Drinking Alone by Moonlight by Li Bai [w/ Audio]

Posted on October 28, 2023 by B Gourley

A pot of wine, under blossoms.
   I drink alone, no friends in sight.
 I raise a cup to lustrous Moon:
   Me, Moon, and Shadow will make three.
 But Moon is a teetotaler.
   And Shadow just skulks at my feet.
 Still, Moon & Shadow are my chums.
   We need a bash before Spring's end.
 But my singing makes Moon recoil.
   And Shadow flops hard when I dance.
 At first, we have a grand old time,
   But we part ways when I drift off.
 We should keep this epic friendship rolling,
   and meet again in the River of Stars.

NOTE: I produced this “translation” / arrangement, using translations by Arthur Waley, Ezra Pound, and that of “The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry” [ed. by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping] to get varied takes on the source poem.

PROMPT: Moon

Posted on October 28, 2023 by B Gourley

How much would you pay to go to the moon?

Not one thin dime. I have no pressing need to go to a place without breathable quantities of oxygen for longer than I can hold my breath. If complex technology is required every millisecond to stay alive… well, I know where I’m not wanted.

I’ll leave it to the billionaires who have enough spare change lying around to fund personal space programs.

I’ll stick to gazing at it admiringly from afar.

Mangrove Movement [Haiku]

Posted on October 27, 2023 by B Gourley

grasses sway,
 the egret stalks, & even
  tree roots seem to crawl.

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

Posted on October 27, 2023 by B Gourley

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
   Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
   And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
 Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
   And often is his gold complexion dimm'd:
 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
   By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
   Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
 Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
   When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;

   So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Mangrove Kong [Haiku]

Posted on October 27, 2023 by B Gourley

a young monkey
 king kongs through a forest
  of aerial roots.

DAILY PHOTO: Esplanade Mansions, Kolkata

Posted on October 27, 2023 by B Gourley

The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes [w/ Audio]

Posted on October 26, 2023 by B Gourley

I've known rivers:
 I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
 I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
 I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
 I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
 Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Cast Nets [Free Verse]

Posted on October 26, 2023 by B Gourley

One foot in the river.
 One foot on the shore.
  Both feet sunk in the mud.

The fisherman casts his net
   with perfect flick and spin,
 muck extruding between toes.

The sling is the one quick
   part of the movement:
quick, but unrushed.

The net is hauled back,
   slowly and methodically,
 pressing out excess water
   while offering no escape route.

How many casts per day?

As many as are necessary.

There are other fishers,
   out on languidly rocking boats,
 casting out in the river.

And in rivers everywhere:

   in the Mekong,
   the Amazon,
   the Euphrates,
   and the Mississippi Delta.

Everywhere, they are casting.