A Dream of Blue House Street

I'm trying to resume the more regular practice of translating Chinese poetry.  It's such a great way to start the day.  Clinical studies have proven that a stanza of lyrical truth provides more stimulation than a cup and a half of the strongest dark roast.

Today's translation is of a poem by the Tang poet Du Mu.

Dispatched from the Heart

Down and out

By rivers and lakes

A bottle of wine in hand

A slender girl

With a narrow waist

Light in the palm of my hand

Ten years is

A long time to nap

Even to dream of Yangzhou

Laying claim to a place

On Blue House street

Is only a meager reward

遣懷

落魄江湖載酒行

楚腰纖細掌中輕

 
十年一覺揚州夢

贏得青樓薄倖名

 

 

A FedEx Package from JPMorgan Chase

October 1st -- for immediate release.

 It was a long summer but today I feel as if fall has finally arrived.  And with it my mood has lifted too.  Melancholy took root in my soul in June and then spread out in crabgrass-like fashion, growing with abandon all summer long; but suddenly it seems to have been stopped dead in its tracks, withered overnight, and in strange counter-cyclical fashion, I find myself invigorated this morning, welcoming autumn with a strong sense of promise -- the prospect of a fresh start in my front and back yard after all.

I want to take the occasion to announce the launch of 1000 new ships.  I am re-engaging with the world effectively immediately.  Take particular note that this blog is being rechristened as part of the effort.  Henceforth this blog -- which up until now primarily served as a dumping ground for all the poems I otherwise didn't know what to do with -- is being reshaped as an online journal, my day book in fact, where you will continue having the chance to read my most personal thoughts, although now recast in prose form.  It's all still at no cost to you, I should add.

The fact of the matter is that I'm not writing so much poetry these days.  The depression pretty much killed that off, at least for now.  If there's ever a change in the status of poetry and my soul, I promise you'll be one of the very first to know.

* * * * *

Just as I was in the midst of writing this post, the door buzzer rang.   It was the FedEx delivery man summoning me downstairs for a package.  So mid-sentence I lost my train of thought and went downstairs where I found waiting for me an envelope from JP Morgan Chase.  Now usually, I'm thrilled to receive a package and am all in favor of tearing them open right away, eager for the thrill and excitement.  It could be a million dollar check, after all, albeit not very likely.

But today was different.  I was so engrossed in what I was thinking about, I hurried back upstairs, set the unopened envelope down beside my computer, and immediately resumed writing.  That's how important it was for me to get the Lampoetry blog relaunched.  If you're curious to find out what's in the envelope (as I am now, quite frankly) you'll just have to come back for more Lampoetry tomorrow.

  

 

Ode to Serendipity

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Oh to the

Serendipity

Of things

To the zippity-do-da

Of life itself

To the almost but

Not quite eternal flame

Of happenstance

It used to be

People would be killed

For donning purple robes

As Jean Louis had only

Just finished explaining
To me that morning
Over strong French Roast

And there I was

Standing online

At the Staples store

When this woman

Behind handed me the 

Purplemost pen

It seems we shared

An uncommon name

After a fashion

And quite miraculously

It enabled me to

To compose this poem

In haec verba

Not even yet

Outside the store

Ere these purplemost words

Were fully formed

Poem for A Desolate Angel

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This summer I read a lot of Jack Kerouac – first the Dharma Bums, then Desolation Angels, now I’m dipping into Visions of Cody.  It’s interesting to see how Kerouac’s writing developed over the course of more than a decade and how his spirit steadily deteriorated; in style he seemed ever more daring but in his heart he seemed ever more inclined to despair.  

I think something happened in the few months Jack spent on Desolation Peak. Or maybe it’s more a matter of something that didn’t happen.  He went in search of an epiphany and all he found was a trash heap.

So this is my poem for Jack, the Desolate Angel

 * * * * *

There comes a point
In Mind's development
When stoned or not
Becomes all but
Indistinguishable

It's a moment of both
Enlightenment
And grave peril

The stage has been set
Like hostages our
Fate hangs on the balance
Of a final act


To scale the heights
Of Five Phase Mountain
The question is
Can we ever be up
To such a task

A Few Things I Learned From Edna

To borrow a conceit

From the good lady

Edna St. Vincent Millay --

There are a few important skills

A poet must acquire before

He or she presumes to speak

On behalf of humanity 

East and West will likely 

Start to pinch at your heart
Unless you first learn how  

To pump with your ventricles extended

Wide open in anticipation
Of the oncoming beat
For as long as you can

And if your soul has

A propensity for flatness  

You must learn to navigate

Sightlessly just like a bat

Because the sky is probably

Going to end up caving in

On you sooner or later

Are You Social

Are you social

What’s your Klout Score

Do you host in the cloud

Do you disambiguate visitors

To your home page based on

Cookie or domain name

Do you tweet

Do you soar

More and more

These are the questions

That matter most

Whether you’re a corporate attorney

A con artist or a poet

It’s all the same

You must learn to reap

The harvest in these realms 

Of purely binary gold

5774 - A New Year's Resolution

It’s 4 pm Thursday

On the first afternoon

Of the Jewish New Year

5774 to be exact

And the resolution I wish to make

Is to connect myself

To the ding an sich

Or noumena or whatever

You wish to call it

In a more direct way

No matter what

Immanuel Kant has

To say about it

From here on out

For the rest of my days