Short Poems

Great Gawd, I'm feelin' bad,
I ain't got the man that I thought I had!

Was spring at Naniwa
in Tsu Province
a dream?
Wind blows
over the withered reeds' leaves.

George the First was always reckoned
Vile, but viler George the Second;
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third?
When from earth the Fourth descended
(God be praised!) the Georges ended.

Grasping my flying cane, several feet of wood,
in an instant I am among the white clouds.
But my drunken eyes are hazy—I don't know where I am,
I think I'm going down the mountain when I'm really going up!

A full moon on the night of the seventeenth:
this is the first time it has happened in years.
There is a drought now, no clouds in the sky:
I can see each hair on the rabbit!

From the top of Dragon Gate
I gaze down at West Lake:
Wu Tzu-hsü's hill, townsman's retreat,
props me from behind.
A sound of flute wafts on fragrant breeze
from amongst the lotus:
my soul melts, bit by bit,
at this scene within a painting.

Good and great God! How sho'd I feare
To come to Thee, if Christ not there!
Co'd I but think, He would not be
Present, to plead my cause for me;
To Hell I'd rather run, then I
Wo'd see Thy Face, and He not by.

Goddesse, I do love a Girle
Rubie-lipt, and tooth'd with Pearl:
If so be, I may but prove
Luckie in this Maide I love:
I will promise there shall be
Mirtles offer'd up to Thee.

God He rejects all Prayers that are sleight,
And want their Poise: words ought to have their weight.

God hath two wings, which He doth ever move,
The one is Mercy, and the next is Love:
Under the first the Sinners ever trust;
And with the last he still directs the Just.