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
Author: zdunno03
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
The Sun Swing by Melih Cevdat Anday
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
Silent Stones by Melih Cevdet Anday
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
from Four Verses, #4 by Chang Yang-hao
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
listening to The Fouır Seasons sing Walk like A Man: for Kevin, Vic & Joey wherever you are
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
“All (writers) have failed to match our dream of perfection… That’s why he keeps on working, trying again…”
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
Leonard Durso 