I am through
Dragging it
All these years
At the tip of my feet.
About time
We live a little,
My shadow
At someplace,
I
Someplace else.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
poetry
Meeting In Dreams by Hwang Chin-i
My wish to see you is fulfilled only in dreams;
whenever I visit you, you visit me.
So let us dream again some future night,
starting at the same time to meet on our way.
translated by Kim Jong-gil
Peach Blossom by Yi Ki
In rain it opens and falls in wind.
How many days can we see the peach blossom?
This brevity is in the blossom’s nature:
not that the wind has been cruel nor the rain kind.
translated by Kim Jong-gil
An Old Fisherman by Kim Kuk-ki
Heaven has never been generous to the old fisherman
and seldom sent fair weather to the rivers and lakes.
Don’t laugh, old fisherman, at the rough human world:
you chose to put yourself among eddies and rapids.
translated by Kim Jong-gil
Looking Into A Mirror On New Year’s Day by Pak Chi-won
Suddenly I discover more beard has grown,
though it adds nothing to my six-foot frame.
My face in the mirror changes as the years go by,
but my heart remains as innocent as a year ago.
On An Autumn Night by Sung I-kyo
Wild geese trail cold shrieks
and pass beyond the mountain walls.
I awake from a lonely dream of you;
my window is lit by the autumn moon.
translated by Kim Jong-gil
Returning to Lingao by Night by Su Shi
Drinking at Eastern Slope at night,
I sober, then get drunk again.
When I come back, it’s near midnight.
I hear the thunder of my houseboy’s snore,
I knock but no one answers at my door.
What can I do but, leaning on my cane,
Listen to the river’s refrain?
I long regret I am not master of my own.
When can I just ignore the hums of up and down?
In the still night the soft winds quiver
On the ripples of the river.
From now on, I would vanish with my little boat,
For the rest of my life, on the sea I would float.
To A Woman Loved: a love poem from Pre-Columbian Mexico
In the sky, a moon;
on your face, a mouth.
In the sky, many stars;
on your face, only two eyes.
a Song from the Incas
My mother bore me,
Ah!
Within a raincloud,
Ah!
That I might weep with the rain,
Ah!
That I might whirl with the cloud,
Ah!
Song Of Picking Mulberry by Xin Qi-ji
While young, I knew no grief I could not bear,
I’d like to go upstair.
I’d like to go upstair
To write new verses, with a false despair.
I know what grief is now that I am old,
I would not have it told.
I would not have it told
But only say I’m glad that autumn’s cold.
Leonard Durso 