Short Poems

Angel of clean sheets, do you know bedbugs?
Once in a madhouse they came like specks of cinnamon
as I lay in a chloral cave of drugs,
as old as a dog, as quiet as a skeleton.

I have known a crib. I have know the tuck-in of a child
but inside my hair waits the night I was defiled.

I said, "The devil is down that festering hole."
Then he bit me in the buttocks and took over my soul.

Mother of fire, let me stand at your devouring gate
as the sun dies in your arms and you loosen its terrible weight.

Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,
An old man in a draughty house
Under a windy knob . . .

Pirate Ditty
From Treasure Island
Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest —
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest —
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

While an official, I never wrote lyrics:
I was too busy dashing off to court all the time.
When I retired, it's not that I didn't want to,
but I could hardly sit up straight, I was so sick.
Now autumn is here, and I am stronger;
guests visit me for evening parties.
But who will sing these new works of mine?
I must trouble the women maestros!

All my friends can write them,
but as for me, what do I know?
Still, I've had the chairmanship thrust upon me;
I'm ashamed of my inadequacy for this post!
There are many sad songs, like Tree of Jade,
and slangy tunes, like Bamboo Branch.
We improvise songs in northern and southern style,
and give them to the singers right here on the mats!

The Sage has the Six Classics
just as Heaven and Earth have sun and moon.
Sun and moon have lasted millions of years
and the Classics too will never disappear.

Forty li through Chü-yung Pass,
twisting ridges, doubled peaks: we wind in and out.
Beside the road, stone-cut inscriptions no one can read:
all of them are from the former dynasty,
written in Mongolian!

She drank what makes man demon at the draught.
Her skies lowered black,
Her lover flew,
There swept a shudder over men.
Her heavenly lover fled her, and she laughed,
For laughter was her spirit's weapon then.
The Infernal rose uncalled, he with his crew.

For thus the royal Mandate ran,
When first the human race began,
" The social, friendly, honest man,
Whate'er he be,
'Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan ,
And none but he ."