There once was a profiteering banker
Who inspired only feelings of rancor.
When making rates for loans,
He stressed all the unknowns.
"Your yoghurt shop might be hit by an oil tanker!"
Banker’s Limerick
Reply
Category Archives: poem
“Renunciant’s Song” by Su Shi [w/ Audio]
The night is clear, even pristine --
A nightscape in silver moonlight.
"Yes, please! Pour me a bowl of wine.
Don't skimp! take it up to the brim."
And why should I chase wealth and fame
When it is sure to end in vain?
Events pass like a horse's sigh,
A spark on stone, or dream travel.
I can put out my ideas,
But who'll accept them as the truth?
Why shouldn't I just live happily
And innocently, like a child?
I could go back to carefree days
When life's trifles weren't torturesome.
Just me, my lute, a pot of wine,
And the stories drawn by the clouds.
NOTES: Song Dynasty Poet, Su Shi, was also known as Su Dongpo. The translated title of this poem also varies. In Deep, Deep the Courtyard, translated by Xu Yuanchong, it is entitled, “Song of Pilgrimage.”
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Singer’s Limerick
There once was a primadonna singer
Who on a note could forever linger.
Thinking her a showboat
For dragging out one note,
The band took five mid-melisma to share chicken fingers.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Palace Views [Haiku]
did ancient occupants
look upon new walls and gates,
or cloud reflections?
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Unity [Free Verse]
Cogs without machines
Don't roll far.
And when they've settled,
They have no movement.
They are all existence,
And no process.
Their worldlines have
Flatlined.
They have no experience,
(And bliss lies in the
Experience of experience.)
They have only a longing
For non-existence...
Or to be reinstalled.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
“Mowing” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]
There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound --
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Monk’s Limerick
There once was a virtuous, old monk
Who never, ever had sex or got drunk.
He lived in silence,
And practiced non-violence...
Till one day, in a funk, he kicked a young monk
In the junk.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Lone Pine [Haiku]
a lone pine stands --
mangled and misshapen --
above other trees.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Harmony [Free Verse]
Tap the resonance
And vibrate at the rate
Of those eternal emanations --
The thrumming under-pulse
Of the Universe.
The ripples that can't be heard
Or felt haptically,
But must be tuned into
To feel, otherwise.
Downshift what is you --
Put your Self into idle.
Don't panic
As you start to slide --
Frictionlessly,
A lack of friction that's
Unfamiliar & Uncomfortable,
But which will be the way
One's worldline plays out --
Effortlessly -- to the end.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
“Natural” [Poetry Style #10] by Sikong Tu [w/ Audio]
Stoop anywhere and pluck it up,
But if you look 'round - it's not there.
Any path may lead you to it.
A stroke of the brush becomes Spring,
And the flowers are in full bloom. --
It's like seeing a new year dawn:
Snatch at it and you won't have it.
Seize it by force and you'll be poorer.
Be like the old mountain hermit --
Like duckweed gathered by stream flow.
Find calm amidst storms of feeling
By knowing Heaven's harmonies.
NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry. It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a translation of the tenth of the twenty-four poems.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 