All pain has already
The sharp pages
Of her presence
Cut his fingers
With each turn
That blood
Is the ink
In which their
Future is learned
Previously published on Twitter (@van_decaf)
Walking along Beach Street with rain drizzling on my head
Money’s freed you, fish, from knife-cut trials,
A story that’ll fill all fish and fowl with gratitude.
So, Bon Voyage! The Yangtze swells for countless miles,
Go swim at ease to peaceful latitudes.
Around the building throughout the day,
These joyful guests convene on beams
With songs that carry auspicious signs,
Arriving through the curtained screens.
Sunset guides them down to town for rest,
But dawn will draw them to the river streams,
Until they reach the swans assembled together,
Watching them soar, as in a phoenix dream.
Original Chinese poem by Li Jiao
She lives in her grubby pyjamas that fall
Off her body so wasted and frail
There’s no-one she needs to dress up for at all
The dark of the house turns her pale
Two slices of toast, all she has for a meal
She spends all her days feeling ill
The scars on her wrists will eventually heal;
The scars in her thoughts never will
She shuffles back up to her room, locks the door
Although she knows no-one’s around
But forces of habit are hard to ignore
And by such obsessions she’s bound
As the sun dies down I lie in the lake pavilion,
Heart disturbed and drawn by various affairs;
Sleep ruined, I wake and drink, intoxicated,
Sitting and waiting in the cool night air.
Rain in the pines has sent my rattan hat afloat,
The river wind has pierced my hempen clothes:
Walking by willows, never tired of this path,
The sand is soft like cotton in falling snow.
Original Chinese poem by Bai Juyi
Curtains drawn,day begins
Uncertain of itself;
Clouds overhanging,
Mountains emerge
Out of a morning shroud
Helped by the sun;
A bar of light,golden yet,
Search lighting from the sea
Across the vale to me;
Stopping short to illuminate
A storm ravaged tree,
Beaten into a bare cross
And lit up by Lumin Christi,
Showing us the way
We were once redeemed.
