from Douglas Moore’s blog Art of Quotation
“In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.”
Czeslaw Milosz, Nobel Prize lecture, 1980
Book quote from Trumpocracy by author David Frum
Month: February 2018
Sunset by Tu Fu
Sunset glitters on the beads
Of the curtains. Spring flowers
Bloom in the valley. The gardens
Along the river are filled
With perfume. Smoke of cooking
Fires drifts over the slow barges.
Sparrows hop and tumble in
The branches. Whirling insects
Swam in the air. Who discovered
That one cup of thick wine
Will dispel a thousand cares?
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
from a line by Lu Yu
there the storm
a full gale
of trouble
oh how to glide
safely through
on this little boat
with arms not as strong
on the oars
but the heart
undaunted
“Activism is my rent for living on this planet.”
from Douglas Moore’s blog Art of Quotation
“Activism is my rent for living on this planet.”
– Alice Walker, poet, writer
Su Tung-p’o on companionship
I have wine and moon and flowers.
Who else do I want for drinking companions?
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
a reposting of Epigram by Su Tung-p’o
I fish for minnows in the lake.
Just born, they have no fear of man.
And those who have learned,
Never come back to warn them.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
from The End of the Year by Su Tung-p’o
Everything passes, everything
Goes, and never looks back,
And we grow older and less strong.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
identifying with Su Tung-p’o
often I wake
unsure of where exactly
I am
or the month the year
all blending into this
moment of sadness
only the cat
keeps me anchored
in today
Love in This Age by Choi Seung-ja
translated from the Korean by Geul on the blog Cardiac Slaves of the Stars
(translated from the Korean by geul)
Though you call, in March, no one’s home
at the foot of Dongdaemun* blades of grass are soaked in secrecy.
*
Always along the same path we
fall into the house familiarly
down into the sleep out of this world and
though you all call from the deep marsh of dreaming
my love, because the light of the four thousand year sky is heavy
(in this scape of petals falling on flowing water
irresistibly drawn one to the other)
we are clouds with fettered feet.
*
When the masked wind
calls us out because it’s night
this hour’s ardent code
this epoch’s terrifying love where
death follows death
we cannot decipher.
on the passage of time
no use
looking
at the clock
hours
drag by
morning
nowhere
in sight
Leonard Durso 