coming home late
after a stop at The Belfast
to my own bottle of Irish
and thoughts of yesterday
today
hope for tomorrow
I toast the ghosts
hovering in corners
ice cubes bump shoulders
the overhead fan twirls
I take another book
from the shelf
there my friends from China
a tavern apart
and 1300 years
much to discuss
lifting a burden
from deep in the heart

I go out of the darkness
Onto a road of darkness
Lit only by the far off
Moon on the edge of the mountains.

Kuraki yori
Kuraki michi ni zo
Itinu beki
Haruka ni terase
Yama no hi no tsuki

translated by Kenneth Rexroth

it used to be
a glass of whiskey
was all that was needed
to put ghosts to sleep
but whiskey
an old dear friend
just isn’t up to the task
anymore
and I am beyond that crutch
now I face these old ghosts
and we converse
I listen to the old laments
the missed opportunities
the things not said
a hand not held
and commiserate
for one day
I too will be an old ghost
with my own regrets to tell
to whatever poor soul
awake at night
who will listen
and then I too
will grow drowsy
and fall asleep
after unburdening my sins
like these old ghosts
these friends of mine
who slumber around me
at peace for one more day
until night falls again
and their minds get working
reliving those past transgressions
omissions
that they need to recant
once again
to me

From Yellow-Crane Tower, my old friend leaves the west.
Downstream to Yang-chou, late spring a haze of blossoms,

distant glints of lone sail vanish into emerald-green air:
nothing left but a river flowing on the borders of heaven.

translated by David Hinton

there will be times
when all the words you said
all the acts you committed
will come crashing down around you
and at those times
in the dead of night
no one will be there
to save you
from your consequences
and in answer to your question
there will be no one
to forgive you
either
on this side of the world

Beneath the Moses of the incense,
asleep.

Eyes of bulls were looking at you.
Your rosary was raining.

In that dress of deep silk,
do not move, Virginia.

Give the black melons of your breasts
to the whispers of the mass.

translated by Robert Bly

“And again he thought the thought we already know: Human life occurs only once, and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and which bad is that in a given situation we can only make one decision; we are not granted a second, third, or fourth life in which to compare various decisions.
History is similar to individual lives in this respect…..

….History is as light as individual human life, unbearably light, light as a feather, as dust swirling into the air, as whatever will no longer exist tomorrow.”

translated by Michael Henry Heim

The rainy Pleiads wester,
Orino plunges prone,
The stroke of midnight ceases
And I lie down alone.

The rainy Pleiads wester
And seek beyond the sea
The head that I shall dream of
That will not dream of me.

SEA GULL
who flaps his wings
over my head
in the blue air,

you GULL up there
dive down
come here
take me with you
in the air!

Wings flash by
my mind’s eye
and I’m up there sailing
in the cool air,
a-a-a-a-a-ah,
in the air.

translated by Knut Rasmussen

Something in the dark has to become visible.
All those things that do become visible
Are what people call the stars.

translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin