Spring is short:
Why ever should it
Be thought immortal?
I grope for
My full breasts with my hands.
translated by Geoffrey Bownas & Anthony Thwaite
Month: February 2014
Who makes these changes? by Rumi
Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
and end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
and fall in.
I should be suspicious
of what I want.
translated by Coleman Barks
from What I said to the wanting-creature by Kabir
Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.
Cricket by No Ch’on-myong
Because my shelter must not be known,
because my poorness must not show,
in hiding through the night I cry.
For somewhere someone weeps like me
I must soak more in the moonlight,
retain the sorrow of my night again
there behind the stone steps.
translated by Ko Won
yesterday’s hero
he walks on bad legs
a victim of over extending
this life was once
worth living
now it is a burden
fighting injustice
isn’t so easy anymore
it gets harder to tell
who’s who what’s what
good guys aren’t the only ones
wearing white hats
and those he helps
gossip about his mask
and those silver bullets
so he trudges on
a memory even to himself
another lone ranger
looking for his horse
and a faithful companion
neither on the horizon
and night comes on quicker
than he remembers
tanka 1 by Yosano Akiko
No camellia
Not plum for me,
No flower that is white.
Peach blossom has a color
That does not ask my sins.
translated by Geoffrey Bownas & Anthony Thwaite
Deer by No Ch’on-myong
Because of your long neck
you are a sad animal;
always quiet and gentle.
Your line must have been of high birth,
you have their noble crown.
Looking at your image in the water
brings back long-lost tales
with a nostalgia too sharp to bear.
You look over, stretching your sad neck
toward the far hill.
translated by Ko Won
When You Speak to Me by Tess Gallagher
Take care when you speak to me.
I might listen, I might
draw near as the flame
breathing with the log, breathing
with the tree it has not
forgotten. I might
put my face
next to
your face
in your nameless trouble,
in your trouble
and name.
It is a thing I learned
without learning; a hand
is a stronger mouth, a kiss could
crack the skull, small steps
in the air calling
the secret hands, the mouths
hidden in the flesh.
This isn’t robbery.
This isn’t your blood for my
tears, no confidence
in trade or barter. I may
say nothing back
which is to hear
after you the fever
inside the words we say
apart, the words we say so hard
they fall apart.
The Jackfruit by Ho Xuan Huong
I am like a jackfruit on the tree.
To taste you must plug me quick, while fresh;
the skin rough, the pulp thick, yes,
but oh, I warn you against touching–
the rich juice will gush and stain your hands.
translated by Nguyen Ngoc Bich
tanka 4 by Ono no Komachi
So lonely am I
My body is a floating weed
Severed at the roots
Were there water to entice me
I would follow it, I think.
translated by Donald Keene
Leonard Durso 