“When A annoys or injuries B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.”
Month: November 2013
from Dreaming of Li Po, Two Poems by Tu Fu: Poem 2
Drifting clouds pass by all day long;
The wanderer is long in getting here.
Three nights now you’ve entered my dreams–
Which shows how good a friend you are.
But your leave-takings are hurried,
Bitterly you say, it’s not easy to come;
The river’s waters are wind-blown and choppy,
And you’re afraid to lose your oars.
Outside the door, you scratch your white head,
As if a lifetime’s ambition were forfeit.
Officials teem in the capital city,
Yet you alone are wretched.
Who says the net is wide,
When it tangles such a man in his old age?
An imperishable fame of a thousand years
Is but a paltry, after-life affair.
translated by Eugene Eoyang
from Dreaming of Li Po, Two Poems by Tu Fu: Poem 1
Parted by death, we swallow remorse;
Apart in life, we always suffer.
South of the river, miasmal place,
From the banished exile, not a word!
Old friend, you appeared in a dream,
It shows you have been long in my thoughts.
Perhaps it wasn’t your living soul:
The way’s too far, it couldn’t be done.
Your spirit came: and the maples were green:
Your spirit left: the mountain pass darkened.
Friend, now that you’re ensnared down there,
How did you manage to wing away?
Moonlight shines full on the rafters,
Yet I wonder if it isn’t your reflection.
The waters are deep, the waves expansive:
Don’t let the water-dragon get you!
translated by Eugene Eoyang
Meeting in Dreams by Hwang Chin-i
My wish to see you is fulfilled only in dreams;
whenever I visit you, you visit me.
So let us dream again some future night;
starting at the same time to meet on our way.
translated by Kim Jong-gil
from The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
“He suddenly recalled the famous myth from Plato’s Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split them in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”
Looking into the Mirror on New Year’s Day by Pak Chi-won
Suddenly I discover more beard has grown,
though it adds nothing to my six-foot frame.
My face in the mirror changes as the years go by,
but my heart remains as innocent as a year ago.
translated by Kim Jong-gil
An Incidental Poem by Song Han-pil
Flowers opened in the rain yesterday
and fell in the wind this morning.
What a pity that spring
should come and go in rain and wind!
translated by Kim Jong-Gil
these days
the heart sinks under memories
of other days
and I get to thinking
which is not necessarily a good thing
about those faces I see in the dark
try to remember names
personality quirks
the smell of a wet field
the sun breaking through the clouds
for instance
a dog gingerly picks his way along a beach
there are shells everywhere
and is it Gene or David
who stoops to pick one up
grinning
the dog looks up expecting a game
and that long haired woman with the green eyes
who will break my heart
in ways, at times
too numerous to mention
will make the world stop
and time
here in Istanbul
moves forward
just the way it’s supposed to
dragging my mind along
hesitantly
but gently
to where it needs to go
On A Rainy Autumn Night by Ch’oe Ch’i Won
I sing a bitter song on the autumn wind,
with very few who really appreciate it.
Outside the world drips midnight rain:
under the lamplight, my thoughts drift far away.
translated by Kim Jong-Gil
A Dream by Yi Yang-yon
The way home is a thousand miles;
an autumn night is even longer.
Ten times already I have been home,
but the cock has not yet crowed.
translated by Kim Jong-gil
Leonard Durso 