If you stare at
stone dragons
long enough
their stone-chiseled
forms will start
to glide
in tracked loops.
A steady motion of the
sinuous segments
unbroken by cloud.
They move slowly
and steadily --
never breaking off
into a new course.
Some figure-eight,
Some circle,
but never do they
come off the wall.
Their movements never
menace.
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away.”
Philip k. dick
“The Wu and the Yue peoples hate each other. But in the same boat in a storm, they work together like left and right hands.”
SunZi in The ART of War
“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel – leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks – on your body or on your heart – are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”
anthony bourdain
What allows great kings and generals to win, more frequently than ordinary men, is foreknowledge.
Sunzi in The ART of war
Foreknowledge cannot be attained by spirits or deduced or calculated.”
“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
T. S. Eliot
Have no mother, have no dad,
have no country, have no God,
no cradle, no winding sheet,
no lover, no kisses sweet.
Haven't eaten for three days,
my head spins, the body sways...
Twenty years! My might, my gale,
twenty years are now for sale.
If there is no customer,
sell it to Devil in hell.
With a clean heart, I will steal,
If need be, I'll even kill.
They'll catch me and hang me up,
with soft earth cover me up,
and death-bringing grass will start
from my beautiful, clean heart.
Translation by Frank Veszely in Hungarian Poetry: One Thousand Years (2023) Altona, Manitoba: Friesen Press, pp. 156-157.
NOTE: This poem got Attila expelled from university and preemptively scuttled any possibility of a career in academia. (Hence, my affinity for it. Any poetry that extracts such a cost is probably excellent poetry.)
translucent hibiscus:
keeps its secrets
in its folds;
anywhere petals
don't double over,
the light shines through.
hanging face down --
pistil dangling --
pockets emptied by
gravity.
the jungle beyond blurs.
tawny grain stalks,
unkempt, like mussed hair;
a bird flies out.
Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction by Daniel K. Gardner
Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe -- I have tried it -- my own feet have
tried it well -- be not detain'd!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten,
and the book on the shelf unopen'd!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let
the money remain unearn'd!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of
the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the
lawyer plead in the court, and the judge
expound the law.
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than
money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come
travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we
live?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 