a thread
to hang by
so fragile
is love
Month: February 2024
Praying for Rain at Night in the Lao-kang Temple by Yang Wan-li
There’s never been such a hot summer before:
tonight the moon is out, and it still isn’t cool.
The withered sprouts are angry with me:
“You lazy poet!” they seem to say,
“why don’t you write a poem praying for rain?”
translated by Jonathan Chaves
To Tseng, The Fortuneteller by Yang Wan-li
You’ve thrown away all your scholarly books;
now you read books on fortunetelling
and look at scholars with cold eyes.
Master Tseng, wil you be my friend?
Together we’ll get into a fishing boat
and sail off to the Five Lakes.
translated by Jonathan Chaves
Warranty by Ewa Lipska
The machine of our marriage
has jammed.
We still
peel tomatoes
mince garlic
fill the evening
with talk about sex
and devour memory
after memory
yet we look around nervously
for a warranty’s
guarantee.
translated by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elzbieta Nowakowska
Vespers by Amy Lowell
Last night, at sunset,
The foxgloves were like tall altar candles.
Could I have lifted you to the roof of the greenhouse,
my Dear,
I should have understood their burning.
Together We Know Happiness: Written by a Descendant of the Founder of the Southern T’ang Dynasty
Silent and alone, I ascended the West Cupola.
The moon was like a giant hook.
In the quiet, empty, inner courtyard, the coolness of
early Autumn enveloped the wu-t’ung tree.
Scissors cannot cut this thing;
Unravelled, it joins again and clings.
It is the sorrow of separation,
And none other tastes to the heart like this.
translated by Amy Lowell
from Island Poems: 5 by Melisa Gürpınar
It’s as if
On every page of memories
There was some eye catching trap.
I don’t know, how
Was I to escape
The doubts playing over my tongue,
And from the hopeless runnning
In an empty room
As if hosting a guest
Between the four walls of words?
I became destitute
Never taking off these blind feelings
Winter or summer like a woolen vest,
Sitting on moss-covered stairs
Smiling into emptiness,
Never knowing who it is
That comes and goes.
translated by George Messo
September in Demetevler Park I by Zerrin Taşpinar
It’s around noon
the empty hours of those waking late
those on leave, or jobless ,
those with clothes once fashionable
which now look old and cheap
—showing all the signs of a consummer society—
we pass over the asphalt.
Behind me
a girl carrying sorrow in her heartbeat
the smile of a bud smashing the ice
as if left here today by a deer.
translated by George Messo
Anticipation by Amy Lowell
I have been temperate always,
But I am like to be very drunk
With your coming.
There have been times
I feared to walk down the street
Lest I should reel with the wine of you,
And jerk against my neighbours
As they go by.
I am parched now, and my tongue is horrible in my mouth,
But my brain is noisy
With the clash and gurgle of filling wine-cups.
A Decade by Amy Lowell
When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.
Leonard Durso 