Wisława Szymborska, Writing a Resume

What needs to be done?

Fill out the application

and enclose the resume.

Regardless of the length of life,

a resume is best kept short.

Concise, well-chosen facts are de rigueur.

Landscapes are replaced by addresses,

shaky memories give way to unshakable dates.

Of all your loves, mention only the marriage;

of all your children, only those who were born.

Who knows you matters more than whom you know.

Trips only if taken abroad.

Memberships in what but without why.

Honors, but not how they were earned.

Write as if you'd never talked to yourself

and always kept yourself at arm's length.

Pass over in silence your dogs, cats, birds,

dusty keepsakes, friends, and dreams.

Price, not worth, and title, not what's inside.

His shoe size, not where he's off to,

that one you pass off as yourself.

In addition, a photograph with one ear showing.

What matters is its shape, not what it hears.

What is there to hear, anyway?

The clatter of paper shredders.

(Trans. By Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh)

Another translation: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25777805

William Shakespeare, (from Cymbeline), Fear no more the heat o' the sun

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The scepter, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownèd be thy grave!

राहत इन्दोरी, सभी का खून है शामिल यहा की मिट्टी मे

अगर खिलाफ है होने दो
जान थोड़ी है
ये सब धुआ है
कोई आसमान थोड़ी है

लगेगी आग तो आएंगे घर कई ज़द मे
यहा पे सिर्फ़ हमारा मकान थोड़ी है

हमारे मुँह से जो निकले वही सदाक़त है
हमारे मुँह मे तुम्हारी ज़ुबान थोड़ी है

मै जानता हू के दुश्मन भी कम नही
लेकिन हमारी तरह हथेली पे जान थोड़ी है

जो आज साहिब-ए-मसनद है
कल नही होंगे
किरायेदार है
ज़ाती मकान थोड़ी है

सभी का खून है शामिल यहा की मिट्टी मे
किसी के बाप का हिन्दुस्तान थोड़ी है

Wendy Cope, Flowers

Some men never think of it.
You did. You'd come along
And say you'd nearly brought me flowers
But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts -
The sort that minds like ours
Dream up incessantly. You thought
I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then.
Now I can only smile.
But, look, the flowers you nearly brought
Have lasted all this while.

Wendy Cope, Cathedral Carol Service

Those of us who are not important enough
To have places reserved for us,
And who turned up too late to get a seat at all,
Stand in the nave aisles, or perch on stone ledges.

We shiver in the draught from the west door.
We cannot see the choir, the altar or the candles.
We can barely see the words on our service sheets.

But we can hear the music. And we can sing
For the baby whose parents were not important enough
To have a place reserved for them,
And who turned up too late to get a room at all.

Martin Niemöller, First they came

First they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

W.B. Yeats, The Circus Animals' Desertion

W.B. Yeats -- The Circus Animals’ Desertion

I 

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last being but a broken man
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what. 

II 

What can I but enumerate old themes,
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his fairy bride. 

And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
‘The Countess Cathleen’ was the name I gave it,
She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away
But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.
I thought my dear must her own soul destroy
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love. 

And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread
Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;
Heart mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love
And not those things that they were emblems of. 

III 

Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.