To be under a cloud
Is not so sad a thing;
If you can love the rain,
And you can dance and sing.
Under a Cloud [Lyric Poem]
1
Category Archives: poem
Ambiguous Living [Lyric Poem]
I am not now.
I was not then.
That makes it sound
Like I've never been.
But I once was
And will be again,
But who can know
Just where & when?
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“Love is Not All” (Sonnet XXX) by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
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The Vine [Free Verse]
Grape leaves flutter
and some catch the light
to glow with translucence.
I'm in an ancient place,
and this is such an ancient
endeavor.
Wine has been the king
of pursuits in these parts
for millennia.
Is that why I can become
lost in the play of light
on quivering leaves?
Or is it just that time of day?
The sun is low -- ready to set --
My mind is slow & ready to drink.
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Stony Ground [Haiku]
from stony ground,
a dense cluster of yellow
grows defiantly.
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“Hand in Hand” by Su Shi [w/ Audio]
Hand in hand.
Plum petals floated to her skirt.
-- Love unbound --
Now, lost souls mill about:
Thier loved ones long unseen.
Old songs are heard once more,
Recalling Tower and Temple.
On ordinary days,
I'd write a thousand lines.
Now, I brush away dust,
And think of us, together.
The moon reflects in the lake.
Willows droop beside water.
A dragon-head cloud drifts on air.
Note: Translated titles vary. e.g. Xu Yuanchong entitles his translation “Song of Incense.”
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Ancient Landscape [Tanka]
ancient landscape:
boulders, remnants of mountains,
are strewn about;
prehistoric tribes lived here,
and it looked the same for them.
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Stony Spires [Haiku]
fog retreats to
reveal stony spires
like ghostly soldiers.
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Summer Sparkle [Haiku]
summer sunlight
sparkles on a blue lake --
always distantly.
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Sonnet 104 by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summer's pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
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