roosters crow
throughout the day
reminding us
life goes on
in the sunlight
that follows
each night
Month: June 2016
heavy with tears
the song
floating up
from Iftar
sadder this night
heavy with tears
from Ninth Anniversary by Nazim Hikmet on this morning, June 29, 2016
my head keeps loving, thinking, understanding,
my impotent rage goes on eating me,
and, since morning, my liver goes on aching. . .
translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk
another anonymous Japanese poem
Did the cuckoo cry?
I open the door
And look out in the garden
There is only the moon
Alone in the night.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
anonymous Japanese folk song
Clear full moon,
The night is very still.
My heart sounds
Like a bell.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
two letters
two letters
span time
a possibility
hanging
in space:
if
like the gulls
like the gulls
I cry
for the memory
of the sea
untitled poem by Yosano Akiko
Come at last to this point
I look back on my passion
And realize that I
Have been like a blind man
Who is unafraid of the dark.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
untitled poem by Shami Mansei
This world of ours,
To what shall I compare it?
To the white wake of a boat
That rows away in the early dawn.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
untitled poem by Fujiwara No Yoshifusa
The years have touched me.
I worry that I grow frail with age.
But I only need to see
Your flower like beauty
For all anxiety and heaviness
To leave me.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth