Saturday, July 8, 2023

Bringing in the Wine



did you not see
water cascade from the sky 
the Yellow River will surge straight to the sea
never return

did you not see
a person stare sadly at a mirror
counting their white hairs

morning is as green as spring grass
soon night comes
snow covers the grass 

do you not see
we must not be sad
never let our goblets go empty

why was I born
if no use exists for me?
what point would there be
if that should be true?
bring in more wine
if I spend all my wealth
each gold coin will come rolling back

roast a sheep   slaughter a cow
let's drink at the least 300 glasses
to you Sen    a toast
& to you Tang Chin
drink up my friends
don't let me see your goblets stand idle

I'll sing you a song
so listen intently
what is there left apart from wine
I only want to get drunk
never again be sober

saints and scholars are all forgotten
only those drinkers remain

Prince Chen paid ten thousand crowns
for 1 cask of fine wine
he banqueted in the palace of perfection
how come mine host that you tell us
all your money is spent?

I'll sell my best horse   the best of my furs
my servant shall scour the town
to bring in more wine
so drink up my friends!
we shall drown the sorrows of 10,000 generations
if we don't drink now
how will we ever appease our grief


Li Po
T'ang Dynasty
translated by David Sen, Dick Russell

        Chapman Chinese Issue, Scotland, 1972

Coda:  Those Songs



(And Li Po also died drunk
trying to embrace a moon
in the Yellow River

Ezra Pound)


The words of those songs would be hollow
if my love of your company was not in them

those songs would be cold
like snow on frozen mountains
where torchlight never comes

clouds sail after you

what will life be now you drift downstream
leaving the moon moored here?

snowflakes fall on this poem



Dick Russell
Chapman Dick Russell Issue, 1975




Tuesday, July 4, 2023

 Endless Yearning

by Li Po

i

I endlessly yearn 
like a lone cricket 
left chirping by the well
defying autumn

there will be a morning frost
my bedding is cold
just one lantern in my room
hung high 
its shadows
flicker  
mock me   
making me more sad

at the window
we both look at the same moon
even though you are far away
beyond reach

could I but grasp that yellow flower 
touch its beauty in the dark sky
its light kissing this realm so fertile
watered by such restless rivers

my soul is troubled
dreams grow weary
I think of insurmountable mountains
between us 
impossible even to dream
endless this longing
it’s breaking my heart

ii

flowers like lanterns
in the evening mist
where the sun sets slowly

then a bright moon
like a piece of white silk

I wanted to take it
to dab away my tears

I cannot sleep

I played songs on a harp
about lovers like us

then I took a two-stringed lute
each string faithful to the other
its melodies so sad
if only you could hear

you are so far away
who can carry my feelings to you?
who can bridge this ocean between us?

open skies have shut their doors on us
my eyes once sparkling
now deep wells of tears
if you doubt how my heart aches
return to me and see just how I look in this mirror

Li Po


translated by David Sen 
interpreted by Dick Russell
copyright © Dick Russell 2014

Friday, June 30, 2023

 To a Taoist Hermit


Today   at work in the office
I felt a sudden chill in my heart
you who live alone on the mountain
gathering wood beside a plunging stream
will be boiling white stones for food

I want to bring you a gourd of wine
to cheer you in this time of wind and rain
but the empty mountains are vast
falling leaves fill the paths
how could I find your footsteps



Wei Ying Wu
T'ang Dynasty

translated by David Sen, Dick Russell
revised March 2017, 2023 Dick Russell
Published in Chapman Chinese Issue, Scotland, 1972

Thursday, June 29, 2023

 To Rosalind 

         Store Future


no works are better than these codes
embedded in DNA
in blossoms seen 
     soon after solstice
  
though flowers fade
images live on
epochs un-scroll their struggle to survive 

deeds encoded in DNA
                maintained forever
  capable of surviving
        like a warrior
from a hero’s tomb

bringing faint sounds of Homer



copyright © Dick Russell, 2019, 2023

Sunday, June 25, 2023

 in less than an hour 
perhaps a few minutes
it was time well spent 
wracking the brain for a suitable stain to put on the page
or was it a wash of pixels on a slate-grey screen
whatever it was it was
wasn't it
it definitely was
a sonnet
not a daub
or a scratch of an itch
in less than an hour 
perhaps a few minutes

By Chirdon Burn I’ll wander where my love and I once walked
alone except for a birdwatcher’s hut by water’s edge where we talked.
And that was where she went no further for she wanted to go on from me
we’d passed a full-fledged tawny owl being mobbed by birds in a tree.
No, you can’t keep it, it’s wild, set it free She’d taken it anyway back to our bothy
from the drystone wall where she found it. We kept it and fed it and then it flew free.
From Allerybank we’d found her from Roughside near enough
was it her, songbirds were trying to kill in the valley of the Cleugh?




In the Borders, cleugh rhymes with snuff and rough.

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