the lone owl
cries in the dark
who can hear
a soul adrift
between heaven
and the sea
Author: zdunno03
from Twenty-three Horse Poems: No. 5 by Li He
The great desert of sand is snow
and the Yeh Mountain moon is a hook.
When will I be harnessed with golden reins,
galloping clear autumn beneath my hooves?
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
Shown to My Younger Brother by Li He
After three years away from you
I’m back at last for one day, and more.
We drink green Luling wine this evening
and I see yellow cloth-wrapped books, like when I left.
My sick bones still exist,
so nothing is impossible in this world!
Why bother to plead with the crows-and-horses dice,
just throw and let them roll!
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
old phone numbers
there they are
in address books
on cell phones
scraps of paper
stuck between the pages
of books
read long ago
names sometimes
attached
though often
on those scraps of paper
missing
or incomplete
and one is left
trying to remember
faces
personalities
quirks in speech
hesitating
as one often does
deleting
putting off
till another day
erasing one more link
to a life
Hops by Boris Pasternak
Beneath the willow wound round with ivy
we take cover from the worst
of the storm, with a greatcoat round
our shoulders and my hands around your waist.
I’ve got it wrong. That isn’t ivy
entwined in the bushes round
the wood, but hops. You intoxicate me!
Let’s spread the greatcoat on the ground.
translated by Jon Stallworthy & Peter France
At The Dark Hour by Paul Dehn
Our love was conceived in silence and must live silently.
This only our sorrow, and this until the end.
Listen, did we not lie all of one evening,
Your heart under my hand.
And no word spoken, no, not even the sighing
Of pain made comfortable, not the heart’s beat
Nor sound of urgency, but a fire dying
And the cold sheet?
The sailor goes home singing; the lamplit lovers
Make private movements in a public place.
Boys whistle under windows, and are answered;
But we must hold our peace.
Days, too, broke silently. Before the blackbird,
Before the trouble of traffic and the mist unrolled,
I shall remember at the dark hour turning to you
For comfort in the cold.
The Old Fisherman by Liu Tsung-yuan
The old fisherman spends his night beneath the western cliffs.
At dawn, he boils Hsiang’s waters, burns bamboo of Ch’u.
When the mist’s burned off, and the sun’s come out, he’s gone.
The slap of the oars: the mountain waters green.
Turn and look, at heaven’s edge, he’s moving with the flow.
Above the cliffs, the aimless clouds go too.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Coda by James Tate
Love is not worth so much;
I regret everything.
Now on our backs
in Fayetteville, Arkansas,
the stars are falling
into our cracked eyes.
With my good arm
I reach for the sky,
and let the air out of the moon.
It goes whizzing off
to shrivel and sink
in the ocean.
You cannot weep;
I cannot do anything
that once held an ounce
of meaning for us.
I cover you
with pine needles.
When morning comes,
I will build a cathedral
around our bodies.
And the crickets,
who sing with their knees,
will come there
in the night to be sad,
when they can sing no more.
The Swordsman by Wu Pen
Ten long years I’ve honed this sword:
frost white blade as yet untried.
Today, like any other gentleman,
it’s looking for injustice.
translated by J.P. Seaton
big dog by Anselm Hollo
i bring you
this head,
full of breath-
taking beautiful
images of yourself
& put it in
your lap.
now i breathe
more quietly.
now you pat me.
now i sigh.
in a moment or two
i’ll get up and
be a man again.
Leonard Durso 