Short Poems

I wondered why the covers felt so cold,
then I saw how bright my window was.
Night far gone, I know the snow must be deep —
from time to time I hear the bamboos cracking.

Housebreaker types —
that's the kind

The angel who entered the constellation Carp peered in the plum pith mirror and for the first time knew me. Adorned my hair with wheat flowers and ran away. A fish with a beautiful heart, when spring comes, steals the angel's costumes. This experiment is performed at my fingertip where a bud is about to spill over. In the glass waves groan, close. It was the first dinner born of the conversational instinct between the first snow on my fingernail and the cataract under my armpit.

" Look at the path, look at her waving her sleeve!
Don't spill your charm on the path.
Come out and look, how she spills her charm!
Let's play to the tune of her charm. "
" She's a girl, she's young, don't let her wave her sleeve! "

I gave my musk scent to her white kosode ,
I slept with a Kuruhara lady and rubbed off on her.
Musk and incense, move, become the fragrance of her sleeve!
Say what you will, I can't forget the Kuruhara lady.
I'll never forget the way she lay, hair disorderly.

How far shall I go with our lunch maid? To the Barrier Mount, to
Barrier Mountain, Barrier Temple, Chambers, Chamber Barrier.
Now at the trip's end, look, Thrust Island of Gourd!
Hurry, slow girl, the tea shop on the hilltop's near!

Language has not the power to speak what love indites:
The Soul lies buried in the ink that writes.

Goosey goosey gander
Where would you wander
Up the fen & down the fen
To cackle & to slander.

Lillies will languish; Violets look ill;
Sickly the Prim-rose: Pale the Daffadill:
That gallant Tulip will hang down his head,
Like to a Virgin newly ravished.
Pansies will weep; and Marygolds will wither;
And keep a Fast, and Funerall together,
If Sapho droop; Daisies will open never,
But bid Good-night, and close their lids for ever.

In things a moderation keep
Kings ought to shear, not skin their sheep