To Tu Fu from Shantung

Related poetry:

1. Rotgut The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. Psalm 121 On a hillside scattered with temples broken Under the dogday sun, my friend and I drank Local wine at nightfall and ate grapeleaves In goat-yogurt glaze. The living grape vines Bore fruit overhead. Beyond our balcony, Beyond the Turkish rooftops, […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. You Remain As a perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me; all things leave me – You remain. Other thoughts may come and go, Other moments I may know That shall waft me, in their going, As a breath […]...
4. Going Up Yoyang Tower We climbed Yoyang Tower with All the scene around coming Into vision; looking up the Great River seeing boats turn And enter the Tungting Lake; geese Crying farewell to the river As they flew south; evening falling As if mountain tops upt up the moon With their lips; and we in the Yoyang Tower as […]...
5. AN ODE TO SIR CLIPSBY CREW Here we securely live, and eat The cream of meat; And keep eternal fires, By which we sit, and do divine, As wine And rage inspires. If full, we charm; then call upon Anacreon To grace the frantic Thyrse: And having drunk, we raise a shout Throughout, To praise his verse. Then cause we Horace […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
10. Drunken Memories Of Anne Sexton The first and last time I met My ex-lover Anne Sexton was at A protest poetry reading against Some anti-constitutional war in Asia When some academic son of a bitch, To test her reputation as a drunk, Gave her a beer glass full of wine After our reading. She drank It all down while staring […]...
11. By A Swimming Pool Outside Syracusa All afternoon I have been struggling To communicate in Italian With Roberto and Giuseppe, who have begun To resemble the two male characters In my Italian for Beginners, The ones who are always shopping Or inquiring about the times of trains, And now I can hardly speak or write English. I have made important pronouncements […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. A Green Stream I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers, Borne by the channel of a green stream, Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains On a journey of less than thirty miles…. Rapids hum over heaped rocks; But where light grows dim in the thick pines, The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns And weeds […]...
14. Thinking of My Brothers in Shantung on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month Alone now in a strange country, Feeling myself a stranger, On this bright festival day I doubly pine for my kinsfolk. Far away, I know my brothers Will be climbing the heights With dogwood sprays in their jackets, And one man missing!...
15. Ezra Bartlett A chaplain in the army, A chaplain in the prisons, An exhorter in Spoon River, Drunk with divinity, Spoon River Yet bringing poor Eliza Johnson to shame, And myself to scorn and wretchedness. But why will you never see that love of women, And even love of wine, Are the stimulants by which the soul, […]...
16. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
17. The River Of Rivers In Connecticut There is a great river this side of Stygia Before one comes to the first black cataracts And trees that lack the intelligence of trees. In that river, far this side of Stygia, The mere flowing of the water is a gayety, Flashing and flashing in the sun. On its banks, No shadow walks. The […]...
18. I reckon when I count it all I reckon when I count it all First Poets Then the Sun Then Summer Then the Heaven of God And then the List is done But, looking back the First so seems To Comprehend the Whole The Others look a needless Show So I write Poets All Their Summer lasts a Solid Year They can […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. Lighthouse in the Night The sky a black sphere, The sea a black disk. The lighthouse opens Its solar fan on the coast. Spinning endlessly at night, Whom is it searching for When the mortal heart Looks for me in the chest? Look at the black rock Where it is nailed down. A crow digs endlessly But no longer […]...
21. For Meng Hao-Jan I love Master Meng. Free as a flowing breeze, He is famous Throughout the world. In rosy youth, he cast away Official cap and carriage. Now, a white-haired elder, he reclines Amid pines and cloud. Drunk beneath the moon, He often attains sagehood. Lost among the flowers, He serves no lord. How can I aspire […]...
22. Anticipation I have been temperate always, But I am like to be very drunk With your coming. There have been times I feared to walk down the street Lest I should reel with the wine of you, And jerk against my neighbours As they go by. I am parched now, and my tongue is horrible in […]...
23. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
24. April 19 We have too much exhibitionism And not enough voyeurism In poetry we have plenty of bass And not enough treble, more amber Beer than the frat boys can drink but Less red wine than meets the lip In this beaker of the best Bordeaux, Too much thesis, too little antithesis And way too much New […]...
25. Willow Poem It is a willow when summer is over, A willow by the river From which no leaf has fallen nor Bitten by the sun Turned orange or crimson. The leaves cling and grow paler, Swing and grow paler Over the swirling waters of the river As if loth to let go, They are so cool, […]...
26. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
27. Down from the Mountain As down Mount Emerald at eve I came, The mountain moon went all the way with me. Backward I looked, to see the heights aflame With a pale light that glimmered eerily. A little lad undid the rustic latch As hand in hand your cottage we did gain, Where green limp tendrils at our cloaks […]...
28. Death Of The Kapowsin Tavern I can’t ridge it back again from char. Not one board left. Only ash a cat explores And shattered glass smoked black and strung About from the explosion I believe In the reports. The white school up for sale For years, most homes abandoned to the rocks Of passing boys the fire, helped by wind […]...
29. Night Words after Juan Ramon A child wakens in a cold apartment. The windows are frosted. Outside he hears Words rising from the streets, words he cannot Understand, and then the semis gear down For the traffic light on Houston. He sleeps Again and dreams of another city On a high hill above a wide river Bathed […]...
30. How We Heard the Name The river brought down Dead horses, dead men And military debris, Indicative of war Or official acts upstream, But it went by, it all Goes by, that is the thing About the river. Then A soldier on a log Went by. He seemed drunk And we asked him Why Had he and this junk Come […]...
31. A Word for the Hour The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse Light after light goes out. One evil star, Luridly glaring through the smoke of war, As in the dream of the Apocalypse, Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap On one […]...
32. A Vindication If heaven loved not the wine, A Wine Star would not be in heaven; If earth loved not the wine, The Wine Spring would not be on the earth. Since heaven and earth love the wine, Need a tippling mortal be ashamed? The transparent wine, I hear, Has the soothing virtue of a sage, While […]...
33. A Note Left In Jimmy Leonard's Shack Near the dry river’s water-mark we found Your brother Minnegan, Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground. Beany, the kid whose yellow hair turns green, Told me to find you, even if the rain, And tell you he was drowned. I hid behind the chassis on the bank, The wreck of someone’s Ford: I […]...
34. THE SINGING SCHOOL The Poetry School, The Poetry Book Society, The Poetry Business: So much poetry about you’d think I’d want to shout, “Hurray, hurray, Every day’s Poetry Day!” but I don’t and you don’t either- You know its flim-flam on the ether, grants for Jack-the-lads Of both sexes, poets who’ve never been seen in a little magazine […]...
35. Clouds Gathering It seemed the kind of life we wanted. Wild strawberries and cream in the morning. Sunlight in every room. The two of us walking by the sea naked. Some evenings, however, we found ourselves Unsure of what comes next. Like tragic actors in a theater on fire, With birds circling over our heads, The dark […]...
36. The Atheist Nor thou, Habib, nor I are glad, When rosy limbs and sweat entwine; But rapture drowns the sense and self, The wine the drawer of the wine, And Him that planted first the grape- O podex, in thy vault there dwells A charm to make the member mad, And shake the marrow of the spine. […]...
37. On Kusu Terrace The old gardens of Kusu Terrace Are a wilderness, yet the willows That remain still put out new branches; Lasses gathering water chestnuts Sing so loudly and with such Clarity, that the feeling of spring Returns to us; but where once stood The palace of the King of Wu, now Only the moon over the […]...
38. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
39. Admire their style I’m reading fellow poets’ blogs today, A sustaining source of entertainment; I admire their style without exciting comment Or resorting to an unkind eye, simple though It is to sigh about uneasy affirmation. I hope when they read me (if they ever do) They rest as easy on my lack of finished form, The hazy, […]...
40. Hostel Beach, Oneroa The cliff sprang from the sea at end of Hostel Beach, If the tide was out you’d reach a tiny bay beyond The cape without wet feet, an easy stroll but too effete For blood as hot as ours. We watched it at full flood; A risky place to contemplate the games we planned, We […]...