The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.
Taiyi stretches toward heaven;
Linked mountains reach into the sea.
Looking back, white clouds coalesce;
In the mist, the mist can't be seen.
A ridge is a boundary of worlds:
Cloudy or clear; with - or sans - tree.
In need of lodging for the night,
I ask the woodsman cross river from me.
This is poem #118 of the 300 Tang Poems [唐诗三百首.] The original in Simplified Chinese is:
太乙近天都， 连山接海隅。
白云回望合， 青霭入看无。
分野中峰变， 阴晴众壑殊。
欲投人处宿， 隔水问樵夫。
I turned to speak to God
About the world’s despair;
But to make bad matters worse
I found God wasn’t there.
God turned to speak to me
(Don’t anybody laugh)
God found I wasn’t there—
At least not over half.
HK24: Twenty-Four Hours of Hong Kong Stories by Stewart McKay
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
I fear’d the fury of my wind
Would blight all blossoms fair & true,
And my sun it shin’d & shin’d,
And my wind it never blew.
But a blossom fair or true
Was not found on any tree;
For all blossoms grew & grew
Fruitless, false, tho’ fair to see.
I asked a thief to steal me a peach:
He turn'd up his eyes.
I ask'd a lithe lady to lie her down:
Holy and meek she cries.
As soon as I went an angel came:
He wink'd at the thief
And smil'd at the dame,
And without one word spoke
Had a peach from the tree,
And 'twixt earnest and joke
Enjoy'd the Lady.
The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Augur and the Carpenter –
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life –
A Past of Plank and Nail
And slowness – then the scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul –
South of Yangtze, stands of red tangerine
Can endure winter while remaining green.
Is it that the weather there is so warm?
No. Their nature 's to bear a winter storm.
What might well serve the joyful traveler
Will be loathsome peril to passengers.
Fate factors in chance and situation --
Not playing around in cyclic rotation.
You may cultivate crops however you please,
But should heed shade thrown by mountains & trees.
This is the fourth poem in 300 Tang Poems [唐诗三百首] and the final poem of a quartet that opens that collection. The original in Simplified Chinese is:
江南有丹橘， 经冬犹绿林；
岂伊地气暖？ 自有岁寒心。
可以荐嘉客， 奈何阻重深！
运命惟所遇， 循环不可寻。
徒言树桃李， 此木岂无阴？
Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been—a most familiar bird—
Taught me my alphabet to say—
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child—with a most knowing eye.
Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings—
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away—forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 