the soil is soggy
from persistent spring rains,
but, in sun, greens glow.
Greening Rains [Haiku]
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Category Archives: poem
Mountain Time [Tanka]
an ancient mountain,
weathered to rubble,
stands background
to a city that's lived
but a blip of mountain time.
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Psychoanalyst Limerick
There once was a renowned psychoanalyst
Who found childhood events were always the catalyst.
A patient who lived happily
'Til a recent tragedy,
Learned it all stemmed from thoughts as a neonatalist.
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“Sailing to Byzantium” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
-- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
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Cold Mountain [Haiku]
“Refined” [Poetry Style #6] by Sikong Tu [w/ Audio]
Buying fine jade in the springtime,
Enjoying rain song from within a cabin,
A taciturn scholar sits betwixt
Copses of tall, arching bamboo.
Sparse white clouds in a newly clear sky;
Swallows weave 'round trees in pursuit.
Light through leaf casts a green hue on all;
Sound of falling water, thin but near;
Flower petals fall without a sound.
But the man sits unyielding as a mum;
He writes what the scene dictates
To make a pithy book.
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 sixth of the twenty-four poems.
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Fade to Black [Haiku]
the coral-hued lake
will soon be the inky void
between coastal lights.
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Summer Sunset [Senryū]
harsh summer sun sets:
baboon troops exit the woods,
"Yeah, you'd better run!"
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“To be, or not to be” [Soliloquy from HAMLET] by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die -- to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream -- ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause - there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bare,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
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The Lingering Fall [Haiku]
winter wind gust...
[a pause,] a few leaves flutter
slantwise to earth.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 