like the gulls
I cry
for the memory
of the sea
Author: zdunno03
untitled poem by Yosano Akiko
Come at last to this point
I look back on my passion
And realize that I
Have been like a blind man
Who is unafraid of the dark.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
untitled poem by Shami Mansei
This world of ours,
To what shall I compare it?
To the white wake of a boat
That rows away in the early dawn.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
untitled poem by Fujiwara No Yoshifusa
The years have touched me.
I worry that I grow frail with age.
But I only need to see
Your flower like beauty
For all anxiety and heaviness
To leave me.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
on looking back
there are words
left unspoken
actions
left undone
there is less here
than what at first
met the eye
paper thin relations
like so many
facebook friends
away, look away
like some seafarer
of old
casting off
to return
once again
for the first time
to this place
called home
like some song
drifting
through the channels
of my mind
like some song
heard one morning
and can’t quite lose
by night
from the Man’yoshu
I loathe the twin seas
Of being and not being
And long for the mountain
Of bliss untouched by
The changing tides.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
much like my heart
there the moon
refusing to leave
the morning sky
much like my heart
a hovering love
above the streets
where you walk
untitled poem by anonymous poet from the Kokin Wakashu, 9th-10th Century, Japan
This world of ours,
Before we can know
Its fleeting sorrows,
We enter it through tears.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Leonard Durso 