I sing a sad song when I want to weep,
gaze far off when I want to go home.
I miss my old place.
Inside me, a dense mesh of grief.
But there’s no one to go back to,
no boat across that river.
The heart is bursting, but my tongue is dead.
My guts are twisting like a wagon wheel.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
White hair! Three thousand yards of it.
And a sadness, a sorrow, as long.
I don’t understand. Where did my bright mirror
find all this autumn frost?
translated by J.P. Seaton
This night of yellow-blossom wine
Finds me old, my hair white. Joys
I ponder lost to youth, I look out
Across distances. Seasons run together.
Brothers and sisters inhabit desolate
Songs. Heaven and Earth fill drunken eyes.
Warriors and spears, frontier passes. . . .
All day, thoughts have gone on and on.
translated by David Hinton
All dark mystery, I embrace it replete,
alone, night thinning into morning.
In this empty library, I face tall trees,
sparse rain soaking through rustling
leaves. Nesting swallows flutter, wet.
Orchid petals blur across stone steps.
It’s quiet. Memories come, and grief
suddenly caught and buffeted in wind.
translated by David Hinton
I
It’s autumn again. Courtyard trees rustle.
Deep in shadow, insects grieve on and on.
Alone, facing the upper library, I doze,
listening to cold rain clatter in the dark,
window-lattice now and then in the wind
trembling, lamp left failing on the wall.
Grief and sorrow, a lifetime remembered
this far away–all abandoned to the night.
II
Frost and dew spread away–thick, cold.
Star River swings back around, radiant.
Come a thousand niles, north wind rises
past midnight, startling geese. Branches
whisper. Icy leaves fall. And such clarity
in isolate depths of quiet, fulling-stones
grieve. I gaze out through empty space,
tangles of the heart all cold scattered ash.
translated by David Hinton
I raise the curtain and go out
To watch the moon. Leaning on the
Balcony, I breathe the evening
Wind from the west, heavy with the
Odors of decaying Autumn.
The rose jade of the river
Blends with the green jade of the void.
Hidden in the grass a cricket chirps.
Hidden in the sky storks cry out.
I turn over and over in
My heart the memories of
Other days. Tonight as always
There is no one to share my thoughts.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Deep in the mountain,
Trampling the red maple leaves,
I hear the stag cry out
In the sorrow of Autumn.
Oku yama ni
Momiji fumi wake
Naku shika no
Koe kiku toki zo
Aki wa kanashiki
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
The flower’s color has passed,
I gazed on it in vain,
while trying to live my life.
translated by Hiroaki Sato & Burton Watson
The North Wind blows white clouds
a thousand miles and across the Fen
the hopes of my heart shudder and fall
the sounds of autumn are hard to bear
translated by Red Pine
Because my shelter must not be known,
because my poorness must not show,
in hiding through the night I cry.
For somewhere someone weeps like me
I must soak more in the moonlight,
retain the sorrow of my night again
there behind the stone steps.
translated by Ko Won
Being Present for the Moment
Website storys
Illustration, Concept Art & Comics/Manga
Singer, Songwriter and Author from Kyoto, Japan.
Singer, Songwriter and Author from Kyoto, Japan.
An online activist from Bosnia and Herzegovina, based in Sarajevo, standing on the right side of the history - for free Palestine.
A place where I post unscripted, unedited, soulless rants of a insomniac madman
Dennis Mantin is a Toronto-based writer, artist, and filmmaker.
Finding Inspiration
Off the wall, under the freeway, over the rainbow, nothin' but net.
Erm, what am I doing with my life?
Artist by choice, photographer by default, poet by accident.
At Least Trying Too
A Journey of Spiritual Significance
Life in islamic point of view
Through the view point of camera...
L'essenziale è invisibile e agli occhi e al cuore. Beccarlo è pura questione di culo
In Kate's World
Leonard Durso 