China
Bai JuYi (772–846)
Chinese:白居易
Pinyin: Bó Jūyì or Bái Jūyì
Wade-Giles:Po Chü-i or Pai Chü-i
Rain at Night
An early cricket chirps,
then pauses;
the dying lamp gutters
then flares again.
Outside my window
I know it is raining--
the leaves of the banana
first know its drumming.
Spring Visit to Chien-Tang Lake
North of Solitary Mountain Temple
and west of Chia Pavilion
the water's surface is flattened
by the wet feet of clouds.
Early warblers dart and flutter,
squabbling amid warm trees;
around someone's house new swallows
peck mud for their nests.
Wildflowers will soon flourish
enough to overwhelm one's eyes,
but now the shallow grass
barely submerges a horse's hooves.
I love the east lake most--
I don't come this way often enough;
in the shade of green willows
lies White Sand Embankment.
China
Du Fu (712-770)
Chinese:杜甫
Pinyin:Dù Fǔ
Wade-Giles: Tu Fu
The Eight Formations
Your achievements overshadowed
any in the Three Kingdoms;
most famous of all was your design
for the Eight Formations.
Against the river’s surge,
they stand solid, immovable,
a monument to your lasting regret
at failing to swallow up Wu.
Ballad of the Old Cypress
In front of K'ung-ming Shrine
stands an old cypress,
With branches like green bronze
and roots like granite;
Its hoary bark, far round,
glistens with raindrops,
And blueblack hues, high up,
blend in with Heaven's:
Long ago Statesman, King
kept Time's appointment,
But still this standing tree has men's devotion;
United with the mists
of ghostly gorges,
Through which the moon brings cold
from snowy mountains.
(I recall near my hut
on Brocade River
Another Shrine is shared by
King and Statesman
On civil, ancient plains
with stately cypress:
The paint there now is dim,
windows shutterless...)
Wide, wide though writhing roots
maintain its station,
Far, far in lonely heights,
many's the tempest
When its hold is the strength
of Divine Wisdom
And straightness by the work of the Creator...
Yet if a crumbling Hall
needed a rooftree, Yoked herds would, turning heads,
balk at this mountain:
By art still unexposed all have admired it;
But axe though not refused,
who could transport it?
How can its bitter core deny ants lodging,
All the while scented boughs
give Phoenix housing?
Oh, ambitious unknowns,
sigh no more sadly:
Using timber as big
was never easy!
China
Liu Zongyuan (773–819)
Chinese: 柳宗元
Pinyin: Liǔ Zōngyuán
Wade-Giles: Liu Tsungyüan
Fisherman
A fisherman spends the night under West Rock,
pails clear river water and burns bamboo.
Smoke vanishes, sun rises and no one is seen.
The oar-sound turns mountains and water green.
Floating the central current, he turns to gaze at sky
above rock where mindless clouds chase each other.
River Snow
A thousand peaks: no more birds in flight.
Ten thousand paths: all trace of people gone.
In a lone boat, rain cloak and a hat of reeds,
an old man’s fishing the cold river snow.
China
Meng Haoran (689 or 691 - 740)
Chinese: 孟浩然
Pinyin: Mèng Hàorán
Wade-Giles Meng Hao-jan
Japanese: Mōkōren
Asleep in the Spring
Asleep in spring I did not heed the dawn
Till the birds broke out singing everywhere.
Last night, in the clamour of wind and rain.
How many flowers have fallen
do you suppose?
Evening. Anchoring at Hsuan-yang
to See Mount Lu
Lofting sail a thousand miles
I could not find a famous mountain.
I moor my boat outside Hsuan-yang
to gaze at last at Hsiang-lu peak.
Once I read the master monk.
He walked outside this world of dust.
Now his Tung-lin hut lies near;
through evening sun I hear a bell.
China
Yao Feng (1958)
Amsterdam
Arriving by car in Amsterdam, midnight near now
Sex Town’s fame makes the street lights look shady
Even the face of the hotel boss looks like a semen stain
but nothing at all happened, at least not to me
Outside a river floods with a clear morning’s mirrored light
A gloomy day, sunflowers in the Van Gogh Museum
snap sunlight in two, sistering themselves in vases
Night skies wrench, wheat fields impregnated in moonlight
writhe in frenzied waves
From the artist’s mournful self-portrait
I lift an ear dripping with blood and, back in the streets,
find that here
everyone’s organs are intact and ruddy with health
Conquerors
Among those who climbed Mount Everest
quite a few died halfway up
The survivors ascended the summit
Facing the lens, they waved a flag
let the whole world know
their conquest of the world’s first peak
The lens only left out the Sherpas
standing silently in a corner there
They were porters, not counted as conquerors
Pay them two thousand US dollars
and they would help any conqueror
conquer Chomolungma
China
Yi Sha (1966)
Common Knowledge
on the street
in a towering summer heat-wave
a young girl hops
with her hands over her ears
her behaviour is a little odd
there is something beautiful about her
oddness and a so-called beauty
this gives people
the feelings they want
but they pay no attention
to the cause and the source
of her actions
but I know
I have mastered such common knowledge
as a boy
on the way home from the swimming pool
the same movements
would help me get rid of
any last remaining water in my eyes or ears
hotly it would trickle away
and I would then be able to hear the surrounding world again
just like the young girl here before me
I’m sure she’s feeling pretty good
right now
hopping with her hands over her ears
on the street in a towering summer heat-wave
such common knowledge as this
has helped me find a way into a poetry of essentials
The One Face I Remembered
to describe him as repulsively ugly
would be quite appropriate
as well as convenient
but how irresponsible
it seems
a phrase that amounts to saying nothing
because you still wouldn't know
what he actually looked like
his is the only face I've remembered
out of all the strangers I’ve seen
emaciated looking the face of an ordinary worker
by the crematorium furnaces
that day I was pushing
the corpse of my mother along on a trolley
when he blocked my path and said
“Leave it to me. This is not for you.”
I handed over the carton
of Three Five cigarettes I had brought with me
he accepted this without the slightest reaction
and walked away, pushing the trolley
the man who was taking my mother off
to her final resting place
China
Zhai Yongming (1955)
The Lightly Injured
here come the lightly injured
gauze white as their white faces
their wounds sewn up more neatly than the war
here come they come
carrying the things they cherish
parts that have not died
they strip off their uniforms they wash themselves
and use cheques and credit cards
the heavily wounded city seethes with energy
its pulse its temperature rises and falls
faster than war
slower than terror
the heavily wounded city
dispenses with artificial legs and bandages
now it bleeds a green secretion
it provides an all-powerful power of stone
one of the lightly injured lifts up his head
to take a look at those aesthetical constructions
six thousand bombs come crashing down
they leave an arms depot in flames
six thousand bombs burn
like six thousand heavily wounded eyes
hastily lighting up the faces
of those thousands of women with husbands
of men with wives of unmarried men and women
sulphur asphalt cover their bodies
at their feet, tangled rigid frames
a heavily wounded map in hand
the lightly injured from this moment on
go separately in search of those
new vessel buildings
thin forms, light forms and pointed
the neck of this city
now stretches out sharply:
a cinch to slice through
and scaring off a good many cuts
The Black Room
all crows are black-hearted
I’m feeling timid: they have so many
relatives, the numbers are with them, irresistible
however, we four sisters are indispensable
we are the snare in the black room
slim and graceful, back and forth we pace
looking as if victory were within our grasp
yet I play dirty tricks, I am mean inside
while on the surface maintaining a girl’s good temper
walking the same old road to defeat each day
unmarried denizens of the boudoir, we are maidens of a reputable family
smiling resentfully, racking our brains
to give ourselves new airs and graces
young, beautiful, like raging fires
cooking up black and single-minded traps
(those who have crossed borders and schemed meticulously
those with sharpened teeth and bolt upright vision
does that face devoid of undulations belong to the husband of my elder sister?)
at night, I sense
danger lurking in our room
cats and mice wake
we go to sleep, searching in dreams for strange
house numbers, at night
we are ripe, ready to be settled
husbands confounded with wives, and so on and so forth
we four sisters change with each passing day
marriage is still centred on choosing a spouse
the light in the bedroom makes the newlyweds downcast
put it all on the line, I say to myself
home is the place to set out from
Rabindranat Tagor(1861-1941)
Rabindranath Tagore
On the Seashore
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
The Gardener 66
A wandering madman was seeking the touchstone, with matted locks, tawny and dust-laden, and body worn to a shadow, his lips tight-pressed, like the shut-up doors of his heart, his burning eyes like the lamp of a glow-worm seeking its mate.
Before him the endless ocean roared.
The garrulous waves ceaselessly talked of hidden treasures, mocking the ignorance that knew not their meaning.
Maybe he now had no hope remaining, yet he would not rest, for the search had become his life, -- Just as the ocean for ever lifts its arms to the sky for the unattainable --Just as the stars go in circles, yet seeking a goal that can never be reached --Even so on the lonely shore the madman with dusty tawny locks still roamed in search of the touchstone.
One day a village boy came up and asked, "Tell me, where did you come at this golden chain about your waist?"
The madman started--the chain that once was iron was verily gold; it was not a dream, but he did not know when it had changed.
He struck his forehead wildly--where, O where had he without knowing it achieved success?
It had grown into a habit, to pick up pebbles and touch the chain, and to throw them away without looking to see if a change had come; thus the madman found and lost the touchstone.
The sun was sinking low in the west, the sky was of gold.
The madman returned on his footsteps to seek anew the lost treasure, with his strength gone, his body bent, and his heart in the dust, like a tree uprooted.
India
Ajneya (1911-1987)
Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayana
Pen-name Agyeya ("Beyond comprehension")
Tightrope Dancer
There is a taut rope
On which I dance. The taut rope
On which I dance stretches between two poles.
What I dance on the rope
Is the dance from one pole to the other.
The taut rope stretched between two poles on which I dance
Is flooded with bright light
In which people see my dance ---
Not me who dances
Not the rope on which I dance
Not the poles between which the rope is stretched
Not even the light in which the dance is seen :
People see only the dance.
But the dance which I dance
On the rope I dance on
Between the poles on which it is stretched
In the light in which it is seen ---
In that light
Between those poles
On that stretch of rope
In truth I do not dance
I only move from pole to pole, seeking
To loosen the rope
To ease the pull
So I might make my escape.
But the tension does not ease
And I move from that pole to this
The tension continues
Nothing changes.
And that is the dance which people see
Not me who dances
Not the rope
Not the poles
Not the flood of light
Not even the tautness
They see
The Dance.
Loan
I got up this morning, when the sun burst forth and spread everywhere
And one bird had just begun to sing.
I said to the sun: will you give me a little warmth, on credit ?
I said to the bird: will you loan me a bit of sweetness ?
I asked a blade of grass: will you give me a sliver of greenery–
One thorny twig?
I asked the trumpet-flower: will you lend me some light–
A handful of brightness ?
I appealed to the wind: a little open space– just one breath;
To the wave: one thrill of joy.
I requested of the sky
Boundlessness in the blink of an eye– on loan.
I asked them all for a loan, and all gave it.
Thus I lived and still live
Because these things are life itself–
Warmth, sweetness, greenery, radiance,
The sweet breezes of freedom, open space,
Suppleness, delight, the rippling current,
And magnificent consciousness
Of the infinite and the undivided:
All these things I got on credit.
In the lonely darkness of the night
I awoke from a dream, in which
A formless unknown cried out,
And asked me: “Why, sir,
Is this life of yours
So dappled with experiences ?
How wealthy you are–
Will you give me a little love on loan ?
I’ll pay it back a hundredfold–
And that amount too I will multiply a hundred times–
As soon as I return.”
I said: Love ? Loan ?
My voice faltered, because
Such dealings were beyond my experience.
The unseen formless one said: “Yes,
Because all these things are love itself–
This loneliness, this impatience,
This confusion, this agitation,
anguish, inexperience,
This searching, this wondering, this helplessness,
the agony of separation,
Waking in this darkness to realize suddenly that
Mine is the very thing that is beyond me.
You have all this,
So give me a little bit– a loan– this one time–
The thing that I need so desperately.”
He said this,
But alone in the darkness of the night,
I was terrified and remained silent; until now I am silent still:
I am afraid to give a loan
To that unseen stranger:
Who knows
Who he is, this beggar!
India
Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (1908-1974)
Known as: Aag ka Kavi (The poet of fire)
You, who write the destiny of others with a silken pen
Have you ever cried, suffering from acute deprivation?
To be able to buy medicine for a sick child,
Have you ever gone hungry, alongwith the whole family?
Have you seen the fate of helpless farmers
Being washed away by merciless flood waters?
Have you seen them cry out loud, all hope lost,
Thinking, what will they sustain on, the rest of the year?
Have you seen those village beauties
Whose radiance is still covered in dust?
These poor, helpless lasses cannot afford
Let alone silk, even simple dresses.
But you are living luxurious lives in cities,
Why would of think of the sorrows of the ill-fated?
The whole of the nation is ablaze,
But why will you get restless and rush to douse the fire?
India
Gagan Gill (1959)
She Will Come Back In Her Body
She will return in her body
She will need him
Like sins, like virtues.
At some unknown place,
In some unknown room,
She will love him in her heart.
As if walking in a dream,
She will go there,
Uninvited without a reason.
All within herself,
For centuries she’ll sit there
Where the dreams wait
To go crazy in desires.
She will need him
Like a dream
That she saw
Only with her open eyes,
As if he were a shoulder
To lean on to cry.
As if wanting someone is a curse,
An unending wailing
Or a dialogue with self,
She will need him.
As if needing someone is preserving happiness
And keeping sorrow at a distance,
She will need him.
As if it is an incurable malady,
As if it is to get out of a sorcerer’s spell,
She will need him.
She will need him
Like a sin,
Like a virtue
And will return in her body
Like a hidden wound.
Nearing The Hangman's Noose
Nearing the hangman's noose
What is the first man thinking ?
He's thinking— couldn't he
have been the last man ?
Walking towards the rope
suddenly, he realized freedom
from the terror of death.
Suddenly, free of attachment and illusion
Just one thing stays with him—
his envy—
of the last man.
Infinite envy.
Reaching the end
he turns for the first time
and looks
at the last man
as though assuring with his own end
this last man's end as well.
In this helpless dark instant
what else could he have done?
India
Nida Fazli (1938)
Muqtida Hasan Nida Fazli
The Identification
No, he is not one of them,
Neither is he
Nor is he,
I wonder who they were.
These people here are just like me ---
They all have little moons lit in their heartbeats;
They are all, like me, the fuel of the furnace of time
The ones who invaded my hut on that dark night,
And, in front of my eyes,
Burnt my children to death ---
They were not of this world.
Your Honour, I cannot remember their faces.
But, yet, if they are close by,
I shall recognize them by their scent.
They come from that jungle
Where children on their mothers' laps
do not giggle
Bombay
What kind of place is this,
This settlement where I find myself ?
A thousand echoing voices fill the air,
Countless breathes seethe in the breeze.
As far as the eye can see
There are shoulders, hips, shins, legs,
But not a single face.
In the morning, each one, young and old,
Removes his shining eyes,
His cheeks and his smiling lips
From the hollow of his head
And puts them in his pocket.
It is a strange city,
There is no day, no night, no dusk :
The sun rises from the bus seats;
The moon rests in a dark hovel.
There is nothing here
But trains and buses,
Insensible seas crawling over the earth,
Buildings swallowing buildings.
How can you awaken this grave island ?
You will be broken struggling against yourself,
There is not a single face
To be seen.
India
Rajendra Bhandari (1956)
The time does not pass
Baje has become incapable of going down to the fields
Last year, using a stick, he could reach the yard
This time he only made it to the porch
After a three-day confinement, Baje passed away.
Boju passed away
Then mother began to pass away
At first she passed from the yard to the porch
At the porch she became a scarecrow to the grain
drying in the yard
The light passed from her eyes,
from her legs, the strength to stand
even as her desires were passing,
she passed away herself.
One day, a wild young thing flirted with me
But like a calm lake, I pooled by her side
Youth was passing from me
In the yellow autumn, in the fields
the paddy was passing into haystacks
the grain had passed and become manure
The world itself is passing every day
The atmosphere is passing into the ozone hole
With the passing of seedling, and of plant
the passing of flower and dead leaves
the passing of leaf and shoot
the passing of bud and flower
with these passages
the venerable lotus passed from the face of the earth
But time has not passed
Time is just not there
Time would pass, if at all it existed.
The expanding universe
Abandoning ancestral homelands of meaning
words find new shelter.
From lisping and napkins
through the attire, moustaches of youth
I’m heading towards wrinkles and walking sticks.
From where I stand
the graveyard is nearer than my home.
The noonday shadow
under my foot
stretches in the afternoon.
Everything is running further:
Mother’s embraces, Father’s blessings,
the childhood landscapes
the playground of my youth
the bamboo groves.
My classmates who used to be punished together for
multiplication mistakes
are disappearing:
Bhakta Bahadur … died in an accident,
Ambarey … joined the army,
Rajaman, Dilip, Kesang … no news of them,
backbencher Ramey is a distantly smiling officer.
After an unknown big bang
villages, neighbours, friends, cities
form supernovas.
Spaces fly from sight, gasp, body.
The past remains a misty phantom.
All escapes all
from temples, God
from hearts, hope,
from courts, justice,
from embraces, intimacy
and I, from myself
the sky, from the sky.
India
Vaidehi (1945)
Janaki Srinivasa Murthy
Pen name: Vaidehi
She, he and language
She said, hunger, thirst.
He said, eat well, drink.
She wept.
He smiled.
The other day he said, window,
not door as she’d imagined.
Wall, he said.
She thought it was space –
was it because all is revealed
when a wall breaks?
She prepared his favourite payasam
What he ate was rayatham.
Why is everything so topsy-turvy?
Was there no air between them,
and so no waves either?
Heads down, words in water
send out a forlorn cry.
It was then that suicide was mentioned.
What did he say?
He found it funny, didn’t he?
It happens sometimes.
The sea isn’t the sea.
What one assumes to be the shore
is the mere hump of fish-back.
You say something
Another meaning unfolds.
The banter of words, you know.
She: Be honest and tell me,
Which one of us is more insane?
He: What did you say?
Which one wishes to die first?
She: It’s hot. Shall I open the window for some air?
He: What? Hunger, thirst?
My Mother's Sari
There, in the wooden box
my mother’s sari, enveloped in white muslin,
with mothballs.
Her sense of order is in each one
of its folds,
and the press of her palm.
A universe of ironing lies beneath the pillow.
Tiny packets of camphor, incense and fragrant roots –
her perfume.
My mother’s sari’s tucked-in eagerness
coupled with the jingling of bangles
is the zest to get down to work.
Lines running across the broad pallu,
the unbroken bridges of an upright life,
keeping all evil at bay –
a cane to reprove naughty children.
Folds tucked into a knot,
a mysterious treasure-house of meanings,
the pretty yellow Madhura sari
with its green border of blooms ...
... that queen was perhaps like my mother.
Endless is my mother’s sari –
the more I wrap it around me, the more it grows.
I remember becoming a midget once
trying to measure it,
trying to drape it.
My mother’s sari –
the latex of mango and cashew,
a heaven of Ranja, Kepala and Suragi
golden wheat-beads auguring
the New Year Kani,
the old rolling over each year
to yield a new import.
My mother’s sari,
with stars all over its body,
shields those in distress
from rain or shine,
it glows uniquely in the darkness
My mother’s sari
of voile or handloom,
with a small dream of silk
When the dream came true,
Father was no more.
She wears it now
but the dream is gone.
There! My mother’s old, Udupi weavers’ sari
looks at me from where it hangs.
I unfold it and envelop myself in it
uttering with a long sigh
the word ‘Amma’ –
a word that remains forever fresh,
however worn with use.
Rumi (1207–1273)
Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī (مولانا جلال الدین محمد بلخى),
Known as: Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (جلالالدین محمد رومی),
The Rubaiyat
Time bringeth swift to end
The rout men keep;
Death's wolf is nigh to rend
These silly sheep.
See, how in pride they go
With lifted head,
Till Fate with a sudden blow
Smiteth them dead.
Thou who lovest, life a crow,
Winter's chill and winter's snow,
Ever exiled from the vale's
Roses red, and nightingales:
Take this moment to thy heart!
When the moment shall depart,
Long thou 'lt seek it as it flies
With a hundred lamps and eyes.
The heavenly rider passed;
The dust rose in the air;
He sped; but the dust he cast
Yet hangeth there.
Straight forward thy vision be,
And gaze not left or night;
His dust is here, and he
In the Infinite.
Who was he that said
The immortal spirit is dead,
Or how dared he say
Hope's sun hath passed away?
An enemy of the sun,
Standing his roof upon,
Bound up both his eyes
And cried: 'Lo, the sun dies!'
'Who lifteth up the spirit,
Say, who is he?'
'Who gave in the beginning
This life to me.
Who hoodeth, life a falcon's,
Awhile mine eyes,
But presently shall loose me
To hunt my prize.'
As salt resolved in the ocean
I was swallowed in God's sea,
Past faith, past unbelieving,
Past doubt, past certainty.
Suddenly in my bosom
A star shone clear and bright;
All the suns of heaven
Vanished in that star's light.
Flowers every night
Blossom in the sky;
Peace in the Infinite;
At peace am I.
Sighs a hundredfold
From my heart arise;
My heart, dark and cold,
Flames with my sighs.
He that is my souls' repose
Round my heart encircling goes,
Round my heart and soul of bliss
He encircling is.
Laughing from my earthy bed
Like a tree I lift my head,
For the Fount of Living mirth
Washes round my earth.
The breeze of the morn
Scatters musk in its train,
Fragrance borne
From my fair love's lane.
Ere the world wastes,
Sleep no more: arise!
The caravan hastes,
The sweet scent dies.
If life be gone, fresh life to you
God offereth,
A life eternal to renew
This life of death.
The Fount of Immorality
In Love is found;
The come, and in this boundless sea
Of Love be drowned.
Happy was I
In the pearl's heart to lie;
Till, lashed by life's hurricane,
Life a tossed wave I ran.
The secret of the sea
I uttered thunderously;
Like a spent cloud on the shore
I slept, and stirred no more.
He set the world aflame,
And laid me on the same;
A hundred tongues of fire
Lapped round my pyre.
And when the blazing tide
Engulfed me, and I sighed,
Upon my mouth in haste
His hand He placed.
Though every way I try
His whim to satisfy,
His every answering word
Is a pointed sword.
See how the blood drips
From His finger-tips;
Why does He find it good
To wash in my blood?
Remembering Thy lip,
The ruby red I kiss;
Having not that to sip,
My lips press this.
Not to Thy far sky
Reaches my stretched hand,
Wherefore kneeling, I
Embrace the land.
I sought a soul in the sea
And found a coral there;
Beneath the foam for me
An ocean was all laid bare.
Into my heart's night
Along a narrow way
I groped; and lo! the light,
An infinite land of day.
Iran
Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980)
سهراب سپهری
The fishes’ message
I went to the pond
Hoping to see the reflection of my loneliness in the water
There was no water in the pond.
The fishes were saying:
"“It is not the trees’ fault at all.
It was a sultry summer noon,
The bright son of water, sat by the pond's edge
And the eagle of the sun dived down and lifted him up & up in the air.
To hell with our not reaching any oxygen from water.
And the glitter has left our scales all together.
Instead, that big light,
The reflection of that red carnation in the water
Whoes heart, if the wind was blowing, would beat behind the layers of neglect,
was our eyes.
It was a window to the confession of paradise.
If you see God in the palpitations of the garden,
Make an effort and tell him that the fishes'’ pond is dry."”
The wind was going to visit the plane tree,
I was going to visit God.
Night of pleasant loneliness
Listen, the world's farthest bird is singing.
The Night is fluid, whole, and open.
Geraniums
And the loudest branch of the season, hear the moon.
Stairs in front of the building,
Door with lantern in hand,
And the lavish breeze,
Listen, the road is calling your steps from afar.
Your eye is not the darkness's ornament.
Shake your eyelids, put on your shoes and come.
Come until the moon's feather alerts you
And Time sits with you on a lump of earth
And the psalms of night, absorbs your body
Like a piece of music.
There is a pious man there who will tell you:
The best thing is to come upon a look that is still moist with love's advent.
India
Mohammad Reza Shafii Kadkani (1939)
Passage
The march continues and night walks at the margin,
The mountain heights and plains of the traveler
Have found their shape again and brightness
- which is the creator of existence -
Created them again.
The march continues and from the window of the train
I send my love greetings to the mountains and plains
- For the young running brook is a bright youth in an old
burning desert -
The freshness of the open and morning air
From the tresses of a girl - who has let fall the stream of the hairs on the shoulder of the wind through the window -
I relate a true and lovely tale.
The march continues and at the break of morning
The pistachio trees alongside the road,
Have bestowed their green peace to the stream
And the annual growth of the tender vine trees
- After enduring the ugliness of a brown color -
Have bestowed their soreness to the cloud, wind, water and sun.
The march continues and amid surprised fields,
The wild pigeons, from around the wells,
Are looks of surprise towards the sky,
Which march and march and march
Beyond belief, on the other side of whim.
The march continues and the loving message of deserts to clouds,
The eternal greeting of the breezes to hills,
The tender and soft prostration of valleys,
The pure and snow coated pride of mountain peaks,
The innocent march of flocks in the plains,
The green grazing of sheep, rams and lambs.
The march continues and spring with all its vastness
Carries me who have been left behind caged in the city
Towards boundless spheres,
And thankful of all this purity and freedom - more free than God -
I bestow all my existence
- Which is a moment of a strange song of the lawn -
To your vastness.
Time continues and the journey ends.
The song of wind and rain
You are kinder than a leaf under the kisses of rain
The wakefulness of stars in the eyes of streams
The mirror of your eyes the unity of morning and shore
Your rare smile a star-pouring morning
Come back, cause in your absence, my silent insanity
Made the mountainous rocks scream
You running brook, don't run from this shadow leaf
Since this opportunity has been missed by so many
The wall of life has been painted with memories
By many before you and me
You said : "Love has set in my heart over time," I said:
You can not strike it out even by time
Till remains in the world the song of wind and rain
Our love melody will remain after you and me
Iran
Robab Moheb (1953)
God’s small beings (1)
Alef
Lam
Mim.
in the Order of the Prophet
an invisible singer of my faith
in the Order of Love
but with
only the caprice of a gulp and
this tiny hyacinth entwists my crystal body.
God’s small beings (2)
Man, sinks in the mirror
woman,
grows up in the mirror.
God’s small beings (3)
Relation
a reverse beginning
on the way of lost voyagers of dreams.
God’s small beings (4)
Man,
a burnt stub
Woman,
her heart lost to
the powder compact.
God’s small beings (5)
When the grey curtain of the nights
from the verdant stature of panicles
fell
the Meteor of Lust
was also
dead.
God’s small beings (6)
Without shoes,
bare feet, his heart
man moved through life,
through sand,
smoke
and
fog
meanwhile
woman had already arrived.
God’s small beings (7)
Nothing but merchants, they were,
for two rings of copper
the marvellous stature of panicles, early love of youths, only once
sold.
God’s small beings (8)
Once
they set the sails of their
imagination
the seas
looked surprised
as they stared into the tender breeze of storms.
God’s small beings (9)
In strains and curves of caress
free from error
the lover
mistakenly
desired his damsel.
God’s small beings (10)
The Gods of desire are
the strays in the alleys in the ruins of the soul,
the maniacs
of the excitement of the body.
God’s small beings (11)
The horizon,
they mourn,
in the maze of their voicelessness, their sightless emotions
abhorrent, exiled
cast out
to the dark dungeon of the heart
still
chained, chained to the shackles of
love.
God’s small beings (12)
The infant wishes in its first steps
to be captive in a bundle
tied up in blind trust.
God’s small beings (13)
Like glass
not to withstand the stone
this victim of the firing squad in my line of sight.
God’s small beings (14)
Woman
says goodbye to her bed
gently
beginning the daily tragedy
man
deforms body
tangled in linen
and yawns
his befuddled gratitude
crying out.
* * *
Between rise and fall
were only a few minutes.
God’s small beings (15)
Before they were born into the world,
dead, they were,
bare to the bone
naked.
Tuvya Ruebner (1924)
I Am Not the Man
I am not the man you search for.
I passed through the sea and in between stones.
An ill wind was blowing.
Soon the almond tree will flower, very soon.
Mountains will dance.* Kindly wait a while.
I am not the man. A bell will ring,
the heavy curtain will rise, sleep
will flutter lighter than eyelids. I am not the man.
You will sift through these ashes in vain.
I am not the man you search for.
Before You the Rain
Before you the ancient rain
warmth on your back, you stand and think
how few the words
a man needs in life
You think of him who sees all this, and him
whose face is the wind, and the falling of the leaves, and rain
tapping the glass.
Israel
Yocheved Bat-Miriam (1901-1980)
יוכבד בת-מרים
The monasteries lift gold domes ...
The monasteries lift gold domes,
crosses, crosses. I weary, seeing them.
I speak in parables and they are strange;
otherwise, I could not meditate.
The memory of the ancient generations
rises like a vision: a temple strong and splendid.
The roads are humming like encircling rivers,
an exultant throng draws near.
We have fled, today, the parables of Mount Hermon,
of Mount Gilboa and the fields of Carmel;
Sharon and Galilee mourn only in the adage,
the lordly cedar only in the proverb.
Left with my poverty, I envy
every sown valley rising like a song.
An exile, strange to every wind,
may I be given field and fallow land.
Oh may my home be like a kneeling camel,
my days move onward like yoked mules;
my silent soul howls like the jackals,
and cries out like the sea!
Israel
Dahlia Ravikovitch (1936-2005)
דליה רביקוביץ
Clockwork Doll
I was a clockwork doll that night,
and I turned left and I turned right
and when I fell and broke to bits,
they recomposed my wax and wits.
I was a proper doll once more,
my manner carefully demure;
and yet a doll of another kind—
an injured twig that tendrils bind.
And when they asked me to a ball—
although my steps were rhythmical,
they partnered me with dog and cat.
My hair was gold, my eyes were blue.
I wore a dress where flowers grew.
Cherries blazed on my straw hat.
Israel
Natan Alterman (1910–1970)
נתן אלתרמן
The spinner
Silent the girl at the spindle
spun a scarlet thread.
She has spun me a royal mantle,
a king in his throne-room said.
Silent the girl at the spindle
spun a black midnight thread.
She has spun me a robe for the scaffold,
a thief in his dungeon said.
Silent the girl at the spindle
spun a golden thread.
She has spun me a garment to play in,
a wandering mummer said.
Silent the girl at the spindle
spun an old grey thread.
She has spun us a coat to mourn in,
a beggar and his mongrel said.
She took all the threads from the spindle
for the last robe she would spin.
Then down she went to the river
and washed her pure white skin.
And she put on the robe of her weaving—
no brighter ever was seen.
And now she is thief and beggar,
and she is mummer and queen.
Israel
Robert Friend (1913-1998)
Exorcism
I know who's scratching at the door.
Clock, there's no use yawning.
More than boards are loose in the floor—
I wasn't born this morning.
Beneath your gurgle, Water Tap,
I hear the water slither.
I know you well, Barometer,
and all your inner weather.
Soap, you're not all lather,
and Cane, you're more than stick.
I know who hangs on you, Clothes Hanger.
I know you, wicked Wick.
I hear your silence, Telephone.
I know your meaning, Saw.
O wily, absent-minded Fly,
I've heard your voice before.
I have turned about thrice,
blinded the mirror,
snipped the end of my laces
with a rusty scissors,
trod on my shadow,
strewn on my pillow
three seeds of the fern
and a leaf of the willow.
Be gone, ogre of the Candle,
djinn of the grinning Fire;
be gone, harpy of the Lintel,
worm of the winding Wire.
Cerberus of the Threshold,
run howling through the town;
imp of the Ingle, shrivel;
nymph of the Mirror, drown.
Die, demon of the Cupboard;
fly, spectre of the Stair;
and die, you lean Clock's warden
who whispers in my ear.
Israel
Dana Amir (1966)
Poems from the emergency room
Everyone’s sleeping. The Arab girl in the bed next to you,
her mother, the one whose name sounds
like joy, the medical secretary
who's named the way we would have named
your sister,
if you had a sister.
And I sit at your bedside, lurking
in the dark in ambush for pain as I would
for a rapist.
Your body thins away. Only your face widens at night,
Your orbits gaping like two dry throats.
Fear is dry too, permeating the bones mutely.
I take care to dress you with clothes smelling of home.
That's how I mark you as not from here.
You are so distracted, always starting from the middle,
offended by being misunderstood, by needing
words, like the rest of us.
You measure pain the way we measure height.
My dreams endure the time passing
between sighs.
Night translates love into simple acts: straightening the pillow,
rinsing the chamber pot, covering you up. Treating smells
with detachment,
counting deeds instead of moments. Son, I say to you, son.
And I remember how someone asked, on the morning of your circumcision,
whether you were my first born,
and I swelled with tears, still, silent, like a lake.
Israel
Nathan Wasserman (1962)
Odysseus
Hours later it occurred to me:
I had leaned over the rail at the world’s
navel
in Delos that floats on the water
under the sun exposed as light and flaming oil
like a primordial egg falling down the sides of a cooking pot.
This is the shrine without adjectives
and the women dance slowly on the blue tiles
circle and look each other in the eye,
the edges of their dresses wet and their breaths
scarves, tambourines in their hands, their scent of faraway salt.
I remembered the darkness spreading over me
like an eyelid still sensing the moisture of the pupil widening underneath.
Hard to cross the water around a flickering heart.
Flesh wrapped in flesh between the sheets and the odor of honey and seaweed
fill another afternoon, there’s no more wax to seal the collapsing will,
and the chest box fills with sand. Evening arrives and the children, damp-haired,
laugh, grow distant from me, as I lean on the rail,
converting days into the folds of wet sails.
Israel
Lea Goldberg (1911)
To a picture of my mother
Your picture is so calm. You are other:
Proud, a bit, and embarrassed at being - my mother.
Accompanying me with a tear and a yielding smile
You never ask: "Who?"
You never wondered, never raged, when I came
To you daily demanding: "I need!"
With your own hands you gave all
Only because I am - me.
More than I, you remember today
My childhood's sorrows, and what your soul knew then:
The day your grown daughter would come to you,
She would bring with her grief that had grown up too.
Yes. I'll come broken, and not ask how you are.
I'll not cry in your arms, not whisper: "Mama!"
You'll know then:
He who left me was dearer to me than you,
And you'll never ask: "Who?"
Israel
Tamir Lahav-Radlmesser (1953)
Operation successful
I am one of the arteries
That clogged my father’s heart.
Then came the surgeons
Cut me
And released him.
Song of David
Look at the skies David / look / they¹re blue / Saturday / the skies are transparent / bluish gray / on the Sabbath / for the Lord ended / let¹s sit / here / on the sand dune / and let our eyes behold / the skies / the sand / and the eye is full of His sand / right and left / lets look / smoke a cigarette / we¹ll look at the silence / a bird did not chirp / we¹ll look / look at the skies / David / look at the skies / airplanes / one plane / David / a second plane / David / and a third / and a fourth David / look how beautiful / how elegant / silvery / drawing / circles in the air / plane following plane / how handsome / raise your eyes David and see / waving their wings / the planes / circling and waving / at one another¹s tail / David / now they¹re declining / declining / circling and declining / look David / so low / grazing sand / the planes / now the pilot in his canopy / and the second and the third and the fourth / David / now we are hidden under the shelter of their wings / look David / look / fire in their wings / fire / look / fire is coming down from heaven / fire / fire / fire from heaven / towards you David / towards me / fire is sent / get up and run / David / get up and run / get up and run / look David / here is the machine-gun / here¹s mine / lie on your back / David / lie / gun-barrels to heaven / gun barrels to heaven / pull David / pull / I¹m pulling / fire from heaven / machine-gun fire / fire to fire in the air / here they are circling / again / circling / one and two and a third and a fourth / circling / fire in their wings / fire and thunder / in their wings / squeeze the trigger / David / squeeze / don¹t let go / we won¹t let go / fire rises to heaven / fire comes down / heaven and earth / down comes the fire / heaven have mercy / have mercy He who abides in highest heavens / fire touches fire / now the pilot¹s eyes / now my eyes in his / now his wings catch fire / we¹ve hit David / we¹ve hit / don¹t let go / we won¹t let go / we¹ve hit / David / no hit / now thunder / before him flow streams of fire / fire consumes fire / the fire is in us / now sand is in the air / now you land / David / land / upon me / you land / David / rise David / rise / you¹re heavy David / rise / David / and squeeze the trigger / role yourself off me / David / David / David / rise Man Greatly Beloved / your head is filled with dewy lights / your locks with the dewdrops of the night / your body all openings and cavities / cavities and holes / your body is heavy upon me / rise I say / rise I say / right now / rise / please David / pray awaken / wake I beseech thee / pray stand / pray rise up / pray rise / David / rise / right now / we¹ll listen to the silence / look at the skies / bluish gray / fire on the Sabbath / for the Lord ended / we¹ll listen to the silence / David / it¹s so quiet here / and hot / October and hot / hot blood / hot blood / my fingers in your holes / to keep your blood from streaming / from overflowing / lest your bowels be troubled for us / lest you perish / David / lest you cease / Our Father our King act for the sake of those who went into fire / for those who went into fire, beheading and strangling / act / for those asleep in the dust / act / right now / act / act I say / act / act with us and for thy name / to increase our days / act / act now / right now / act / the sand bubbles / the fire is lofty / the wind / the wind / clouds no more / rain no more / wind no more / blood / no more
Ono no Komachi (825—c. 900)
小野小町
You do not come
On this moonless night.
I wake wanting you.
My breasts heave and blaze.
My heart burns up.
-----------------------------
Doesn’t he realize
that I am not
like the swaying kelp
in the surf,
where the seaweed gatherer
can come as often as he wants.
-----------------------------
On such a night as this
When no moon lights your way to me,
I wake, my passion blazing,
My breast a fire raging, exploding flame
While within me my heart chars
-----------------------------
The flowers withered
Their color faded away
While meaninglessly
I spent my days in the world
And the long rains were falling.
Japan
Murasaki Shikibu (973–1014 or 1025)
This life of ours would not cause you sorrow
if you thought of it as like
the mountain cherry blossoms
which bloom and fade in a day.
-----------------------------
Someone passes,
And while I wonder
If it is he,
The midnight moon
Is covered with clouds.
Japan
Izumi Shikibu (970-1030)
和泉式部
In the dusk the path
You used to come to me
Is overgrown and indistinguishable,
Except for the spider webs
That hang across it
Like threads of sorrow.
-----------------------------
Soon I shall cease to be.
When I am beyond this world,
can I have the memory
of just one more meeting?
-----------------------------
Out of the darkness
on a dark path,
I now set out.
Shine on me,
moon of the mountain edge.
Japan
Bashō (1644–1694)
Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉)
Matsuo Kinsaku (松尾 金作)
Pen name: Sōbō (宗房)
Autumn evening —
A crow on a bare branch.
-----------------------------
An old pond —
The sound
Of a diving frog.
-----------------------------
On this road
No one will follow me
In the Autumn evening.
-----------------------------
Summer grass
Where warriors dream.
-----------------------------
The tree from whose flower
This perfume comes
Is unknowable.
Japan
Issa (1763-1828)
Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶
Wild goose, wild goose,
At what age
Did you make your first journey?
-----------------------------
In my life
As in the twilight,
A bell sounds.
I enjoy the freshness of evening.
-----------------------------
So this is where
I end up living -
Five feet of snow.
Where I come from
Even flies
Bite.
Japan
Hiroshi Kawasaki (1930 - 2004)
So very
What’s that,
so far away –
something running extremely fast,
so far, far
away,
being beaten black and blue,
as if its body has been thrashed
to a pulp,
as if it’s making
a faint, faint sound?
Incredibly fast ...
Is some old friend of mine
having
a terrible time of it?
Is every loathsome memory of mine
running
this way
with unstoppable force?
Or
is a car
overloaded with flowers
being torn apart
and laughing strangely?
Incredibly fast, that ...
So very far away.
My old lady said
This morning
my old lady in her bed
said,
too clearly for delirium,
“Crazy!”
That’s all –
only that.
She was about to wake up.
So I knew
straight away –
“Oh, it’s
about me.”
She is not
insane.
Sorry.
Japan
Masayo Koike (1959)
Her Words Return
I have few friends
Among my few friends Miss Jôgasaki
Liked bright, easy to understand
Flowers like gerberas
She had no dark side
I am not Mino Monta* but
No matter how old she got
I wanted to call her ‘young lady’
Once in our workplace many of us played a game of depth psychology
fortune-telling
Each item had a picture and a question and you had to write a simple
comment and answer
Later the meanings of the pictures were revealed
For example, the number of flowers indicated the number of future
children one might have
It was just a stupid game but all of a sudden everyone got excited
Normally she stood apart from others and was a quiet, still person but
Unexpectedly she joined in the game
And
One of the items
Had the words
‘I want to do it’ attached
This was hidden from the group but
It was actually an item measuring one’s sex drive
When this was revealed
Miss Jôgasaki cast her eyes down completely lost her presence of mind
and grew horribly embarrassed
We felt as if we had committed a terrible sin
Miss Jôgasaki died soon after from uterine cancer
I suppose she was a few years over forty
She remained single and never suffered in her life so
She always looked no more than twenty-five
Sometimes
Her words come to me
In a casual way as if someone had forgotten a delivery
Again and again as if her words were not quite there
From the other world
They lightly arrive ah, they’ve come, then, when I am quiet
Like potato starch dissolving in water
The grief slowly settles at the bottom
I know that the surface of this world grows more and more transparent
I too with my eyes downcast
Fervently
Wait
For something to pass through me
Antelope
It was the autumn of my fifth year when I encountered the antelope
In the hot springs spa deep in the Hodaka mountain range
The antelope silently drew near
Through the steam it looked at my naked body
I too stared at the antelope
Separated from the herd an antelope
Me completely on my own
I scooped up hot water from the spa in the palm of my hand
And threw it at the antelope
It was a greeting in lieu of language but
The antelope seemed a little startled
When I saw the furry chest of the antelope wet with hot water
I felt as if the solitude of the antelope had moistened
The wind swept across
The leaves on the trees shook
Finally the antelope silently turned around
Silently sprang up and returned to the mountains
To the spa in my dreams
In the dead of night gently I put my toes into the hot water
Through the steam opposite I can hear faint steps
That antelope
Returns each time
Not looking at anything with its cosmic vast eyes
Drops of water from its furry chest
Dripping drip drip
Japan
Inuo Taguchi (1967)
Lives of great men (Selected)
Lenin
Lenin is relieved
that the bronze statue of himself was taken down.
In fact for half-a-century
he has wanted to lie down in Red Square
and listen to the Beach Boys,
on some fine Sunday afternoon, for instance,
with his family and close friends, of course.
But he could not confess this sort of thing to anyone,
so he has kept standing as a bronze statue.
Imagine yourself a bronze statue.
Just standing watching history
would wear on him.
Newton
Under an apple tree
Newton encountered the Law of Universal Gravitation
and instantly fell in love with her.
Ah, she was indeed his eternal lover –
the universal love and the universality which was love.
That night he applied all his skill
to the writing of a love letter
entitled,
'On the Law of Universal Gravitation and Her Passionate Function.'
The Law of Universal Gravitation, however,
didn't give a damn about Newton,
because she was crazy about the quadrille
which was popular at that time.
Superman
Superman is strolling the garden
in his wheelchair.
Life is cruelty itself,
though sunlight falling down at this moment
is grace itself.
When I was flying the sky
I was still very young.
I was flying, surely,
but I still didn't yet know
what it meant
to be flying the sky.
But now it's different.
To fly the sky is,
as it were,
to move your little finger,
and even at that no more than half-an-inch.
Life is like a sublime joke.
But it's funny,
isn't it? You have to get a wheelchair
and then you can become superman.
Morning discussion
I had a strange dream.
An airplane –
it doesn't fall straight down
but crashes horizontally.
“Don't ask me how.
It happened in my dream.”
Now, in this ‘modern’ world
it's common for vertical things to change into horizontal.
So it's nothing to make a fuss about
that a plane should crash horizontally.
“Why are you making such a big deal out of it?
Nonsense is commonsense nowadays.”
Don't worry. If you tip over you glass, wine will spill out.
If you let go of a knife, it'll fall straight down.
Our world, as ever,
obeys divine providence.
What doesn't obey it is your dream and –
“No, don't turn on the television.
It's never told us good stories. It never will.”
I am listening to the morning discussion half-heartedly,
for I only want to think about poetry.
But my thoughts suddenly turn to the grasslands of Kharakhorum.
There, too, are things that should be floating in air floating in air?
There, too, is what should be falling falling?
Do things never crash horizontally?
Is what should be landing landing
and what should be ascending ascending?
Suddenly I feel like confirming it
and begin to be restless.
The soul begins slowly spiraling.
A kitchen kettle
begins honking like a horn.
Japan
Kiji Kutani (1984)
Day and Night
There came
the smell
of grilling
meat.
Air
bundled in
the dark of night
got in the way
of my feet
as I headed home
on the path
by the river.
From the depths
of windows
whose yellow mouths
stood open
and hollow
there came
the smell
of grilling
meat.
For the rest of my life,
no doubt,
day and night
my genitals
will stay warm
forever
I realized
and
like a child
was on the point of
weeping
silent tears.
Hello Goodbye
Even if time
stretched like taffy
from past to future —
that wouldn’t be so bad.
On waking in the morning
while brushing my teeth in front of the mirror
I could review over and over
a conclusion I’d just come to.
It’s okay. My face today
is no different from yesterday;
it’s not a bit ashen.
After I brush my teeth
I’ll put on some lipstick, get into my spacesuit,
and tumble on up
the morning-moist slope.
(running out of the front door
in my stockinged feet)
The butcher’s wife
calls “hello hello”
to a dirigible on TV
and cops
drop their lines
on shiny green lawns.
A vision of partition
blinding as thermal paper
presses towards my back
with fish-like rhythm
(for the habit of saying
an immediate farewell)
(to all those I’ve met
or collided with)
(let it be only a
wisp of wind)
(I still haven’t
found a cure)
so there you are.
Ch'ŏn Sang-Pyŏng (1930-1993)
Hangul: 천상병
Hanja: 千祥炳
Revised Romanization: Cheon Sang-byeong
McCune-Reischauer: Ch'ŏn Sang-pyŏng
Seagull
Sheer yearning
transformed the seagull
into a cloud.
In the blue sea's name
it dyed its white wings in the sky,
evidently joyful;
then the sea,
with its so bright breast
flowed after the cloud to distant lands.
Many times
many times
it was splendor flying high.
It was a beautiful heart.
Rendez-vous
I wonder why I'm standing
on this dreary road
where there's not a single tree?
A long road
not a new road
mile after mile of road, of red dirt road
like dusk
like tomorrow
I must be waiting for something.
Korea
Ku Sang (1919-2004)
Wings
When I first began to toddle
the very first thing I felt
was the fact that my legs and arms
would not move just as I wanted them to.
And now I am close on seventy
what once again I feel
is the fact that my legs and arms
will not move just as I want them to.
Once I would totter towards
my mother's outstretched hands
and now as I live gasp by gasp
clinging to unseen outstretched hands
what I am hoping and longing for is
not a jet plane
or a spaceship
but an experience of the ecstasy of donning wings,
like a caterpillar as it becomes a butterfly,
and, joining with the angels, to fly and fly
with the whole cosmos as my flowery field:
that ecstasy.
Rebirth
You should not make the mistake of thinking
that the childlike heart the sages proclaim
is the state that precedes the age of discretion;
for that kind of infancy, infant immaturity,
is shackled by instinctive impulses
or else is merely complacent and narrow,
while the spirit of childhood
that we have to attain
is an innocence, a simplicity,
an artlessness
that arise from 'rebirths' such as
recognition of the truth
and victory over self.
Korea
Seo Jeong-ju (1915-2000)
Hangul: 서정주
Hanja: 徐廷柱
Revised Romanization: Seo Jeong-ju
McCune-Reischauer: Sŏ Chŏng-ju
Pen name:
Hangul: 미당
Hanja; 未堂
Revised Romanization: Midang
McCune-Reischauer: Midang
Midang (lit. "not yet fully grown").
A whispered secret
Suni! Yongi! And Nam gone to rest!
Open your firmly closed ash-hued gates and come out,
see the flower-buds lingering at the fringes of the sky!
See the unfolding flower-buds cheek to cheek,
at the cozy fringes of the sky, tents woven
with endless silk strands for warp and weft.
Suni! Yongi! And Nam gone to rest!
See
the flower-buds breathing
at the fringes of the springtime sky, warm as a loving breast.
To a turtle
Turtle, slowly slowly paddling across the stream,
evenly quietly breathing, go ploughing on.
Go, parting with your claws the springtime petals
that drop to the furrowed waters like distant echoes
of secret whispers, then return.
Today my heart has caught fire again,
so that all my face is ablaze.
My speechless limbs are all a-tremble
like those of a new-born grasshopper
as the rays of the setting sun decline.
Turtle,
poke out and flourish your green head under the clouds
and I'll beat my drum,
I'll beat my booming drum, turtle.
Sunset has come for me and my brethren,
purple twilight glimmers on distant hills;
I beg you, though you may be hoarse,
speak one word with the old, age-old voice
of the blood that flows under your thick shell.
Korea
Chong Sei-Hun (1955)
Don't call me a poet
Don't call me a poet
don't call me a writer
just call me a worker
Call me a worker
born in a poor family
a laborer from early youth
Poets sing
I don't sing
I only talk
as the poor head of a family
as a woman's husband
as the dad of two kids
a worker with no hidden land
no learning
no powerful friends
I just talk
of how I live
loving this world
Don't call me a poet
call me a worker
busily selling my labour to live.
Empty Field
It was quite
empty
I could see
nothing at all
I could hear
nothing at all.
it was
still
like my mother's loving heart.
Owning nothing
it seemed
to have nothing to give me
So why
do I keep wanting to cry?
Speechless empty field
my old mother!
Korea
Hwang Ji-u (1950)
Winter--from the tree springtime--to the tree
With its own being, a tree is a tree.
With all its being, a tree becomes a tree.
With all its being, stripped bare, thirteen degrees below zero
twenty degrees below zero, above ground,
rooting firmly all its being, raising high its head
standing as a defenceless naked tree
standing with arms raised, in an attitude of punishment,
with punished body, rising up, with punished life, and yet
not so, that is not what it is.
anguished in all its spirit, burning within, in its being
standing firm, resisting from degrees below zero to degrees above zero,
five above zero, thirteen above zero, above ground
advancing, advancing upward.
All its body blistered, bruised bruised,
then splitting and pushing out buds with its own warm tongue,
that slowly, gradually, abruptly turn into green leaves
hitting against the blue skies of April
with all its being a tree becomes a tree.
Ah, a tree at last, finally, blooming
is a tree blooming with its own being.
Even the Birds are Leaving the World
Before the film starts we all
rise and listen to the National Anthem.
With the Three thousand ri of wondrous rivers and hills
flocks of white birds appear on the screen,
a vast host on the great reedbeds of Ulsuk Island,
honking together
giggling together
in their own world, one row two rows three rows line by line
taking their own world with them as they leave this world,
flying off to somewhere beyond this world.
We too, would love to go flying off together
somewhere beyond this world,
giggling,
nudging,
forming one line
taking our own world with us as we leave this world
but with the words Guarded by her people,
ever may Korea stand
we each sit down in our seats again.
Collapse back into our seats.
Korea
Kim Sŭng-Hŭi (1952)
The hardest battle in the world
When I wake up in the morning, the world is there.
When I wake up in the morning, the right world is there.
The right world is rightly there.
The rightful world is rightfully there.
Why is the rightful world there?
Why, every day, rightfully, there?
As if that is where it rightfully ought to be?
The rightful world is there so rightfully
that no one can unpeel its thick skin.
It exists there quite rightfully.
So who made the rightful world?
Someone rightful rightfully made the rightful world, surely?
Someone capable of making it rightfully,
someone still rightful after having made it.
Therefore, the rightful world is obviously right
and since rightfulness is obviously always right,
anyone trying to peel the rightful world
gets smacked away by the hand of the obvious.
The rightful hand is an invisible hand
but why is it so rightfully obvious?
In the rightful world, I alone am not rightful.
Always a stranger to the rightful world, I
cannot believe what the obvious world says.
Likewise the obvious world
certainly does not think much of me.
The rightful world is taming the obvious world
and the obvious world is taming our world.
Let's file suits against the rightful world!
Let's file suits against the obvious world!
Sand's occupation forces are drawing nearer day by day,
the rightful world our feet sink into all day long.
Hobbling painfully on, my fate obscure,
I have discovered that the hardest battle in the world
Is the battle with that.
Suppose I grabbed hold of the obvious and rightful
and gobbled them both up first?
Before the sands of the obvious harden into concrete,
before the prison of the rightful devours the world entirely.
Institutions
All day long one child colors pictures in a book:
Butterflies, flowers, clouds, streams.
The child is afraid the colors may go over the lines.
Who taught her that fear?
How did she learn
it's wrong to go over the lines?
Those butterflies, flowers, clouds, and streams
are all imprisoned inside lines.
Mummy, Mummy, the crayons mustn's go
outside the lines, must they?
Fear overflows from the child's gentle eyes.
All day long, docile and neat, my child is carefully
coloring inside the lines as the instructions say.
If I were not Mummy,
I would tell her: Go on, dear.
Sribble over the lines. Paint outside the lines.
Butterflies, streams, clouds, and flowers
are all things that explode.
They are all alive, dear.
Things that blossom, surging and scrambling over the lines
Things that trespass, that break the law, dear.
I used to hate every kind of institution
but being Mummy is an institution too.
I'll bind you with the ropes that once bound me!
I am that woman and the governor-general.
Kill Mummy, then, dear!
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