Guernsey Isle
Feigning he would hold back the Cervantes Armada;
So witty Ol’ Walt sat on the lip of Notre Dame bridge
Scuffing overgrown grass with his heels in the Seine
But his beard got caught in Quijote’s wordy porridge:
That’s why they say he set up shop in Butcher’s Lane.
The Master of Ol’ Vic took exception to this affront
And shook his spear such that it stirred a tsunami
From the Thames down the Chunnel to the front
Of Tumbleweed Hotel’s Shakespeare & Company.
Now you know why King George kept his window shut
All through the century keeping no eye even half shut.
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris. From the collection: Poems Omega Plus, 2005; rev. 2012.
Categories:
cervantes, allegory,
Form:
Sonnet
A nightmare
after something I'd had,
a cowboy film,
the late-night news
and Cervantes at bedtime.
On a spavined jade
the last of all the cowboys
with lean shanks
astride gaunt flanks
rides down
to Death Valley.
The last of all the cowboys
has soon put paid
to enemy tanks
along Stygian banks
way down
Death Valley.
Ever onward they wade.
to the cowboy's last tune,
some joining the ranks,
some jumping off planks
Close-down, lockdown
at the last rally
in Death Valley.
I hope all this
was just a nightmare.
Thinking otherwise
I do not dare.
Categories:
cervantes, angst, death, dream,
Form:
Cowboy Poetry
If ever I had to have a country victim of pedophily : LXXXVI
[Note: 216,000 cases of pedophily, perpetrated by the clergy, have been recorded by the Catholic Church in France since 1950.]
If ever I had to have a country, would that it be a country where no infant boy or lad need ever fear of being the victim of pedophily
Let it also be a country that sent no Albuquerque or Vasco de Gama, Drake or Raleigh, Cortes nor Dupleix to undermine the « street arabs » and « orphaned » heathens under seal of the Papal authority
For, remember how I was persuaded to assume the rôle of Ministre d’État Plenipotenciary without Portfolio or Duty, the Saviour of down-trodden Womenkind (O, « A Daniel come to Judgement ! »),
for I’d turn Torquemeda, revive the Inquisition, the Ace of Papacy
Will I let fresh-cheeked choir boys nor novice sacristans in strict page-boy linen, candle or Cross in hand lisping psalms disappear in the dense stench-filled folds of priestly « soutanes » behind pillars under Roman arches or polished teak encrusted encasements their stifled cries for help choked through holy promiscuity
Nor will I let Henry the VIIIth behead his wives in the Tower for failing to provide him with a male heir nor let no Archbishop lie bleeding at the Cathedral at Canterbury nor no politicking murder
stain some Florentian cathedral to foist the House of Medeci
You guessed right alright, I’ll take over the Tower of London as my foremost torture dungeon, call out the Swiss helmeted Guards with their spears and while I keep puffing at the Havana cigars (a chest-full gift from Fidel Castro, in grateful acknowledgement of inestimable services rendered to soft-ball gals in shedding excess weight on the ground) and keep crying out « Habemus » Pope to drown out the squeals yells and screams issuing from pedophiles pierced by Swiss lances in the rears of millions of priests found guilty
You bet that’s what I’ll do even if the entire Order of the Malte forgot about the Crusades against the Turks and Saracens - and poor one-armed Cervantes – during the Battle of Lepanto just to crucify me
And so what even if I never ever had no country with orphaned infants and laddies to pity
© T. Wignesan, Paris – Octobre 14, 2021
Categories:
cervantes, america, child abuse,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
I see you there,
painting a literary facade,
thumbing through Cervantes
as though it has usurped your very being.
Your unenthused stance reveals your ruse
as do your constant glances in my direction.
In my quixotic state, I wonder if you
fancy me your Dulcinea
or if you merely question why
I scribble so wildly upon the page.
You, Sir, are my current inspiration
and I shall not tire until our story ends.
Peripherally I register how slowly you move
toward the books behind my chair.
I want to turn to you and recommend Solzhenitsyn,
third shelf down on the right;
but hesitate to be so revelatory
about my interests.
Now I feel your eyes discreetly moving
up and down my page,
ingesting my words.
Realization hits.
Our eyes meet.
Yours ablaze with the knowledge
of immortalization in my poetry,
mine wickedly feigning innocence.
You turn on your heels and stalk off,
undoubtedly in search of a windmill to best
for your lady fair.
Categories:
cervantes, imagination, life, on writing
Form:
Free verse
Yesterday’s September is gone…
Our love at first sight, our time together in
good times and bad…
Your strong embrace and true love
I will always remember…
Your faith so strong, anxious for nothing…
knowing your day was close at hand
You chose to be still and always thankful…
Wrapped in the peace of God forever…
You called out to Him, He heard the cry of your heart…
He gave you a spirit of power, love and self control
Your soul you fully did surrender…
The immense pain of your broken body...
Didn’t stop you from seeking and praising
our Merciful God
He looked your way, uplifted your spirit,
Your pain He did render…
He called you son, it’s time to come home…
But not before those you love are at
your side and you will make them all smile...
For you will soar on eagles wings
This beautiful day in September…
I held you tight as your last breath…
released your spirit beyond the sky
To see the face of God and His Splendor…
You are crowned a son of God
Wrapped in His peaceful light
Forever, September…
Amor…Enrique Cervantes
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Categories:
cervantes, death, faith, god, heaven,
Form:
Narrative
He set his classic in La Mancha
Don Quxiote and sidekick Panza
This duet made an awful fist
Ready material for a satorist-
Sancho the squire,Don the idealist
see more in the renown tale by Cervantes
Categories:
cervantes, on writing and words,
Form:
Narrative