Tz'u No. 13

Related poetry:

1. Tz'u No. 9 (Weary) To the tune of “Rinsing Silk Stream” Saddened by the dying spring, I am too weary To rearrange my hair. Plum flowers, newly fallen, drift about the courtyard In the evening wind. The moon looks pale and light clouds float To and fro. Incense lies idle in the jade duck-shaped burner. The cherry-red bed-curtain is […]...
2. Sunrise on the Coast Grey dawn on the sand-hills the night wind has drifted All night from the rollers a scent of the sea; With the dawn the grey fog his battalions has lifted, At the call of the morning they scatter and flee. Like mariners calling the roll of their number The sea-fowl put out to the infinite […]...
3. The Gardener XLVI: You Left Me You left me and went on your way. I thought I should mourn for you And set your solitary image in my Heart wrought in a golden song. But ah, my evil fortune, time is Short. Youth wanes year after year; the Spring days are fugitive; the frail Flowers die for nothing, and the wise […]...
4. The Sun Sets in Molten Gold The sun sets in molten gold. The evening clouds form a jade disk. Where is he? Dense white mist envelops the willows. A sad flute plays “Falling Plum Blossoms.” How many Spring days are left now? This Feast of Lanterns should be joyful. The weather is calm and lovely. But who can tell if it […]...
5. The Turning Unknown faces in the street And winter coming on. I Stand in the last moments of The city, no more a child, Only a man, one who has Looked upon his own nakedness Without shame, and in defeat Has seen nothing to bless. Touched once, like a plum, I turned Rotten in the meat, or […]...
6. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
7. Tz'u No. 15 To the tune of “Rinsing Silk Stream” Thousands of light flakes of crushed gold For its blossoms, Trimmed jade for its layers of leaves. This flower has the air of scholar Yen Fu. How brilliant! Plum flowers are too common; Lilacs too coarse when compared. Yet, its penetrating fragrance Drives away my fond dreams Of […]...
8. Tz'u No. 10 (Exile) To the tune of “Bodhisattva Aliens” Soft breezes, mild sunshine, Spring is still young. The sudden change of the light Brightened my spirit. But upon awakening from slumber, I felt the chill air; The plum flower withered in my hair. Where can I call my native land? Forget – I cannot, except in wine When […]...
9. Tz'u No. 11 To the tune of “Lamentation” It was far into the night when, intoxicated, I took off my ornaments; The plum flower withered in my hair. Recovered from tipsiness, The lingering smell of wine Broke my fond dream Before my dreaming soul could find My way home. All is quiet. The moon lingers, And the emerald […]...
10. When Night Comes To the tune of “Telling My Most Intimate Feelings” When night comes, I am so flushed with wine, I undo my hair slowly: A plum calyx is Stuck on a damaged branch. I wake dazed when smoke Breaks my spring sleep. The dream distant, So very distant; And it is quiet, so very quiet. The […]...
11. It will be Summer eventually It will be Summer eventually. Ladies with parasols Sauntering Gentlemen with Canes And little Girls with Dolls Will tint the pallid landscape As ’twere a bright Bouquet Thro’ drifted deep, in Parian The Village lies today The Lilacs bending many a year Will sway with purple load The Bees will not despise the tune Their […]...
12. Tz'u No. 6 (Waiting For You) To the tune of “Red Lips” Lonely in my secluded chamber, A thousand sorrows fill every inch Of my sensitive being. Regretting that spring has so soon passed, That rain drops have hastened the falling followers, I lean over the balustrade, Weary and depressed. Where is my beloved? Only the fading grassland Stretches endlessly toward […]...
13. Outside Fargo, North Dakota Along the sprawled body of the derailed Great Northern freight car, I strike a match slowly and lift it slowly. No wind. Beyond town, three heavy white horses Wade all the way to their shoulders In a silo shadow. Suddenly the freight car lurches. The door slams back, a man with a flashlight Calls me […]...
14. The Return They turned him loose; he bowed his head, A felon, bent and grey. His face was even as the Dead, He had no word to say. He sought the home of his old love, To look on her once more; And where her roses breathed above, He cowered beside the door. She sat there in […]...
15. Autumn Birds The wild duck startles like a sudden thought, And heron slow as if it might be caught. The flopping crows on weary wings go by And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly. The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by, And darken like a clod the evening sky. The larks like thunder rise and […]...
16. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
17. The Sun Have you ever seen Anything In your life More wonderful Than the way the sun, Every evening, Relaxed and easy, Floats toward the horizon And into the clouds or the hills, Or the rumpled sea, And is gone And how it slides again Out of the blackness, Every morning, On the other side of the […]...
18. This Evening Also more fully, Since snow fell even on this Sun-drifted, sun-drenched sea, Blossoms the ice in those baskets You carry into town. Sand You demand in return, For the last Rose back at home This evening also wants to be fed Out of the trickling hour....
19. Genesis I was but a half-grown boy, You were a girl-child slight. Ah, how weary you were! You had led in the bullock-fight… We slew the bullock at length With knives and maces of stone. And so your feet were torn, Your lean arms bruised to the bone. Perhaps ’twas the slain beast’s blood We drank, […]...
20. Before The Cask of Wine The spring wind comes from the east and quickly passes, Leaving faint ripples in the wine of the golden bowl. The flowers fall, flake after flake, myriads together. You, pretty girl, wine-flushed, Your rosy face is rosier still. How long may the peach and plum trees flower By the green-painted house? The fleeting light deceives […]...
21. Before the Squall The wind is rising on the sea, The windy white foam-dancers leap; And the sea moans uneasily, And turns to sleep, and cannot sleep. Ridge after rocky ridge uplifts, Wild hands, and hammers at the land, Scatters in liquid dust, and drifts To death among the dusty sand. On the horizon’s nearing line, Where the […]...
22. To Ellen, At The South The green grass is growing, The morning wind is in it, ‘Tis a tune worth the knowing, Though it change every minute. ‘Tis a tune of the spring, Every year plays it over, To the robin on the wing, To the pausing lover. O’er ten thousand thousand acres Goes light the nimble zephyr, The flowers, […]...
23. Parang Man, I suck me tooth when I hear How dem croptime fiddlers lie, And de wailing, kiss-me-arse flutes That bring water to me eye! Oh, when I t’ink how from young I wasted time at de fetes, I could bawl in a red-eyed rage For desire turned to regret, Not knowing the truth that I […]...
24. Everything Lately the wind burns The last leaves and evening Comes too late to be Of use, lately I learned That the year has turned Its face to winter And nothing I say or do Can change anything. So I sleep late and waken Long after the sun has risen In an empty house and walk […]...
25. Father The long lines of diesels Groan toward evening Carrying off the breath Of the living. The face of your house Is black, It is your face, black And fire bombed In the first street wars, A black tooth planted in the earth Of Michigan And bearing nothing, And the earth is black, Sick on used […]...
26. Les Silhouettes The sea is flecked with bars of grey, The dull dead wind is out of tune, And like a withered leaf the moon Is blown across the stormy bay. Etched clear upon the pallid sand Lies the black boat: a sailor boy Clambers aboard in careless joy With laughing face and gleaming hand. And overhead […]...
27. Hook I was only a young man In those days. On that evening The cold was so God damned Bitter there was nothing. Nothing. I was in trouble With a woman, and there was nothing There but me and dead snow. I stood on the street corner In Minneapolis, lashed This way and that. Wind rose […]...
28. Presentiment ‘ SISTER, you’ve sat there all the day, Come to the hearth awhile; The wind so wildly sweeps away, The clouds so darkly pile. That open book has lain, unread, For hours upon your knee; You’ve never smiled nor turned your head What can you, sister, see? ‘ ‘ Come hither, Jane, look down the […]...
29. Let Evening Come Let the light of late afternoon Shine through chinks in the barn, moving Up the bales as the sun moves down. Let the cricket take up chafing As a woman takes up her needles And her yarn. Let evening come. Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned In long grass. Let the stars appear And […]...
30. Tz'u No. 5 To the tune of “Like a Dream” I always remember the sunset Over the pavilion by the river, So tipsy we could not find our way home. Our interest exhausted, the evening late, We tried to turn the boat homeward. By mistake, we entered deep within the lotus bed. Row! Row the boat! A flock […]...
31. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
32. Bacchanalia The evening comes, the fields are still. The tinkle of the thirsty rill, Unheard all day, ascends again; Deserted is the half-mown plain, Silent the swaths! the ringing wain, The mower’s cry, the dog’s alarms, All housed within the sleeping farms! The business of the day is done, The last-left haymaker is gone. And from […]...
33. Year's End The state cracked where they left your breath No longer instrument. Along the shore The sand ripped up, and the newer blood Streaked like a vein to every monument. The empty smoke that drifted near the guns Where the stiff motor pounded in the mud Had the smell of a hundred burned-out suns. The ceiling […]...
34. The Great Grey Plain Out West, where the stars are brightest, Where the scorching north wind blows, And the bones of the dead gleam whitest, And the sun on a desert glows Yet within the selfish kingdom Where man starves man for gain, Where white men tramp for existence Wide lies the Great Grey Plain. No break in its […]...
35. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
36. The Boston Evening Transcript THE READERS of the Boston Evening Transcript Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn. When evening quickens faintly in the street, Wakening the appetites of life in some And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript, I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning Wearily, as one would turn to nod […]...
37. The Story of Mongrel Grey This is the story the stockman told On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright; The moon rose up like a globe of gold And flooded the plain with her mellow light. We watched the cattle till dawn of day And he told me the story of Mongrel Grey. He was a knock-about station hack, […]...
38. Wolf Knife In the mid August, in the second year Of my First Polar Expedition, the snow and ice of winter Almost upon us, Kantiuk and I Attempted to dash the sledge Along Crispin Bay, searching again for relics Of the Frankline Expedition. Now a storm blew, And we turned back, and we struggled slowly In snow, […]...
39. Portrait Of A Lady Your thighs are appletrees Whose blossoms touch the sky. Which sky? The sky Where Watteau hung a lady’s Slipper. Your knees Are a southern breeze-or A gust of snow. Agh! what Sort of man was Fragonard? -As if that answered Anything.-Ah, yes. Below The knees, since the tune Drops that way, it is One of […]...
40. Spring in the South Now in the oak the sap of life is welling, Tho’ to the bough the rusty leafage clings; Now on the elm the misty buds are swelling, See how the pine-wood grows alive with wings; Blue-jays fluttering, yodeling and crying, Meadow-larks sailing low above the faded grass, Red-birds whistling clear, silent robins flying, Who has […]...