The sun swing swings back and forth
While I arrange the clouds in my window.
Everything’s in the same place, stone of nothingness,
Zenith of the timeless sea, buried
Earth and a wind that goes nowhere.
As if time said it is because of the sun swing
Swinging back and forth.
translated by Sidney Wade & Efe Murad
Evening is your village where we arrive on mules,
I see your salt, your flour, your cattle,
Your heart darkened in its crackling seeds
Like a writhing caterpillar.
Dreams come heavily to us like life,
Gathering your visions piece by piece.
You extract the provisions of your beauty one by one
And spread your skirts out at your side
Like a flight of birds dragging on the ground.
I see old pictures in your eyes,
Your rain, your sea in the brimming dawn.
I see masts in the dark and in the sea,
Your protected old forests and glaciers.
I’ve had enough, leave me the courtesy
That your gaze has filled like a river.
Now I’ll line your silent stones
Up to the summits of your breath-taking knees.
translated by Sidney Wade & Efe Murad
I live here retired, apart
from the dust of the vulgar.
Clouds and mist, it’s peaceful.
A thousand mountains’ green surround the hut:
I’m the old man in the painting.
Look at this limitless beauty. . .
Could I put it down
and serve again?
translated by J.P. Seaton
those words that song
echoing in the halls
of memory
with the picture
of your youthful swagger
coming through the door
of the Youth Center
before all that followed
came to pass
and age cuts tears
took their toll
muscles sag
hair recedes
and the bop, Joey
is gone
but the scars
remain
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“All (writers) have failed to match our dream of perfection… That’s why he keeps on working, trying again; he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course he won’t, which is why this condition is healthy.”
– William Faulkner, writer
A mountain’s palace
for all things crystalline and pure;
there’s not a speck of dust
on a single one of these flowers.
When we start chanting like madmen
it sets all the peaks to dancing.
And once we’ve put the brush to work
even the sky becomes mere ornament.
For you and me the joy’s in the doing
and I’m damned if I care about “talent.”
But if, my friend, from time to time
you hear sounds like ghostly laughter. . .
It’s all the great mad poets, dead,
and just dropping in for a listen.
translated by J.P. Seaton
You’ll go ten thousand miles
beyond those ancient mountains. . .
Three gibbons’ cries,
a chasm full of moonlight. . .
How long’s this road been here?
How many travelers
have wet their sleeves beside it?
A broken wall divides the drooping shadows.
Rushing rapids sing a bitter song.
In the cold, when we have finally parted,
it will be all the more wounding to hear.
translated by J.P. Seaton
I’ve heard that even “men of feeling”
don’t treasure the feeling of parting.
Frosty sky drips a chill
on the cold city wall.
The long night spreads
like water overflowing.
There’s the sound of the watch-horn, too.
The zen man’s heart is empty, yes,
of all but these.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Fallen faded petals the color of my rouge. . .
One year, another spring,
willow catkins lightly fly, bamboo shoots become bamboo
and alone and sad I face the garden’s new-sent green.
But though he’s not done roaming, that time must be near.
In a clear dream of last year come from a thousand miles
cloudy city, winding streams, ice on the ponds
for a while I gazed on my friend.
translated by James Cryer
Being Present for the Moment
Website storys
Illustration, Concept Art & Comics/Manga
Singer, Songwriter and Author from Kyoto, Japan.
Singer, Songwriter and Author from Kyoto, Japan.
An online activist from Bosnia and Herzegovina, based in Sarajevo, standing on the right side of the history - for free Palestine.
A place where I post unscripted, unedited, soulless rants of a insomniac madman
Dennis Mantin is a Toronto-based writer, artist, and filmmaker.
Finding Inspiration
Off the wall, under the freeway, over the rainbow, nothin' but net.
Erm, what am I doing with my life?
Artist by choice, photographer by default, poet by accident.
At Least Trying Too
A Journey of Spiritual Significance
Life in islamic point of view
Through the view point of camera...
L'essenziale è invisibile e agli occhi e al cuore. Beccarlo è pura questione di culo
In Kate's World
Leonard Durso 