there is no winning
here
just a question of
how much to lose
save what you can
let go of the rest
what doesn’t stick
was never yours anyway
forget what they told you
about yours mine theirs ours
about choices
roads to take taken
each leads to a cliff
the question is not to fall
but how far down
life is losing more
than you gain
a sad reality
people places things
all you really take
with you
is what you cultivated
inside
and if losing it all
to start over
is the price you pay
then pay the two dollars
and move on
there’s more to see
to do
to feel
and what did you think
it was about
anyway
it was always this moment
poised on the cusp
ready to step off
into one more lifetime
for however long
it lasts
Month: March 2014
In Exile by Li Shang-yin
A spring day
here at the world’s end
the world’s end where once again
the sun is going down
the oriole’s cry–
if it had tears
it could water the blossoms
on top of the trees.
translated by David Young
from Five Hundred Words About My Journey From The Capital To Feng-hsien by Tu Fu
women like goddesses
are dancing inside
all silk and perfume
guests in sable furs
music of pipes and fiddles
camel-pad broth being served
with frosted oranges and pungent tangerines
behind those red gates
meat and wine are left to spoil
outside lie the bones
of people who starved and froze
luxury and misery a few feet apart!
my heart aches to think about it.
translated by David Young
what lingers: a tanka
the little things stay
a tug on the old heart strings
the body will sag
remembering what lingers
never able to forget
repeat mode
there you were again
in my dream
and I was helpless
to usher you out
stubborn, as usual
you stayed
long past your welcome
your smile haunting me
teeth everywhere I turned
and that way you have
of asking a question
ringing in my ears
I would like what I feel
to be dead and buried
but it rises from the grave
like in some horror movie
though you would never be
a star in such films
which is the trouble
and I am stuck
in dreams
with you in repeat mode
echoing in my head
Back by Robert Creeley
Suppose it all turns into, again,
just the common, the expected
people, and places, the distance
only some change and possibly one
or two among them all, gone–
that word again–or simply more
alone than either had been
when you’d first met them. But you
also are not the same,
as if whatever you were were
the memory only, your hair, say,
a style otherwise, eyes now
with glasses, clothes even
a few years can make look
out of place, or where you
live now, the phone, all of it
changed. Do you simply give
them your address? Who?
What’s the face in the mirror then.
Who are you calling.
from Written In The 12th Month, Kuei Year Of The Hare, For My Cousin Ching-yüan by T’ao Ch’ien
Roaming through thousand-year-old books,
I meet timeless exemplars. I’ll never
reach their high principles, though I’ve
somehow mastered resolute in privation,
and there’s no chance renown will redeem
this poverty. But I’m no fool for coming
here. I send findings beyond all words:
who could understand this bond we share?
translated by David Hinton
the die is cast
they say that the die
is cast and I will follow
where it will lead me
new places faces abound
finally a path in sight
on dreams: for NB
she tells her own fortune
in a coffee cup
looking for something new
in the grinds
she wants the world
to reflect her vision
but it sadly disappoints
I talk too much
she says in conversation
ideas beliefs tumbling out
she would remake
the entire universe
if she could
and can’t quite understand
why this is not possible
it breaks her heart
to think it is so
and though there is no consolation
for one so sensitive
there is always hope
the world will live up
one future day
to her dreams
Climbing to Canopy Pavilion on a Summer Day by Ts’ai Ch’ueh
A paper screen a stone pillow a square bamboo bed
a book falls from my hand during a midday dream
I wake up pleased and smile to myself
at the sound of a fisherman’s lute on the waves
translated by Red Pine
Leonard Durso 