tree, wrapped in vines,
shape broken & trunk hidden;
an attempt to blend?
Camouflage [Senryū]
1
Category Archives: poem
Lament 4 [感遇四] by Zhang Jiuling [张九龄] [w/ Audio]
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？
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Day’s End [Haiku]
Dizzying [Haiku]
mountain trail:
kicked stone sails, then drops...
out of sight.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
“Romance” by Edgar Allan Poe [w/ Audio]
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.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Empty Chairs [Free Verse]
I watch the chairs
That watch the ocean,
Wondering whether
Some passerby will take
A seat to admire
The turquoise water
& crashing surf.
No one does.
Tourist and local alike
Spill by in a rush to get
Through paradise to
Somewhere else --
Probably a cruddy
Hotel room or
Unloved job.
Of course, if someone
Did take a seat,
They might be run off
On the grounds that
These are proprietary
Chairs.
[That's just the petty world
In which we live;
Where a business will
Protect its space for
Exclusive use by
Nonexistent customers.]
One might suggest that
It's too hot to sit
And admire the ocean,
But by the time those chairs
Have cooled,
The view will be
Blackness.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Hermitage [Haiku]
hermit climbs the hill:
clouds mask his ascent,
obscure the cavemouth.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
“Down By the Salley Gardens” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]
Down by the salley gardens
my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish,
with her would not agree.
In a field by the river
my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder
she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish,
and now am full of tears.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
On Tourists & Travelers [Free Verse]
A tourist looks back fondly upon
A favorite destination;
A traveler is always at it.
A tourist loathes travel hiccups;
A traveler calls them stories.
A tourist jumps from one
Postcard vista to the next;
A traveler moves through the world.
A tourist collects knicknacks & geegaws;
A traveler collects experiences.
A tourist, between sights, seeks
A life experience as close to
Their homelife as possible.
A traveler wants a life experience
As close to local as possible.
A tourist has a favorite meal;
A traveler assumes he hasn't
Crossed paths with it yet.
A tourist leaves nothing to chance;
A traveler embraces the spontaneous.
A tourist takes comfort as a main course;
A traveler uses it like a condiment.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
FIVE WISE LINES [June 2025]
…we should not be too confident in our belief of anything.
cicero; tusculan disputations
No matter what plans you make,
Rumi; Mathnawi II
no matter what you acquire,
the thief will enter from the unguarded side.
Be occupied, then, with what you really value
and let the thief take something less.
Very little is needed to make a happy life;
Marcus aurelius; Meditations
it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
I possess, but I am not possessed by her;
aristippus [according to Diogenes laertius in
since the best thing is to possess pleasures
without being their slave,
not to be devoid of pleasures.
lives of the eminent philosophers]
Do not fear the gods.
philodemus; Herculaneum papyrus
Do not fear death.
What is good is easy to attain.
What is painful is easy to endure.
[Often referred to as the four cures of epicurus]
Tiger Riding for Beginners 