from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“I am not interested in seeing new things, I am interested in seeing things new.”
Ernst Haas, photographer
Month: May 2018
Off for the rest of the week to Istanbul and traveling without a computer, just my phone, which I refuse to use for anythng other than phonecalls & some text messaging. So I will not be back until next week. Thus, I leave this poem as my last post until then. Enjoy your days if the weather wherever you are is as lovely as here, and if not, hope you make the best of it. The poem: Gazing at the Moon from South Tower by Chiao Jan
Moon tonight, and everyone’s moon-gazing,
but I’m alone, and in love with this tower.
Threads of cloud are shattered in the stream:
trailing willow is the picture of late fall.
As it brightens, you can see a thousand peaks.
Far off, the veins of ridges flow.
Mountain passes. . .
will I ever climb again?
I stand alone,
and let the border sadness rise.
translated by J.P. Seaton
“Sometimes you have to be able to listen to yourself and be okay with no one else understanding.”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“Sometimes you have to be able to listen to yourself and be okay with no one else understanding.”
— Christopher Barzak, writer
for my Mother on Mother’s Day: aiming toward heaven
there
as always
aiming toward heaven
where you now
reside
Spring Day III by Yuan Mei
A hermit’s gate is made of the stuff of brooms,
but sweep as it may, the clouds won’t stay away.
So up through the clouds, for sun I came,
with wine, to this high tower.
At evening, the sun declined
to come on down the mountain with me.
“Tomorrow,” I ask,
“you coming, or not?”
translated by J.P. Seaton
On a Painting of a White-Haired Old Man by Yuan Mei
Who’d paint a white-haired ancient?
I smile. I’d rather be a duck.
If you’re born with your head snow-white already,
no one can laugh and shout, “You’re getting old!”
translated by J.P. Seaton
Moored at Maple Bridge by Ching An
Frost white across the river, waters reaching toward the sky.
All I’d hoped for’s lost in autumn’s darkening.
I cannot sleep, a man adrift, a thousand miles
alone, among the reed flowers: but the moonlight fills the boat.
translated J.P. Seaton
Grand Magazine
Some of my poems have been published in the May/June issue of Grand Magazine. See link: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/grand/20180506/index.php#/5
Apart from my poems, the magazine is filled with interesting articles: tips on online dating, grandparenting, vacation ideas, interviews with personalities like George Foreman & Connie Goldman from NPR, to mention a few. Check it out.
And thank you Christine Crosby, Editorial Director, for including me.
And a special thank you to Deborah Carroll for thinking of me.
Our Table by Melih Cevdet Anday
Returning home from the funeral, roosters crowed.
A terribly empty April afternoon on earth.
The sky appeared to us as small
As a morning glory. We went to a tavern.
Our table was full of cracks.
translated by Sidney Wade & Efe Murad
The Coffin Shop by Melih Cevdet Anday
r
Our new coffins have just arrived.
For women, for men,
For children, for adults,
For the short, the tall, the fat,
For every length and every shape.
Gilded, embossed, marbled,
Our coffins have arrived.
The very latest models.
translated by Sidney Wade & Efe Murad
Leonard Durso 