Gongsun

There lived years ago the beautiful Gongsun,
Who, dancing with her dagger, drew from all four quarters
An audience like mountains lost among themselves.
Heaven and earth moved back and forth, following her motions,
Which were bright as when the Archer shot the nine suns down the sky
And rapid as angels before the wings of dragons.
She began like a thunderbolt, venting its anger,
And ended like the shining calm of rivers and the sea....
But vanished are those red lips and those pearly sleeves;
And none but this one pupil bears the perfume of her fame,
This beauty from Lingying, at the Town of the White God,
Dancing still and singing in the old blithe way.
And while we reply to each other's questions,
We sigh together, saddened by changes that have come.
There were eight thousand ladies in the late Emperor's court,
But none could dance the dagger-dance like Lady Gongsun.
...Fifty years have passed, like the turning of a palm;
Wind and dust, filling the world, obscure the Imperial House.
Instead of the Pear-Garden Players, who have blown by like a mist,
There are one or two girl-musicians now-trying to charm the cold Sun.
There are man-size trees by the Emperor's Golden Tomb
I seem to hear dead grasses rattling on the cliffs of Qutang.
...The song is done, the slow string and quick pipe have ceased.
At the height of joy, sorrow comes with the eastern moon rising.
And I, a poor old man, not knowing where to go,
Must harden my feet on the lone hills, toward sickness and despair.

Tang Shi III. 1. (64)
--
So word on the street is they won't have an ALT after me. Which almost certainly means I don't get a fourth year; I have been budgeted out. Laid off, despite the many non-native ALTs and a looming Elementary English curriculum. This is unofficial as of yet; I'll have to confirm the rumor. In the mean time, I am a poor old man, not knowing where to go.
Opportunity is scary.

From Longfellow

Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.

Unpleasent dead"pan" suprise

oy. Leave it to the Japanese to put sweet bean paste in the middle of a sesame seed bun. I need to open a gaijin restaraunt and show them how pan (pan=bread in nihongo) should be done.
--
The rice fields are ripe, and I think harvest is soon upon us. Then it will be time for wheat to take the rice-fields' place. Gotta have wheat if they're gonna have beer. Bread, however, will remain rare and screwed up.
--

To make a prarie it take one clover and one bee
One clover, one bee, and revilry

--Emily Dickinson

smolder and burn

Many red devils ran from my heart
And out upon the page,
They were so tiny
The pen could mash them.
And many struggled in the ink.
It was strange
To write in this red muck
Of things from my heart.

-Stephen Crane

Wirble

From the very funny thing called Shakeskin.com Mark and Ben know what I mean by wirble.
----
"Once upon a time, memoirs were written by hoary chaps casting rheumy glances back towards their golden youth: no more."
--Erica Wagner, "Post-Post-Modern memoir"

are you a dynamic character?

In literature, dynamic characters are defined as those that change.

Are you dynamic or static?
What wisdom have you gained, and how have you increased your capacity to love?
----
On Hearing Jun the Buddhist Monk from Shu Play his Lute

The monk from Shu with his green silk lute-case,
Walking west down Omei Mountain,
Has brought me by one touch of the strings
The breath of pines in a thousand valleys.
I hear him in the cleansing brook,
I hear him in the icy bells;
And I feel no change though the mountain darken
And cloudy autumn heaps the sky.
-- The ancient poet Li Bai

guess that poem part 3

"I'm no good at poetry. Rather, I'm good at doing prose that sounds like poetry" --Me, to B

Guess this poem's title and author

The small world of the car
Plunges through the deep fields of the night,
On the road from Willmar to Milan.
This solitude covered with iron
Moves through the fields of night
Penetrated by the noise of crickets.

guess that poem part 2

quick on the heels of the last one, and in honor of not seeing my Dad in a long time. This time you have to name the play it's from as well as the author.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

alone

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw — I could not bring
My passions from a common spring —
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow — I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone —
And all I lov'd — I lov'd alone —

--Edgar Allen Poe

----
If I could do it all over again, I would have kept more to myself.
It is the mystery that lingers...

rains

There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

-- Sara Teasdale

Growing pains

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.


I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.
--the immortal bard

Guess that song, part II

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here, in my arms

Words are very
unnecessary
They can only do harm

Guess that song

You shut your mouth,
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way?

I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

Computer poetry

do androids dream of electric sheep? 
Using definitions of poetry such as " The essence or characteristic quality of a poem." or "A quality that suggests poetry, as in grace, beauty, or harmony: the poetry of the dancer's movements," it is easy to see poetry everywhere. Night is especially good for seeing the poetry of nature apparent in our world.

I discovered a poetic moment in the unlikeliest of places: Halo. Halo is a video game for those of you not in the know. There is one part of the game where you can fly up high and listen to a secret track of music that the programmers threw in ala Easter egg. It is a lilting piano song; kinda melancholy. From that spot, you can listen to the music and watch the artificial snow fall. It's poetry, disguised as a video game.

Wandering

Today I wandered. Friend B taught me the value of walks. I taught myself the dangers.

Robert Frost adequately described wandering thus:
"I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night. "