Tz'u No. 18

Related poetry:

1. The Double Ninth Festival To the tune of “Intoxicated Under the Shadow of Flowers” Light mists and heavy clouds, Melancholy the long dreary day. In the golden censer The burning incense is dying away. It is again time For the lovely Double-Ninth Festival; The coolness of midnight Penetrates my screen of sheer silk And chills my pillow of jade. […]...
2. Tz'u No. 1 To the tune “Courtyard Filled with Fragrance” Fragrant grass beside the pond Green shade over the hall A clear cold comes through The window curtains Crescent moon beyond the golden bars And a flute sounds As if someone were coming But alone on my mat with a cup Gazing sadly into nothingness I want to […]...
3. Wine Bibber I would rather drink than eat, And though I superbly sup, Food, I feel, can never beat Delectation of the cup. Wine it is that crowns the feast; Fish and fowl and fancy meat Are of my delight the least: I would rather drink than eat. Though no Puritan I be, And have doubts of […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
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. It Is Later Than You Think Lone amid the cafe’s cheer, Sad of heart am I to-night; Dolefully I drink my beer, But no single line I write. There’s the wretched rent to pay, Yet I glower at pen and ink: Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray, It is later than you think! Hello! there’s a pregnant phrase. Bravo! let me […]...
8. A Cider Song To J. S. M. The wine they drink in Paradise They make in Haute Lorraine; God brought it burning from the sod To be a sign and signal rod That they that drink the blood of God Shall never thirst again. The wine they praise in Paradise They make in Ponterey, The purple wine of […]...
9. Water Lilies If you have forgotten water lilies floating On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade, If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance, Then you can return and not be afraid. But if you remember, then turn away forever To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart, There you will […]...
10. Not yet 40, my beard is already white Not yet 40, my beard is already white. Not yet awake, my eyes are puffy and red, Like a child who has cried too much. What is more disagreeable Than last night’s wine? I’ll shave. I’ll stick my head in the cold spring and Look around at the pebbles. Maybe I can eat a can […]...
11. To Tan-Ch'iu My friend is lodging high in the Eastern Range, Dearly loving the beauty of valleys and hills. At green Spring he lies in the empty woods, And is still asleep when the sun shines on igh. A pine-tree wind dusts his sleeves and coat; A peebly stream cleans his heart and ears. I envy you, […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. Big Night On The Town drunk on the dark streets of some city, It’s night, you’re lost, where’s your Room? You enter a bar to find yourself, Order scotch and water. Damned bar’s sloppy wet, it soaks Part of one of your shirt Sleeves. It’s a clip joint-the scotch is weak. You order a bottle of beer. Madame Death walks […]...
14. For M. W There is no transcience of twilight in The beauty of your soft dusk-dimpled face, No flicker of a slender flame in space, In crucibles, fragility crystalline. There is no fragrance of the jessamine About you, no pathos of some old place At dusk, that crumbles like moth-eaten lace Beneath the touch. Nor has there ever […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. The Song of Right and Wrong Feast on wine or fast on water And your honour shall stand sure, God Almighty’s son and daughter He the valiant, she the pure; If an angel out of heaven Brings you other things to drink, Thank him for his kind attentions, Go and pour them down the sink. Tea is like the East he […]...
17. Locked Out As told to a child When we locked up the house at night, We always locked the flowers outside And cut them off from window light. The time I dreamed the door was tried And brushed with buttons upon sleeves, The flowers were out there with the thieves. Yet nobody molested them! We did find […]...
18. Bringing in the Wine See how the Yellow River’s water move out of heaven. Entering the ocean, never to return. See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers, Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow. … Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases And never tip his golden cup empty toward […]...
19. Mr. Brain Mr Brain was a hermit dwarf who liked to eat shellfish off The moon. He liked to go into a tree then because there is a Little height to see a little further, which may reveal now the Stone, a pebble it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon that You can make […]...
20. The three tailors I shall tell you in rhyme how, once on a time, Three tailors tramped up to the inn Ingleheim, On the Rhine, lovely Rhine; They were broke, but the worst of it all, they were curst With that malady common to tailors a thirst For wine, lots of wine. “Sweet host,” quoth the three, “we’re […]...
21. Autumn Love Search. Search. Seek. Seek. Cold. Cold. Clear. Clear. Sorrow. Sorrow. Pain. Pain. Hot flashes. Sudden chills. Stabbing pains. Slow agonies. I can find no peace. I drink two cups, then three bowls, Of clear wine until I can’t Stand up against a gust of wind. Wild geese fly over head. They wrench my heart. They […]...
22. Girl In A Miniskirt Reading The Bible Outside My Window Sunday, I am eating a Grapefruit, church is over at the Russian Orthadox to the West. She is dark Of Eastern descent, Large brown eyes look up from the Bible Then down. a small red and black Bible, and as she reads Her legs keep moving, moving, She is doing a slow rythmic dance Reading […]...
23. Conscious His fingers wake, and flutter up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head. A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill. . . How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug! And who’s that talking, somewhere out of sight? Why are they […]...
24. Death Fugue Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown We drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night We drink it and drink it We dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes He writes when […]...
25. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
26. Tz'u No. 8 To the tune of “Rinsing Silk Stream” My courtyard is small, windows idle, Spring is getting old. Screens unrolled cast heavy shadows. In my upper-story chamber, speechless, I play on my jasper lute. Clouds rising from distant mountains Hasten the fall of dusk. Gentle wind and drizzling rain Cause a pervading gloom. Pear blossoms can […]...
27. Jennie M'Grew Not, where the stairway turns in the dark, A hooded figure, shriveled under a flowing cloak! Not yellow eyes in the room at night, Staring out from a surface of cobweb gray! And not the flap of a condor wing, When the roar of life in your ears begins As a sound heard never before! […]...
28. Dreams in the dusk DREAMS in the dusk, Only dreams closing the day And with the day’s close going back To the gray things, the dark things, The far, deep things of dreamland. Dreams, only dreams in the dusk, Only the old remembered pictures Of lost days when the day’s loss Wrote in tears the heart’s loss. Tears and […]...
29. Tz'u No. 4 To the tune of “Like a Dream” Last night a sprinkling of rain, A violent wind. After a deep sleep, still not recovered From the lingering effect of wine, I inquired of the one rolling up the screen; But the answer came: “The cherry-apple blossoms Are still the same.” “Oh, don’t you know, don’t you […]...
30. Chiang Chin Chiu See the waters of the Yellow River leap down from Heaven, Roll away to the deep sea and never turn again! See at the mirror In the High Hall Aged men bewailing white locks – In the morning, threads of silk, In the evening flakes of snow. Snatch the joys Of life as they come […]...
31. Alone And Drinking Under The Moon Amongst the flowers I Am alone with my pot of wine Drinking by myself; then lifting My cup I asked the moon To drink with me, its reflection And mine in the wine cup, just The three of us; then I sigh For the moon cannot drink, And my shadow goes emptily along With me […]...
32. Heritage Now the dead past seems vividly alive, And in this shining moment I can trace, Down through the vista of the vanished years, Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face. And suddenly some secret spring’s released, And unawares a riddle is revealed, And I can read like large, black-lettered print, What seemed before a thing […]...
33. Love Song I lie here thinking of you:- The stain of love Is upon the world! Yellow, yellow, yellow It eats into the leaves, Smears with saffron The horned branched the lean Heavily Against a smooth purple sky! There is no light Only a honey-thick stain That drips from leaf to leaf And limb to limb Spoiling […]...
34. At the Tavern A lilt and a swing, And a ditty to sing, Or ever the night grow old; The wine is within, And I’m sure t’were a sin For a soldier to choose to be cold, my dear, For a soldier to choose to be cold. We’re right for a spell, But the fever is well, No […]...
35. Eating and Drinking chapter VI Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, “Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.” And he said: Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother’s […]...
36. Luke Havergal Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal, There where the vines cling crimson on the wall, And in the twilight wait for what will come. The wind will moan, the leaves will whisper some Whisper of her, and strike you as they fall; But go, and if you trust her she will call. Go to […]...
37. Grand-Pa's Whim While for me gapes the greedy grave It don’t make sense That I should have a crazy crave To paint our fence. Yet that is what I aim to do, Though dim my sight: Jest paint them aged pickets blue, Or green or white. Jest squat serenely in the sun Wi’ brush an’ paint, An’ […]...
38. Over the fence Over the fence Strawberries grow Over the fence I could climb if I tried, I know Berries are nice! But if I stained my Apron God would certainly scold! Oh, dear, I guess if He were a Boy He’d climb if He could!...
39. The Song Of The Strange Ascetic If I had been a Heathen, I’d have praised the purple vine, My slaves should dig the vineyards, And I would drink the wine. But Higgins is a Heathen, And his slaves grow lean and grey, That he may drink some tepid milk Exactly twice a day. If I had been a Heathen, I’d have […]...
40. Good neighbours To my shame I’ve been mending fences again… A quaint habit I inherited from my father; He would rather fix a fence than parley Repair, and that it is where our views diverged. He said fences were meant to make good Neighbours. In the intervening years I had it Wrong, believing a fence was a […]...