one doesn’t
have
to be
Muslim
to appreciate
and respond to
the early morning
call to prayer
Month: December 2014
The Brocade Ch’in by Li Shang-yin
The brocade ch’in has fifty strings: there’s no reason for it,
each string and bridge conjuring up another bloom of youth:
in a morning dream, Chuang Tzu’s confused with a butterfly,
and Emperor Wang’s death left his spring passion to a nightjar
scattered blood: moonlight on vast seas–it’s a pearl’s tear:
far off, Indigo Mountain jade smokes in warm sun: up close,
smoke vanishes: can this feeling linger even in a memory:
never anything but this moment already bewildered and lost.
translated by David Hinton
yet one more translation of one of his best known poems
Idle Song by Po Chü-i
In moonlight, I envied vistas of clarity,
and in pine sleep adorned green shadow.
I wrote grief-torn poems when young,
plumbed the depths of feeling when old.
Now I sit up all night practicing ch’an,
and autumn can still bring a sudden sigh,
but that’s it. Two last ties. Beyond them,
nothing anywhere holds this mind back.
translated by David Hinton
playing darts
someone once said
possibly Vimal
that darts
were like life
and hitting
the bull’s eye
meant something
profound
so okay
sometimes I get
a bull’s eye
but there are
holes
all around
the board
in the wall
which I disavow
the cleaners
I say
must be them
and İbrahim
pretends
during our weekly
games
he doesn’t hear
the disclaimer
in my life
on culture: talking with Chuck
we are on
an oceanliner
called culture
we think
we are
in control
of the direction
but it goes
straight
regardless
of where
we intend
to go
it defines
everything
about us
and we
like humble
passengers
are just along
for the ride
mussels & clams
they call
mussels
clams
but hey
a rose is
a rose
and a mussel
is a clam
there was raggae
playing
reminding me
of Peter Tosh
and Toots
and the Maytals
so you know
I was in
heaven
actually Alsancak
but close
enough
mussels clams
whatever
bring them on
kiddo
there’s a hole
in my stomach
just waiting
to be filled
after hearing wild world sung in the evening in Izmir
she would
come to
my room
at 3am
after nights
out
at bars
in Santiago
to talk
of parents
divorced
her ex
boyfriend
the older
men
who hit
on her
and I
intent
on not
being one
refused
to read
the signs
she laid
for me
thus
letting slip
what could
have been
through
my numb
fingers
from At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen: the first two paragraphs
In the jungle, during one night in each month, the moths did not come to lanterns; through the black reaches of the outer night, so it was said, they flew toward the full moon.
So it was said. He could not recall where he had heard it, or from whom; it had been somewhere on the rivers of Brazil. He had never watched the lanterns at the time of the full moon; when he remembered it was always the dark of the moon or beyond the tropics. Yet the idea of the moths in the high darkness, straining upward, filled him with longing, and at these times he would know that he had not found what he was looking for, nor come closer to discovering what it was.
from Laments of the Gorges by Meng Chiao
what of that thirst for wisdom when you’re
suddenly here, dead center in these waters?
translated by David Hinton
İnsanlar plan yapar, Tanrı güler. . .(Humans make plans and God laughs)
so it goes
hearing that laugh
from above
as we below
think we can
forecast
our future
life is
after all
a crap game
with loaded dice
not of
our own
making
Leonard Durso 