Sapphire drops of moonlight bounced off her umbrella and a cool, smoky mist escaped her crimson lips every once and so often.There she stood alone, on a loud, bright and miserable winters’ night. Pensively gazing over the glistening city streets before her.

Echoes of light gleamed from the windows of bars and cafes. Reflections of lover’s kisses melted in a cold November rain. Live music, laughter, conversation! O what a cheerful sight is the city at night, for all but one this evening.

Such striking acts of delight and love did nothing but depress her.

This loner longs to stand with the pack and live her life, instead of merely existing. She is the Steppenwolf of her time. Unwanted and alone. And much like the original Steppenwolf, she gives and cares for others very much like family. Alas, despite her best efforts, she could never fit in.

And perhaps, never will.

With these drugs on my brain, I have some words I cannot explain.
My heart pounding never could match the beat of this Steppenwolf song.
My head was skipping like this scratched up record. I was in the clouds, with a head that felt like it was seventy steps behind my dancing body. Time has turned to liquid, and my brain wrinkles. I lean back allowing it to melt. Everything is melting, my hands, my hair, the walls, my eyebrows feel like forests. I look at the energy wave behind my closed stained eyelids. I'm beginning to drip into this puddle of blankets.

Uyghur Poetry Translations

With my translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets and their people, who are being sent in large numbers to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps which have been praised by Trump as "exactly" what is "needed."

Perhat Tursun (1969-????) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Unfortunately, Tursun was "disappeared" into a Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. Apparently no one knows his present whereabouts or condition.

Because Perhat Tursun quoted Hermann Hesse I have included my translations of Hesse at the bottom of this page, including "Stages" or "Steps" from his novel "The Glass Bead Game" and excerpts from "Siddhartha."



Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Your soul is the entire world."
―Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Asylum seekers, will you recognize me among the mountain passes' frozen corpses?
Can you identify me here among our Exodus's exiled brothers?
We begged for shelter but they lashed us bare; consider our naked corpses.
When they compel us to accept their massacres, do you know that I am with you?

Three centuries later they resurrect, not recognizing each other,
Their former greatness forgotten.
I happily ingested poison, like a fine wine.
When they search the streets and cannot locate our corpses, do you know that I am with you?

In that tower constructed of skulls you will find my dome as well:
They removed my head to more accurately test their swords' temper.
When before their swords our relationship flees like a flighty lover,
Do you know that I am with you?

When men in fur hats are used for target practice in the marketplace
Where a dying man's face expresses his agony as a bullet cleaves his brain
While the executioner's eyes fail to comprehend why his victim vanishes,...
Seeing my form reflected in that bullet-pierced brain's erratic thoughts,
Do you know that I am with you?

In those days when drinking wine was considered worse than drinking blood,
did you taste the flour ground out in that blood-turned churning mill?
Now, when you sip the wine Ali-Shir Nava'i imagined to be my blood
In that mystical tavern's dark abyssal chambers,
Do you know that I am with you?

TRANSLATOR NOTES: This is my interpretation (not necessarily correct) of the poem's frozen corpses left 300 years in the past. For the Uyghur people the Mongol period ended around 1760 when the Qing dynasty invaded their homeland, then called Dzungaria. Around a million people were slaughtered during the Qing takeover, and the Dzungaria territory was renamed Xinjiang. I imagine many Uyghurs fleeing the slaughters would have attempted to navigate treacherous mountain passes. Many of them may have died from starvation and/or exposure, while others may have been caught and murdered by their pursuers.



The Fog and the Shadows
adapted from a novel by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“I began to realize the fog was similar to the shadows.”

I began to realize that, just as the exact shape of darkness is a shadow,
even so the exact shape of fog is disappearance
and the exact shape of a human being is also disappearance.
At this moment it seemed my body was vanishing into the human form’s final state.

After I arrived here,
it was as if the danger of getting lost
and the desire to lose myself
were merging strangely inside me.

While everything in that distant, gargantuan city where I spent my five college years felt strange to me; and even though the skyscrapers, highways, ditches and canals were built according to a single standard and shape, so that it wasn’t easy to differentiate them, still I never had the feeling of being lost. Everyone there felt like one person and they were all folded into each other. It was as if their faces, voices and figures had been gathered together like a shaman’s jumbled-up hair.

Even the men and women seemed identical.
You could only tell them apart by stripping off their clothes and examining them.
The men’s faces were beardless like women’s and their skin was very delicate and unadorned.
I was always surprised that they could tell each other apart.
Later I realized it wasn’t just me: many others were also confused.

For instance, when we went to watch the campus’s only TV in a corridor of a building where the seniors stayed when they came to improve their knowledge. Those elderly Uyghurs always argued about whether someone who had done something unusual in an earlier episode was the same person they were seeing now. They would argue from the beginning of the show to the end. Other people, who couldn’t stand such endless nonsense, would leave the TV to us and stalk off.

Then, when the classes began, we couldn’t tell the teachers apart.
Gradually we became able to tell the men from the women
and eventually we able to recognize individuals.
But other people remained identical for us.

The most surprising thing for me was that the natives couldn’t differentiate us either.
For instance, two police came looking for someone who had broken windows during a fight at a restaurant and had then run away.
They ordered us line up, then asked the restaurant owner to identify the culprit.
He couldn’t tell us apart even though he inspected us very carefully.
He said we all looked so much alike that it was impossible to tell us apart.
Sighing heavily, he left.



The Encounter
by Abdurehim Otkur
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I asked her, why aren’t you afraid? She said her God.
I asked her, anything else? She said her People.
I asked her, anything more? She said her Soul.
I asked her if she was content? She said, I am Not.



The Distance
by Tahir Hamut
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We can’t exclude the cicadas’ serenades.
Behind the convex glass of the distant hospital building
the nurses watch our outlandish party
with their absurdly distorted faces.

Drinking watered-down liquor,
half-****, descanting through the open window,
we speak sneeringly of life, love, girls.
The cicadas’ serenades keep breaking in,
wrecking critical parts of our dissertations.

The others dream up excuses to ditch me
and I’m left here alone.

The cosmopolitan pyramid
of drained bottles
makes me feel
like I’m in a Turkish bath.

I lock the door:
Time to get back to work!

I feel like doing cartwheels.
I feel like self-annihilation.



Refuge of a Refugee
by Ablet Abdurishit Berqi aka Tarim
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I lack a passport,
so I can’t leave legally.
All that’s left is for me to smuggle myself to safety,
but I’m afraid I’ll be beaten black and blue at the border
and I can’t afford the trafficker.

I’m a smuggler of love,
though love has no national identity.
Poetry is my refuge,
where a refugee is most free.

The following excerpts, translated by Anne Henochowicz, come from an essay written by Tang Danhong about her final meeting with Dr. Ablet Abdurishit Berqi, aka Tarim. Tarim is a reference to the Tarim Basin and its Uyghur inhabitants...

I’m convinced that the poet Tarim Ablet Berqi the associate professor at the Xinjiang Education Institute, has been sent to a “concentration camp for educational transformation.” This scholar of Uyghur literature who conducted postdoctoral research at Israel’s top university, what kind of “educational transformation” is he being put through?

Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, has said it’s “like the instruction at school, the order of the military, and the security of prison. We have to break their blood relations, their networks, and their roots.”

On a scorching summer day, Tarim came to Tel Aviv from Haifa. In a few days he would go back to Urumqi. I invited him to come say goodbye and once again prepared Sichuan cold noodles for him. He had already unfriended me on Facebook. He said he couldn’t eat, he was busy, and had to hurry back to Haifa. He didn’t even stay for twenty minutes. I can’t even remember, did he sit down? Did he have a glass of water? Yet this farewell shook me to my bones.

He said, “Maybe when I get off the plane, before I enter the airport, they’ll take me to a separate room and beat me up, and I’ll disappear.”

Looking at my shocked face, he then said, “And maybe nothing will happen …”

His expression was sincere. To be honest, the Tarim I saw rarely smiled. Still, layer upon layer blocked my powers of comprehension: he’s a poet, a writer, and a scholar. He’s an associate professor at the Xinjiang Education Institute. He can get a passport and come to Israel for advanced studies. When he goes back he’ll have an offer from Sichuan University to be a professor of literature … I asked, “Beat you up at the airport? Disappear? On what grounds?”

“That’s how Xinjiang is,” he said without any surprise in his voice. “When a Uyghur comes back from being abroad, that can happen.”…



This poem helps us understand the nomadic lifestyle of many Uyghurs, the hardships they endure, and the character it builds...

Iz (“Traces”)
by Abdurehim Otkur
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We were children when we set out on this journey;
Now our grandchildren ride horses.

We were just a few when we set out on this arduous journey;
Now we're a large caravan leaving traces in the desert.

We leave our traces scattered in desert dunes' valleys
Where many of our heroes lie buried in sandy graves.

But don't say they were abandoned: amid the cedars
their resting places are decorated by springtime flowers!

We left the tracks, the station... the crowds recede in the distance;
The wind blows, the sand swirls, but here our indelible trace remains.

The caravan continues, we and our horses become thin,
But our great-grand-children will one day rediscover those traces.

The original Uyghur poem:

Yax iduq muxkul seperge atlinip mangghanda biz,
Emdi atqa mingidek bolup qaldi ene nevrimiz.
Az iduq muxkul seperge atlinip chiqanda biz,
Emdi chong karvan atalduq, qaldurup chollerde iz.
Qaldi iz choller ara, gayi davanlarda yene,
Qaldi ni-ni arslanlar dexit cholde qevrisiz.
Qevrisiz qaldi dimeng yulghun qizarghan dalida,
Gul-chichekke pukinur tangna baharda qevrimiz.
Qaldi iz, qaldi menzil, qaldi yiraqta hemmisi,
Chiqsa boran, kochse qumlar, hem komulmes izimiz.
Tohtimas karvan yolida gerche atlar bek oruq,
Tapqus hichbolmisa, bu izni bizning nevrimiz, ya chevrimiz.

Other poems of note by Abdurehim Otkur include "I Call Forth Spring" and "Waste, You Traitors, Waste!"



My Feelings
by Dolqun Yasin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The light sinking through the ice and snow,
The hollyhock blossoms reddening the hills like blood,
The proud peaks revealing their ******* to the stars,
The morning-glories embroidering the earth’s greenery,
Are not light,
Not hollyhocks,
Not peaks,
Not morning-glories;
They are my feelings.

The tears washing the mothers’ wizened faces,
The flower-like smiles suddenly brightening the girls’ visages,
The hair turning white before age thirty,
The night which longs for light despite the sun’s laughter,
Are not tears,
Not smiles,
Not hair,
Not night;
They are my nomadic feelings.

Now turning all my sorrow to passion,
Bequeathing to my people all my griefs and joys,
Scattering my excitement like flowers festooning fields,
I harvest all these, then tenderly glean my poem.

Therefore the world is this poem of mine,
And my poem is the world itself.



To My Brother the Warrior
by Téyipjan Éliyow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I accompanied you,
the commissioners called me a child.
If only I had been a bit taller
I might have proved myself in battle!

The commission could not have known
my commitment, despite my youth.
If only they had overlooked my age and enlisted me,
I'd have given that enemy rabble hell!

Now, brother, I’m an adult.
Doubtless, I’ll join the service soon.
Soon enough, I’ll be by your side,
battling the enemy: I’ll never surrender!

Another poem of note by Téyipjan Éliyow is "Neverending Song."

Keywords/Tags: Uyghur, translation, Uighur, Xinjiang, elegy, Kafka, China, Chinese, reeducation, prison, concentration camp, desert, nomad, nomadic, race, racism, discrimination, Islam, Islamic, Muslim, mrbuyghur



Chinese Poets: English Translations

These are modern English translations of poems by some of the greatest Chinese poets of all time, including Du Fu, Huang E, Huang O, Li Bai, Li Ching-jau, Li Qingzhao, Po Chu-I, Tzu Yeh, Yau Ywe-Hwa and Xu Zhimo.



Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion
by Li Bai (701-762)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring breeze knows partings are bitter;
The willow twig knows it will never be green again.



A Toast to Uncle Yun
by Li Bai (701-762)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water reforms, though we slice it with our swords;
Sorrow returns, though we drown it with our wine.



The Solitude of Night
by Li Bai (701–762)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At the wine party
I lay comatose, knowing nothing.
Windblown flowers fell, perfuming my lap.
When I arose, still drunk,
The birds had all flown to their nests.
All that remained were my fellow inebriates.
I left to walk along the river—alone with the moonlight.



Li Bai (701-762)    was a romantic figure who has been called the Lord Byron of Chinese poetry. He and his friend Du Fu (712-770)    were the leading poets of the Tang Dynasty era, which has been called the 'Golden Age of Chinese poetry.' Li Bai is also known as Li Po, Li Pai, Li T'ai-po, and Li T'ai-pai.



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alone in your bedchamber
you gaze out at the Fu-Chou moon.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an...

A perfumed mist, your hair's damp ringlets!
In the moonlight, your arms' exquisite jade!

Oh, when can we meet again within your bed's drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the Fu-Chou moon
watches your lonely bedroom.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an...

By now your hair will be damp from your bath
and fall in perfumed ringlets;
your jade-white arms so exquisite in the moonlight!

Oh, when can we meet again within those drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



Lone Wild Goose
by Du Fu (712-770)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned goose refuses food and drink;
he cries querulously for his companions.

Who feels kinship for that strange wraith
as he vanishes eerily into the heavens?

You watch it as it disappears;
its plaintive calls cut through you.

The indignant crows ignore you both:
the bickering, bantering multitudes.

Du Fu (712-770)    is also known as Tu Fu. The first poem is addressed to the poet's wife, who had fled war with their children. Ch'ang-an is an ironic pun because it means 'Long-peace.'



The Red Cockatoo
by Po Chu-I (772-846)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A marvelous gift from Annam—
a red cockatoo,
bright as peach blossom,
fluent in men's language.

So they did what they always do
to the erudite and eloquent:
they created a thick-barred cage
and shut it up.

Po Chu-I (772-846)    is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi.



The Migrant Songbird
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c.1084-1155)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The migrant songbird on the nearby yew
brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills;
this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills:
another spring gone, and still no word from you...



The Plum Blossoms
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c.1084-1155)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This year with the end of autumn
I find my reflection graying at the edges.
Now evening gales hammer these ledges...
what shall become of the plum blossoms?

Li Qingzhao was a poet and essayist during the Song dynasty. She is generally considered to be one of the greatest Chinese poets. In English she is known as Li Qingzhao, Li Ching-chao and The Householder of Yi'an.



Star Gauge
Sui Hui (c.351-394 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So much lost so far away
on that distant rutted road.

That distant rutted road
wounds me to the heart.

Grief coupled with longing,
so much lost so far away.

Grief coupled with longing
wounds me to the heart.

This house without its master;
the bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils.

The bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils,
and you are not here.

Such loneliness! My adorned face
lacks the mirror's clarity.

I see by the mirror's clarity
my Lord is not here. Such loneliness!

Sui Hui, also known as Su Hui and Lady Su, appears to be the first female Chinese poet of note. And her 'Star Gauge' or 'Sphere Map' may be the most impressive poem written in any language to this day, in terms of complexity. 'Star Gauge' has been described as a palindrome or 'reversible' poem, but it goes far beyond that. According to contemporary sources, the original poem was shuttle-woven on brocade, in a circle, so that it could be read in multiple directions. Due to its shape the poem is also called Xuanji Tu ('Picture of the Turning Sphere') . The poem is now generally placed in a grid or matrix so that the Chinese characters can be read horizontally, vertically and diagonally. The story behind the poem is that Sui Hui's husband, Dou Tao, the governor of Qinzhou, was exiled to the desert. When leaving his wife, Dou swore to remain faithful. However, after arriving at his new post, he took a concubine. Lady Su then composed a circular poem, wove it into a piece of silk embroidery, and sent it to him. Upon receiving the masterwork, he repented. It has been claimed that there are up to 7,940 ways to read the poem. My translation above is just one of many possible readings of a portion of the poem.



Reflection
Xu Hui (627-650)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Confronting the morning she faces her mirror;
Her makeup done at last, she paces back and forth awhile.
It would take vast mountains of gold to earn one contemptuous smile,
So why would she answer a man's summons?

Due to the similarities in names, it seems possible that Sui Hui and Xu Hui were the same poet, with some of her poems being discovered later, or that poems written later by other poets were attributed to her.



Waves
Zhai Yongming (1955-)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The waves manhandle me like a midwife pounding my back relentlessly,
and so the world abuses my body—
accosting me, bewildering me, according me a certain ecstasy...



Monologue
Zhai Yongming (1955-)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am a wild thought, born of the abyss
and—only incidentally—of you. The earth and sky
combine in me—their concubine—they consolidate in my body.

I am an ordinary embryo, encased in pale, watery flesh,
and yet in the sunlight I dazzle and amaze you.

I am the gentlest, the most understanding of women.
Yet I long for winter, the interminable black night, drawn out to my heart's bleakest limit.

When you leave, my pain makes me want to ***** my heart up through my mouth—
to destroy you through love—where's the taboo in that?

The sun rises for the rest of the world, but only for you do I focus the hostile tenderness of my body.
I have my ways.

A chorus of cries rises. The sea screams in my blood but who remembers me?
What is life?

Zhai Yongming is a contemporary Chinese poet, born in Chengdu in 1955. She was one of the instigators and prime movers of the 'Black Tornado' of women's poetry that swept China in 1986-1989. Since then Zhai has been regarded as one of China's most prominent poets.



Pyre
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I share so much desire:
this love―like a fire—
that ends in a pyre's
charred coffin.



'Married Love' or 'You and I' or 'The Song of You and Me'
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I shared a love that burned like fire:
two lumps of clay in the shape of Desire
molded into twin figures. We two.
Me and you.

In life we slept beneath a single quilt,
so in death, why any guilt?
Let the skeptics keep scoffing:
it's best to share a single coffin.

Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)    is also known as Kuan Tao-Sheng, Guan Zhongji and Lady Zhongji. A famous poet of the early Yuan dynasty, she has also been called 'the most famous female painter and calligrapher in the Chinese history... remembered not only as a talented woman, but also as a prominent figure in the history of bamboo painting.' She is best known today for her images of nature and her tendency to inscribe short poems on her paintings.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard my love was going to Yang-chou
So I accompanied him as far as Ch'u-shan.
For just a moment as he held me in his arms
I thought the swirling river ceased flowing and time stood still.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will I ever hike up my dress for you again?
Will my pillow ever caress your arresting face?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night descends...
I let my silken hair spill down my shoulders as I part my thighs over my lover.
Tell me, is there any part of me not worthy of being loved?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will wear my robe loose, not bothering with a belt;
I will stand with my unpainted face at the reckless window;
If my petticoat insists on fluttering about, shamelessly,
I'll blame it on the unruly wind!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When he returns to my embrace,
I'll make him feel what no one has ever felt before:
Me absorbing him like water
Poured into a wet clay jar.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bare branches tremble in a sudden breeze.
Night deepens.
My lover loves me,
And I am pleased that my body's beauty pleases him.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do you not see
that we
have become like branches of a single tree?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I could not sleep with the full moon haunting my bed!
I thought I heard―here, there, everywhere―
disembodied voices calling my name!
Helplessly I cried 'Yes! ' to the phantom air!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have brought my pillow to the windowsill
so come play with me, tease me, as in the past...
Or, with so much resentment and so few kisses,
how much longer can love last?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When she approached you on the bustling street, how could you say no?
But your disdain for me is nothing new.
Squeaking hinges grow silent on an unused door
where no one enters anymore.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I remain constant as the Northern Star
while you rush about like the fickle sun:
rising in the East, drooping in the West.

Tzŭ-Yeh (or Tzu Yeh)    was a courtesan of the Jin dynasty era (c.400 BC)    also known as Lady Night or Lady Midnight. Her poems were pinyin ('midnight songs') . Tzŭ-Yeh was apparently a 'sing-song' girl, perhaps similar to a geisha trained to entertain men with music and poetry. She has also been called a 'wine shop girl' and even a professional concubine! Whoever she was, it seems likely that Rihaku (Li-Po)    was influenced by the lovely, touching (and often very ****)    poems of the 'sing-song' girl. Centuries later, Arthur Waley was one of her translators and admirers. Waley and Ezra Pound knew each other, and it seems likely that they got together to compare notes at Pound's soirees, since Pound was also an admirer and translator of Chinese poetry. Pound's most famous translation is his take on Li-Po's 'The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter.' If the ancient 'sing-song' girl influenced Li-Po and Pound, she was thus an influence―perhaps an important influence―on English Modernism. The first Tzŭ-Yeh poem makes me think that she was, indeed, a direct influence on Li-Po and Ezra Pound.―Michael R. Burch



The Day after the Rain
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the day after the rain
and the meadow's green expanses!
My heart endlessly rises with wind,
gusts with wind...
away the new-mown grasses and the fallen leaves...
away the clouds like smoke...
vanishing like smoke...



Music Heard Late at Night
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Xu Zhimo

I blushed,
hearing the lovely nocturnal tune.

The music touched my heart;
I embraced its sadness, but how to respond?

The pattern of life was established eons ago:
so pale are the people's imaginations!

Perhaps one day You and I
can play the chords of hope together.

It must be your fingers gently playing
late at night, matching my sorrow.

Lin Huiyin (1904-1955) , also known as Phyllis Lin and Lin Whei-yin, was a Chinese architect, historian, novelist and poet. Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash in 1931, allegedly flying to meet Lin Huiyin.



Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again
Xu Zhimo (1897-1931)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
quietly I wave good-bye
to the sky's dying flame.

The riverside's willows
like lithe, sunlit brides
reflected in the waves
move my heart's tides.

Weeds moored in dark sludge
sway here, free of need,
in the Cam's gentle wake...
O, to be a waterweed!

Beneath shady elms
a nebulous rainbow
crumples and reforms
in the soft ebb and flow.

Seek a dream? Pole upstream
to where grass is greener;
rig the boat with starlight;
sing aloud of love's splendor!

But how can I sing
when my song is farewell?
Even the crickets are silent.
And who should I tell?

So quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
gently I flick my sleeves...
not a wisp will remain.

(6 November 1928)  

Xu Zhimo's most famous poem is this one about leaving Cambridge. English titles for the poem include 'On Leaving Cambridge, ' 'Second Farewell to Cambridge, ' 'Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again, '  and 'Taking Leave of Cambridge Again.'



These are my modern English translations of poems by the Chinese poet Huang E (1498-1569) , also known as Huang Xiumei. She has been called the most outstanding female poet of the Ming Dynasty, and her husband its most outstanding male poet. Were they poetry's first power couple? Her father Huang Ke was a high-ranking official of the Ming court and she married Yang Shen, the prominent son of Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe. Unfortunately for the young power couple, Yang Shen was exiled by the emperor early in their marriage and they lived largely apart for 30 years. During their long separations they would send each other poems which may belong to a genre of Chinese poetry I have dubbed 'sorrows of the wild geese' …

Sent to My Husband
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wild geese never fly beyond Hengyang...
how then can my brocaded words reach Yongchang?
Like wilted willow flowers I am ill-fated indeed;
in that far-off foreign land you feel similar despair.
'Oh, to go home, to go home! ' you implore the calendar.
'Oh, if only it would rain, if only it would rain! ' I complain to the heavens.
One hears hopeful rumors that you might soon be freed...
but when will the Golden **** rise in Yelang?

A star called the Golden **** was a symbol of amnesty to the ancient Chinese. Yongchang was a hot, humid region of Yunnan to the south of Hengyang, and was presumably too hot and too far to the south for geese to fly there.



Luo Jiang's Second Complaint
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The green hills vanished,
pedestrians passed by
disappearing beyond curves.

The geese grew silent, the horseshoes timid.

Winter is the most annoying season!

A lone goose vanished into the heavens,
the trees whispered conspiracies in Pingwu,
and people huddling behind buildings shivered.



Bitter Rain, an Aria of the Yellow Oriole
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These ceaseless rains make the spring shiver:
even the flowers and trees look cold!
The roads turn to mud;
the river's eyes are tired and weep into in a few bays;
the mountain clouds accumulate like ***** dishes,
and the end of the world seems imminent, if jejune.

I find it impossible to send books:
the geese are ruthless and refuse to fly south to Yunnan!



Broken-Hearted Poem
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My tears cascade into the inkwell;
my broken heart remains at a loss for words;
ever since we held hands and said farewell,
I have been too listless to paint my eyebrows;
no medicine can cure my night-sweats,
no wealth repurchase our lost youth;
and how can I persuade that ****** bird singing in the far hills
to tell a traveler south of the Yangtze to return home?



Hermann Hesse

Hermann Karl Hesse (1877-1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, essayist, painter and mystic. Hesse’s best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, Demian, Narcissus and Goldmund and The Glass Bead Game. One of Germany’s greatest writers, Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946.

"Stages" or "Steps"
by Hermann Hesse
from his novel The Glass Bead Game
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As every flower wilts and every youth
must wilt and exit life from a curtained stage,
so every virtue—even our truest truth—
blooms some brief time and cannot last forever.
Since life may summons death at any age
we must prepare for death’s obscene endeavor,
meet our end with courage and without remorse,
forego regret and hopes of some reprieve,
embrace death’s end, as life’s required divorce,
some new beginning, calling us to live.
Thus let us move, serene, beyond our fear,
and let no sentiments detain us here.

The Universal Spirit would not chain us,
but elevates us slowly, stage by stage.
If we demand a halt, our fears restrain us,
caught in the webs of creaturely defense.
We must prepare for imminent departure
or else be bound by foolish “permanence.”
Death’s hour may be our swift deliverance,
from which we speed to fresher, newer spaces,
and Life may summons us to bolder races.
So be it, heart! Farewell, and adieu, then!



The Poet
by Hermann Hesse
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Only upon me, the lonely one,
Do this endless night’s stars shine
As the fountain gurgles its faery song.

For me alone, the lonely one,
The shadows of vagabond clouds
Float like dreams over slumbering farms.

What is mine lies beyond possession:
Neither manor, nor pasture,
Neither forest, nor hunting permit …

What is mine belongs to no one:
The plunging brook beyond the veiling woods,
The terrifying sea,
The chick-like chatter of children at play,
The weeping and singing of a lonely man longing for love.

The temples of the gods are mine, also,
And the distant past’s aristocratic castles.

And mine, no less, the luminous vault of heaven,
My future home …

Often in flights of longing my soul soars heavenward,
Hoping to gaze on the halls of the blessed,
Where Love, overcoming the Law, unconditional Love for All,
Leaves them all nobly transformed:
Farmers, kings, tradesman, bustling sailors,
Shepherds, gardeners, one and all,
As they gratefully celebrate their heavenly festivals.

Only the poet is unaccompanied:
The lonely one who continues alone,
The recounter of human longing,
The one who sees the pale image of a future,
The fulfillment of a world
That has no further need of him.
Many garlands
Wilt on his grave,
But no one cares or remembers him.



On a Journey to Rest
by Hermann Hesse
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don't be downcast, the night is soon over;
then we can watch the pale moon hover
over the dawning land
as we rest, hand in hand,
laughing secretly to ourselves.

Don't be downcast, the time will soon come
when we, too, can rest
(our small crosses will stand, blessed,
on the edge of the road together;
the rain, then the snow will fall,
and the winds come and go)
heedless of the weather.



Lonesome Night
by Hermann Hesse
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dear brothers, who are mine,
All people, near and far,
Wishing on every star,
Imploring relief from pain;

My brothers, stumbling, dumb,
Each night, as pale stars ache,
Lift thin, limp hands for crumbs,
mutter and suffer, awake;

Poor brothers, commonplace,
Pale sailors, who must live
Without a bright guide above,
We share a common face.

Return my welcome.



How Heavy the Days
by Hermann Hesse
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How heavy the days.
Not a fire can warm me,
Nor a sun brighten me!
Everything barren,
Everything bare,
Everything utterly cold and merciless!
Now even the once-beloved stars
Look distantly down,
Since my heart learned
Love can die.



Without You
by Hermann Hesse
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My pillow regards me tonight
Comfortless as a gravestone;
I never thought it would be so bitter
To face the night alone,
Not to lie asleep entangled in your hair.

I lie alone in this silent house,
The hanging lamp softly dimmed,
Then gently extend my hands
To welcome yours …
Softly press my warm mouth
To yours …
Only to kiss myself,
Then suddenly I'm awake
And the night grows colder still.

The star in the window winks knowingly.
Where is your blonde hair,
Your succulent mouth?

Now I drink pain in every former delight,
Find poison in every wine;
I never knew it would be so bitter
To face the night alone,
Alone, without you.



Secretly We Thirst…
by Hermann Hesse
from his novel The Glass Bead Game
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Charismatic, spiritual, with the gracefulness of arabesques,
our lives resemble fairies’ pirouettes,
spinning gently through the nothingness
to which we sacrifice our beings and the present.

Whirling dreams of quintessence and loveliness,
like breathing in perfect harmony,
while beneath your bright surface
blackness broods, longing for blood and barbarity.

Spinning aimlessly in emptiness,
dancing (as if without distress), always ready to play,
yet, secretly, we thirst for reality
for the conceiving, for the birth pangs, for suffering and death.

Doch heimlich dürsten wir…

Anmutig, geistig, arabeskenzart
*******unser Leben sich wie das von Feen
In sanften Tänzen um das Nichts zu drehen,
Dem wir geopfert Sein und Gegenwart.

Schönheit der Träume, holde Spielerei,
So hingehaucht, so reinlich abgestimmt,
Tief unter deiner heiteren Fläche glimmt
Sehnsucht nach Nacht, nach Blut, nach Barbarei.

Im Leeren dreht sich, ohne Zwang und Not,
Frei unser Leben, stets zum Spiel bereit,
Doch heimlich dürsten wir nach Wirklichkeit,
Nach Zeugung und Geburt, nach Leid und Tod.



Across The Fields
by Hermann Hesse
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Across the sky, the clouds sweep,
Across the fields, the wind blunders,
Across the fields, the lost child
Of my mother wanders.

Across the street, the leaves sweep,
Across the trees, the starlings cry;
Across the distant mountains,
My home must lie.



EXCERPTS FROM "THE SON OF THE BRAHMAN"
by Hermann Hesse
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the house-shade,
by the sunlit riverbank beyond the bobbing boats,
in the Salwood forest’s deep shade,
and beneath the shade of the fig tree,
that’s where Siddhartha grew up.

Siddhartha, the handsomest son of the Brahman,
like a young falcon,
together with his friend Govinda, also the son of a Brahman,
like another young falcon.

Siddhartha!

The sun tanned his shoulders lightly by the riverbanks when he bathed,
as he performed the sacred ablutions,
the sacred offerings.

Shade poured into his black eyes
whenever he played in the mango grove,
whenever his mother sang to him,
whenever the sacred offerings were made,
whenever his father, the esteemed scholar, instructed him,
whenever the wise men advised him.

For a long time, Siddhartha had joined in the wise men’s palaver,
and had also practiced debate
and the arts of reflection and meditation
with his friend Govinda.

Siddhartha already knew how to speak the Om silently, the word of words,
to speak it silently within himself while inhaling,
to speak it silently without himself while exhaling,
always with his soul’s entire concentration,
his forehead haloed by the glow of his lucid spirit.

He already knew how to feel Atman in his being’s depths,
an indestructible unity with the universe.

Joy leapt in his father’s heart for his son,
so quick to learn, so eager for knowledge.

Siddhartha!

He saw Siddhartha growing up to become a great man:
a wise man and a priest,
a prince among the Brahmans.

Bliss leapt in his mother’s breast when she saw her son's regal carriage,
when she saw him sit down,
when she saw him rise.

Siddhartha!

So strong, so handsome,
so stately on those long, elegant legs,
and when bowing to his mother with perfect respect.

Siddhartha!

Love nestled and fluttered in the hearts of the Brahmans’ daughters when Siddhartha passed by with his luminous forehead, with the aspect of a king, with his lean hips.

But more than all the others Siddhartha was loved by Govinda, his friend, also the son of a Brahman.

Govinda loved Siddhartha’s alert eyes and kind voice,
loved his perfect carriage and the perfection of his movements,
indeed, loved everything Siddhartha said and did,
but what Govinda loved most was Siddhartha’s spirit:
his transcendent yet passionate thoughts,
his ardent will, his high calling. …

Govinda wanted to follow Siddhartha:

Siddhartha the beloved!

Siddhartha the splendid!

…

Thus Siddhartha was loved by all, a joy to all, a delight to all.

But alas, Siddhartha did not delight himself. … His heart lacked joy. …

For Siddhartha had begun to nurse discontent deep within himself.

She would sit with me,
holding my hand-
at scary moments;
when i stand on the brink.
Walked beside me with firm foot steps,
when i trudged slushy paths,
and  treacherous mine fields.
Her watchful eyes followed
when i climbed steep heights,
told me all that to be said,
the way she only could,
She brought me in one piece,
out of nightmares,
her gibberish endearments
gave me goosebumps,
none did ever see her cathartic dance
with me at times, i needed her most.

Secret lover she was, i thought
of my haunted soul,
how would i know
about the curse
that made her so, for ever!
Burned out and down
her i addressed each morning,
as if she can absolve me from all my sins.

She would remove hemlock, from my blood,
this life has made me drink,
to corrupt, and eliminate;
inch by inch,
sink my beleaguered ship.
She made me forget a love gone sour,
she'd take my hand in hers and kiss it till i snore.

She soothed my mind finely, more than any shrink,
her peppermint lips tasted, witchcraft and spice.
She was the only one who knew my secret,
at the dead of night, in clouds
when moon stealthily hide,
I change and become a werewolf.

A mad dog of a wish, selfishly
made  me take  that false step,
uncontrollable by my wish, i spoke forbidden words.
The spell was broken once and for all,
all i could remember was her heartrending sobs,

I stand here,
at my lonely window, overlooking-
this city of forgetfulness and pain,
in wicked words challenging me
to meet her again.
O

I'm gonna motivate my love tractor
From the east coast to the west
Feel it's horsepower beneath my ***
The scorching heat from the exhausts
Blistering my legs
Throwing back rock and gravel
Scattering anything in my way
I want to see the ocean before I die
I want to stop at the Grand Canyon on the way
And a dozen greasy spoons
And a dozen more biker bars
It all leads my ***** *** to the beach
Might as well be the Ganges
Baptise me in that great body of water
I love huge bodies of water
Lakes, rivers, seas...but never seen the ocean
I could make it on a Harley
Overcome my fear
Do it by myself
Biker clubs are insane
They're where I need to be
I've been listening to Steppenwolf
All my life
Get that hog out on the road
The highway and the hog is all that exists
It's another of those "becoming One" situations
I can handle it
Stay on the state highways
Avoid interstates
Maybe I should start getting high again every day
Smoking **** at least 3 times a day
Why don't I think that would still make  me happy?
But it's cut into my short term memory
It's been cruel and even driven me to my knees
I have a healthy fear of what it's capable of
But if I could ride a Harley cross country
Surely I could handle doing it high as a kite
Biker girls, sorry to break your hearts
I got a respectable old lady who won't sit on the seat of a Harley
We have discussed parameters
But the sum total is you won't be getting what you want
That doesn't mean you might not get something and something valuable and life-changing at that
It's all at my discretion
Because biker girls sweep me off my feet
And the "look but you better not touch" rule is a little too strict
Especially when we make it to the ocean
Our naked bodies like a school of shark in shallow Pacific liquid
Just a **** or two before jumping in the water
Feel in good, like singing with John Kaye
******* the pusher man
My Harley-Davidson's caked with mud and sea salt, dripping gooey red dirt
Watch over 'em for me
Cuz we gonna be here for awhile

The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
J. Morrison

AR-15, 100 shot drum magazine
.40 cal Glock semi-auto
Full body armor, riot helmet
Yes, I'm ready for the show

Yes, after all those years
Being the good, smart boy
Getting good marks
Always being polite
Pablo has finally invited me
To the "Magic Theatre"

Now all the Steppenwolves of my mind
Begin to run, teeth dripping with blood
Laughing and howling as they begin the hunt

Power vibrates through me
To the throbbing of the weapons
The screaming of the prey
Until all the magazines are empty

And I'm left alone again
Just the police asking the meaningless questions
And far away the Steppenwolf
Runs through the shadows.

Articulate Throwback (Amazing Rap that Doesn't Get Enough Respect)
Fielding an eclipsed Jack the Ripper Sun
Yielding dismissal garish, begotten The Matrix smokin’ gun
Wielding a firebrand skittish
Skills levied an intolerable tax by quisling quoted British
Stunting on heyday levity marksman of primes
Flogged for flagrant dragons sinking nickels and dimes aimed beatific sublime
Flowing like centripetal orbit  galvanized by riddled spirits dashed in secondary impetus of reason over rhyme
Littoral swank partial to Taylor Series of dedications Speak Now peaks livid with fumiducts of crippled sheep blandished for reach
Apologies invited always welcome for a kitsch debased by universal theaters yet united for Payable on Death singing the deceit of receipts impeached
Islanders flooding suicides punning that a sunken treasure is barbs smuggling
Otiose on ribald corsairs blinkered by the rhombos of speculation thunder itself about lightning starts wondering
Where a City by the Bay shining on a Hill of travesties of decay tanks for domesticated Negros that flashbangs got to slay
To the wistful shaken house music garnishing the prey of prayer on heavy pulls of quotable 415 hay-day
The wrinkled stray dog never  far from *****
Slapsticks against the tribunes awaiting for meteoric functions of a recessive allele of a dominant comet
Ludacris flickers dancing in dormant revelry because On Top, Just Let Go..I am honest and On It
To the milk of harvested stars glaring at tankers and garish broken FaceMash scars teetotalers scatter with Thursday crashing into glass shards
Black fame is a white epiphany of infamy designated by name
Of the craven coltish spinsters who market the crackling whiplash of sanity apportioned to the regaled insufflation of blame
Streaky on a jejune Diggity hapless hop of Kumbayas etched by Trailer Park’s scalding flop
Glorifying a Gangester heir to titanic humbled beginnings chockablock divested to Kennedy’s dead Candy Shop
Impressive rags of riches of counterfeit tags blundering with lazy LASER Tag of sharks too bellicose to earn a pitfall pittance of swag
Trippin’ by tripwires too flippant to be flippin’ on known graves sidesplitters of treecheese yaggots grimaced on madcaps of bottlecaps swimming in ether of money too happy for House of Pain rags of gag orders intrepid because some blood is Bad
****** drapes of tapestries too woven on Ducking Badger duck tape
Pretending not even a slightest twinge of celebrity faked is a tantamount affliction to Kobe’s escape
Time to rig the 7/11 notoriety of a caper drawl in Cape Town Blue Sky Action can barely offer scrape
Let them eat cake and heads roll like Nicholas Cage clairvoyant in mystique quaking like a Quaker parody rank-and-file rancid graveyard creep
Cuz the best in the Business evokes singes of Dre grazed persistence a Space Rover rather than a broken-down drive-by Vegas Cheap Holyfield Jeep
Forgeries in trigonometric time gone haywire because ******* of fools is delicious neutered ballistic wrong with elemental statistic
Armed to the Teeth because twinges of righteousness is strongly established because it elevates truces well-predicted
Reckon the self-aware hive jetsetting with Jive warbles of departure yet to arrive
“Talk” of those fewer in knowledge yet living an invented diatribe
Lil Dicky mumbling his churlish codling vendetta
Too petty on the game like a turgid Mariah Carey Christmas Sweater evaporating on benzo bleats because exaggeration is a measuring stick more prone to delusion than the vapid version of Eddie  Vedder
Ripping through seamstresses of time a delope from impoverished cesspool grime
Certainly not swinging with sockdolagers like Musk as UPS owns insider angles about BitCoin riches scoffing at #11 Sublime
I owe respect to an upstart prescience scowling hatched never against fragile egg-shell minds
He’s the predecessor to the Walter White of cesspool inveterate rivets in hulking pretense of a measured stick lying like Tony  Hawk on the grind drawling on videogame addicts lost to numbers like Wall Street bet on fractions divisible like Scarface on cardinal crime
Blip on the WHIP cackles of clever pasquinade owned by sizzurp of Red Wings demolished like Draper balking at the West Coast ****** of East Coast royalty etiolating on Life After Death because of a teased script of March 26th shining bright like nine-inch nails longer than an exaggerated Dicky loving pollution more than Sina Loa loves bricks
Mad respect to juggernaut Michigan flow, but when you henpeck a rooster fewer regaled Ravens start to sing like Tomorrow’s sung by Sheryl Crow
So attack the kenspeckel hiding like sobriety itching to revel
Even the greats are grating despite prestige owned like Steppenwolf inventing Heavy Metal
Yet the raspy dengonin certainly a curtain call for the moribund smooth competition genius but not square to my elevated level
Time to brush aside, politics is a Velvet Morning rather than an Everest scaffold of glaciers divide
Flourishing Eden of a Seattle worthy of treason on rollercoasters yet to ride
The contumely of charlatans berating brassage is a Lie Boring in Federal Way united against prejudices scowling because Qwersy Mencia is too fraught to enjoy the jeers of a tattered Pride
Past-Tense Quinn in his Chauvin Blue Suit is Queer on The Bends
For a better radio the shatter of the quaff is Damon on the mendlatch for the rights of heroism among men
Applesauce is scary when the cooks are too chary for emoluments of cherry-picked vanity inoculated because hackneyed hacksaws aren’t that scary
To a Rush Hour acclaim that owes a Martian a fair-share of the inviolable degrees above freezing that guarantees the Hang Seng
The cretaceous dinosaur livid in the Fields of Dreams lives to the honor of the author rather a subsidiary prosperity rooting for the same exact team
Credit belongs not to slot-machine jibes of Navy throngs because the sealed pedigree of a Potemkin stonewall ravaged an Atlanta March that Richard Sherman found himself wrong
Ripostes of wavered glory serenade Field’s Medal accolades jaunty with brimstone repartee for persecution of Sing-Sang jailed avuncular Dana Carvey
Crumpled in missives etched decisively by Popcorn paparazzi Lee Harvey Oswald Part Three dinging Reagan’s Drugs because belittled Batman and Robin Harvey Dent is on a defalcation spree
Limited by the gambit of orbit I flex space measured only by perception hourglasses mistake for Dewey Decimal ministry
Because mountebanks of the tramontane canard unscrewed by Donkey’s without the triumph of vindicated colts spew the unwarranted without the warrant of upright parlance
Deflecting the useless caricature of Jezebels they barely even know dancing with fisticuffs choleric with jaundiced illuminati chants of an age bracing for the venom of viper’s of gratuitous pretense in violence because the whittled conscience scourges footloose profligacy in dementia that owns probability rather than certainty but doesn’t stand a chance
A billowing toxic fume of a Trojan Horse of galloped complicity of headless horsemen too scared to even pinprick the average Brett Hume huffs like mad wolverines dancing with Buccaneers for the fidelity of bridled brides with a tailored or sloppy groom
Cowering behind plashy starlets dashed for authenticity too soon
The Red Robin Hood ****** of silhouettes of Caste system indecency is reduced to reductivism in peddled paranoia of Randall Graves confronting his deepest specious tomb
To rogue slipshod miracles of denuded ice for Christopher Reeves Wally World White in Simple Jack owleries of confiscated light they caper encaged Caspergers ergotamine flavored favor uptight
Glaring prince dashing Rusty with ***** for Hummers glazed with donut torus hummus swift with reverend repartee
Sunken sleepless abyss ghosts haunt for quaffs evanescent in backbone bliss incurring parted sight for nebbich sprees
Calculated by persnickety prattle brazen with bravado promontory sparked on the flames of an overhyped hysteria ablaze
Raisins aren’t the determinant of a blinkered starstruck page gilded to amaze
Formidable reform conserved against blasphemies of ****
Withstands the immutable geotaxis of inevitable backfires in limited scourges of scorn
Time to sacrifice the badge earn the primacy of trimleggers making a dash rushing for hourglass sand prominent in fiat flash
In a second a trampoline against a specious marvel is a sour remorse of a crusade turning into protection not found in autumn ash
With autarky righteous rain boogies against bogeys of golfers livid with sensational inane
Lunacy predicated on sensational maudlin labors of Genesis 3:16 birth pain
Incurred upon the toil of the lugubrious heights of teachers that defy tribes and stripes
Soldiering for God without even the slightest nefarious mercenary spite
Because Ledgers cannot be mistaken for legends because petty battles Abandoned Pools named were avoided for Nobel Prizes of moonshot fame never King Kong because 24k magic called the Hang Seng  game enter stage right
The thematic liberation of the freewheeler isn’t a combustion of truckers Ruckers allergic to chattered shame
But the time honored Sevendust defies blisters because a brave heroism leaps into legacy vaunted by cheery repute in winning hegemony against rigged fraud in frigid feral tames
I march to an inaugural chance without a chance of quick inauguration because Junetao is a duck-duck-go childish flicker against Amsterdam Vallon besides the church with a touching spectacle of solidarity beyond temporal Anacondas of deserved blame
An ally to the kitsch the prosperity of Nas is afforded to optimism never so fulgurant because of a bewitched Tik Tok twitch
As the true flock regards the true shepherd the guardian of wonder and the captain avoiding Yellow Submarines because Stayin’ Alive is a prophecy not a febrile contagion of germs pitching tents for flukes insistent on incident rather than honorable to Canada Dry on Strike for better than a bubble gum mumble rap of Lil Pump’s pruned humps for a ******* ghost rider rather than a profaned itch
But the camel survives because the needle doesn’t thrive in a world where God is always Stayin’ Alive to strike a pose for the voguest Jive
“The Seduction” lives and the corruption limps with glib bribery fibs because 2 Timothy 1:7 in autarky is a generous rhyme that  gives and gives
In endless crusade to beat like David the ***** of a poker miracle that stars in a showcase of a life of splendor eternal rather than a cursory kamikaze reckless fib
Its time for  abundance of life to be lived fully to truly find riches in the best possible life winsome in discretion to quake and yet remain immune to a Walgreens of Stonewall myth
Cast not the first stone against the immaculate Giant because everybody is shaking to Bond and Saint Joseph’s guarded wordsmith

Lambasted by the bushwhacking shambles of potsherds burrowed beneath enchanted rhapsodies of sunken Earth lurks a might unleashed by the preemptive dirges of Heaven
Shattering the weight of mismeasure adaptive to apt remarks of conservatory stellar repartees gilded in the flombricks of insuperable gammon wed to the divorce between mammon and guardian treasure etched by revets of colorful nuance but colorblind fortitude chalky yet with scattered sound blinking in the wink of intelligentsia a thousand parsecs of understanding in milliseconds of orbit
The periphery of forgotten stars bereaved but informed of circular axioms of axiolative thermolysis bellowing stoked smokestack locomotives of hibernal clairvoyance dare to wonder beyond limited or enhanced pulchritude the denizens of thievery stolen in a flashbang grenade of a new Grenada of fustilugs gabbling in flushed rosy red tongues of frenzy or aplomb what lurks beyond centurion sentinels of robotic half-witted half-baked semi-cooked bludgeons of cruel insensate irony withheld by vulcanized drapes of curtailed curglaff fashioned by kneaded distance and suspended for heaved awakening at riometer’s knock barnstorming the crude churlishness of the foreign at trespass of the inane scaled down by infamies unstated and flanged to appropriate provisions of measure that conquest lurks behind recess and all is grafted from the callous pachyderm skin of absolution cozy to remedies but aloof from necessities of pang and Tang rollicking magpiety like a rotten pastime aged past its due.
Yet the batting average of the uncanny visitor undaunted by glaring photogenic record balks at precedent and aims to lollygag his chicanery roundhouse above the ricochet of enamor to whilded terminus at circular diamonds soaring illimitable skies boundaries to another nothing beyond the past of something worthy of pearls piggish in appetite for oysters to inhabit
Yet these cloistered vacuums between the pleonexia of the avarice of retches of chyme and the digestion of complete guarantors of shielded heterochrony wassail on dreams Titanic and sunken living repeatedly in revised stereodimensional waves of registry beyond fundus hijacked by towering dimensions ulterior to the profaned foresight of the wretched dimensions of reprehensible coteries belonging lost even when fetched by glimmers of the profound.
The riches of aberrant mobilized fleets swung into tether pole centripetal flictions of swarpollock surpassing credibility and peace surmounting mountebanks of petty finicky itches of cretaceous extinction mapped to qwersy frugal mathematical jokes recoiling at rebarbative manifest destiny belong to the records of soundracketeer trivialization of malleable gold fashioned from Whisky Bar encounters with goldmines ascertained in magic by the suspense of upholstered dramaturgy lurking beneath tall crestfallen visagists who toss and bandy about in tempests of curdacted flow emissary and envoy to flajousts emergent from the verdure of aboriginal machinery fumbled by human ergonomic chicanery espoused by asylum rather than touted as marksman prestige flippant by inordinate gavels ****** asunder into delignated copper-brass keys of foreboding prisons on sinking ships for counterfeit litanies of bogus warning meeting inclement poverty to a drawn sine in the sand vacillating on purpose but intransigent in declension.
Starlet gnashes of odontoloxia wavers of tangential tendentiousness escaping the orbit of enumeration by sly remarks surprising the elective prerogative for convergent autumn to skittish paces of fast-forward beating the brumal bears in their gelid lollygag reminders why the 2nd protects the 1st and the primacy of interposition is the immediacy of flexed muscular DeLoreans cavorting with fringes of unfurled destiny in flashbang instants between the space among malingered pauses among secondary waves of betrayal shift the curious rip tide of stretchgraves too ennobled for widescreen yet narrowly faint in their promontory illusions as mantelpieces of emblazoned scarlet A’s for nothing more than a tempestuous flair with stigma but simultaneously the realization of true dreamy blues escalating around tensions finessed into ****** before drooping into the droll 1850s as the balderdash of detriment belonging to the salvo of picturesque still-life expressionism dripping troudasque in antiquity with flairs of impertinence celebrated more by melodrama than by billows of industrial hinderbaggle toxic to the stated alarmism of trinkochre preventing treony by the warbles of songbirds hemmed in by bushwhacking galactic police forces of granted licentiousness for backbites in the feral canine drollery of aged literacy chosen over youthful foofaraw belittled by retches of attentive brevity rather than protracted obtuseness: neither ideal for the gravity of aborning centuries
Yet we dally in convergent esprit filibustering rhymed cadavers of cadence for prurience in ebullient parvenu damsels vacant from the setting but entranced by the galloping herds of buffalo formidable with warmth because of death and locomotive drive-by shootings Daphne wouldn’t miss.
Yet what Mission Impossible has a BioCyte worthy of henpecked ransom and detached villainy of a trespassed appendix bursting in the Young crowd much to the awakened dismay of the colored affront to black-and-white hubris finicky in oligochrome yet fainter yet than stellified bronteums burgeoning in generativity separated by inherent gulfs of heterochrony balking at submissions fished by loaves of interest in the hambasket of aswallone fractious to redshort individualism in the subhastation of Jurassic prowls of replication hibernal for millions of extinct permanence scowling only by the mandibles of crackjaw Samson yielding his jaunty hair to flummoxed Cutthroat Collapses trimming yardstick furloughs of pleckigger for demotic flavork above fishy warbles of tilted pretense vagrant to everybody simultaneously renowned for arrested cacophony but bridled by few examinations barnstorming teetotalers with haunted patrons of aged wine speaking redivivus in contemplation.
Measured glare radioactive to lizards beneath Mojo Grooves monikers fielding “fly away” as transcendental harpsichord anagrams filter through lavaderos of hackneyed nockerslugs berating illusion for conflation in the influx of dacoitage among Vikings who swim flanked by sonic blares of innocuous dolphins floating dead by the carnage of bloated whales and ridiculous spates of welter above conscience ragged with tetherball futility.
Sparring with engastrimyths sapping the sapwood of sappy banality for toonardical lullabies that pacify opposition more than the Pacific is internecine to volcanic tirades of seismotic jolts of burgeoned awakening I vanquish petty sneakthievery with the unspoken power of a Tweed that masquerades not on ******* but on virtual rhymes cascading throwaway brown-brick fifties collapse on Dagon armed with gnashing poise against guttural gubbertushed victimized flippant fantasias arrayed to brook the decrepit streams of my elevated retinue for staged intrepid barnstorms against phony assassinations to prove petty Edison powerhouses clairvoyant in even their specious participles of quantum irony decisive in fliction marveling at sensible conveyor belt beltways infested by sluggards of inferior hives contrary to every inclination of self-edified skyscraper invented by the mettle of industrious man
So swanky in boast but gingerly in insightful discretion I careen ping-pong victories into a plevisable fortune of Bubba Gump wealth and Fortune Magazine ostentation as the ringleader in Barnum’s neutered circus that never spays a single sword of creation in the barnacles of progeny and progress frogmarched by cruelty and vehement in suppositions of craven popinjay popples of a whangam metropolitan artifice tinsellated with angles of trim prance above suburban ecstasy in transcendent flash and peerless reaches of stratosphere above mundane plaid macaroni witeless in the sterling grace of foreign domestication of livable conditions abiding by aborning stardom.
Harriet Tubman flowers on the bedside of ****** seances of 70’s Parisian cafes gerrymandered by hobohemias of herculean heft squaring account with encompassed brevity in byword dazes with ***** futures yet to court the cordial consensus in dodged drafts of fumiduct riots bailing upon New York Time for 44th street colored incineration of an orphaned Africa embodied in a totemic titan with reninjuble peerless majesty compromised by a frapplank in immodest incisive harpricks of fumbled swerves against the original proclamations anniversary to Boston Indians revolting against Manifest Destinies magnified in incidental clarity by bestowed churches fuming with rampant clairvoyance tamed by the grisly realism of intermittent thaumaturgy swaddled by the reconnaissance of eventual warps blistering in milliseconds to overturn the ultimate row that the mire always wades through in impoverished egestuous profligate convenience of hamstring declension against chary mettle in scruples by elementary riddles in precise junctures of sanctity the bodewash of slick partisan gibes of a puppet show vampire avenging Sarah Marshall. Harriet Tubman is an overblow of subniveal pickets of defensive clarity to immemorial churlish katzenjammer of a protracted flux capacitor dynamos in abolished feral groves of bohemian legend rather than ignoble rhapsody flirting with apartheid’s chosen engineers whittling an indelible scourge of hatred rather than a revived simian immunity scalded with potboilers of sveldtang water scorching like Helsinki after Stockholm goes up in conflagration over bonanza of wednongue dative duress in impregnated purpose skanky with ministered drivel of doytined attempts to flicker a switch exorcised by the integrity of neuroscience besides an intransigence of exuberant interruption of warped logics of pataphysical coarse arenas for submerged vapid Yellow Belly Pie Slingers aimed at 7/11.
Broadside bruisers aim at fracked 80s heyday like a Hey Bulldog reminiscence on a quaint suburban joke of alien freebooters in Franc Swiss gloss swanky on the spot of frapplanks endless in retired liturgy of surpassed peace amicable to truces among the pragmatica of checkerboard pastries willful in array backing sentinels from rearguard hindsight to flank the motatory missiles of target from ransom built like fortress of immutable graves lost to the celerity of the outpaced spectral wonder of teenage flights and hegiras into recessive parsecs enamored by a stage-fright of recocted astral wonders plasma to the ears of a strange foreign abode hospitable to most heaved alacrity sidewinding into effigy and the crumples of used demise recycled twice by intrinsic spirituel flocks of engulfed eagles spooning the pristine littoral waters of precision in nexility
Stayin’ Alive cackles resound in the hallowed furrows of a neat daydream in a scattershot imagination screaming to make myths sticky pigment rather than imbroglios of intaglio filibustering cohesive firm firmaments flexing with windfall at princely surprises cobbled from chocolate-box chariots of brisk elation shoveled by the conglomerate of prim-looking star-crossed unbuttoned snoozes with glamour in the corsair sojourn beyond the space emergent from stardust tinsel and glowered vindication of self-engineered huffs of vulpine vainglory touted as preeminent above dodgy 70s swerve in the vibrant kantikoys of covert tenure and flickers of swandamo glitterati borne of triumphant dimples on immaculate refraction.
Yet lingering on the precipice of aboriginal unity in disjointed sejungible frames of vernal restive residence decaying with anthill colonies of demarche the cadence lost to gyrovague trinkets balks from corridors of Pacific  Avenue peace that is the cardinal to the priests feasting on militias of rentgourge evicted from their own leash of lease ruffled in the plumage of horizontal margins folded into origami zenkidu gullible on Raptor estrangement chained to the rhythms of parsed sparse rumbles of the rhombos without a complexion intended for sparkled starlets doomed to regular tides in swollen tsunamis of soft-spoken surrealism the providence of aimed dreams of drastic marvels beloved to impregnate a verdant cadence latent by faltered seamstress elopes flickering for caress in the duress of finesse.
The quaint drawl of scrabbled runes of rumbled rumination streaks like a quivered acerbic winsome peacock jagged in the parlance of henpecked peak beyond the reach of the highest teacher that ever had the privilege of tutelaries spawned born to teach in Steppenwolf rhythms of rugged heavy metal impeachment yet ripe enough to preach. The last juggernaut is vile bereaved of yets to become the blemish on risky flambeaus overrun by crackles fuzzy in written retch for sudden bursts of volcanic speech.
In the quagmires of serrated heavy leaps I stroke the frazzle as the choir reaps the grim proclamation gilded by sentinels of majestic Challenger Deep burrowing tunnels of coltish ploy dilettante to all his curated adoration that toys with the children of majestic modesty ever so fractious as to balk at the priggish calumny of retinues of the tired coy rampant in emasculated spayed days of stranglehold filigree geometry bent on noisome bleats prone to annoy
So I leapfrog the redundant hackencrude fawn of gripping spectacles of alpenglow summits on acid at dawn foaming with betrothed pumice on borrowed past from potentiated future belonging once to a man yet always bred to prefer fairer damsels sprinkled with a hint of germane Soy saucy to the Bossy promenade to an Islander born and bred.
Guilt like Gravity gilded into spacious trailblazed glory sent seminal and said loudly bowdlerized the pasture of hidden thickets in sparse backwater chavish remanded by fisticuffs of elapse travail in artistry fundamental to rhapsody in distant milky affection jangling high plaudits of auditoriums of the delicate audit bulldozing fraudsters colored by defected records set ablaze in seminal disco becoming cordial homes for shaken residue blushing in crude crass mass the inertia of the classy beyond recognition without flashbang clashes of cultural class glimmering to faltered waterdrips of palatial mischief in correct lens for froward recalcitrance of jittery stash hidden in dacoitage by the police that knelt on incinerated livelihood predicated on chauvinist cash for departed untouchable caste of radical haste too blinkered for internet barnstorms limited only to lurid copy-and-paste regimented for revolution damaged by the loneliest orchestra of refineries of an alien taste.
We crack skulls against ossified hulls riveted weakly to iceberg submarine bulge battled in wars past always to suppress greater travesty yet divulged that Barbarosa was an insider coup expunged by remonstrance against finicky postulate brayed from deranged heirs to a disease of relish quartered by blue danger dancing with shadowed emancipation librettos finkly in tripwire terms of routed inefficacy killjoy to seanced second guess prisms of rootless flimsy accusation wagered by pathetic overstatement in hypenstance trimmed by the crimson paint of a glowering silk woven from dramaturgy belittled by grasp if not by locomotive passerby pause wicked by subversion inclined not to dismay by oriented by nefarious rage of flagrant hapless scrimshanks in prowess sued by process and refined by progress never erased by a five-second glower by the sentinels of parlance intrepid by desiccation to supervised superstition bemused by abundant gray twists of turnverein pillory.

When I hear Steppenwolf I smell **** , when Foreigners playing
I'm tripping on tab tea .. Danny Joe Brown was yelling , ZZ Top was my musical religion .. Black Sabbath rocked my world , Robin Trower made my head swirl ! My Sg and Peavey would make the ground burn , my wah pedal made the Earth turn ...
Bostons first album blew my mind , Running with the Pack and a bottle of wine ....
Randolph Wilson was my occupation , Jimi Hendrix held it all together !

make it to 2060
I can't get there so
can I perchance feel free to play the
hell out of cream,
Steppenwolf makes me
as does Creedence and Who
along with Ms. Janis,
give my blues inspired
hallucinations, Youtube,
Light my Fire with my brother Jim
Play the **** outta the star spangled banner
the KING of guitar,
echo loudly :
If life is eternal the sixties best are

Hermann Hesse be ******!
All women are not mine

I like to dream, yes, yes
Right between the sound machine
On a cloud of sound I drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near
To the stars away from here
Well, you don't know what
We can find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
Well, you don't know what
We can see
Why don't you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away
Last night I hold Aladdin's lamp
So I wished that I could stay
Before the thing could answer me
Well, someone came and took the lamp away
I looked
Around
A lousy candle's all I found
Well, you don't know what
We can find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
Well, you don't know what
We can see
Why don't you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away

Steppenwolf at the door
asking if
I wanna score.

When stocktaking is not
a criminal offence,
but shoplifting is.

But
the music plays along
with the words I make up
to my song.

Daddy-o

First off, I hate this
I want to be able to say this, face to face
I keep second guessing myself
Unable to formulate even basic sentiments
I respect you, although I never felt you taught me to respect myself
As my own worst enemy, it's your words I use to hurt myself endlessly.


Secondly, even my efforts against this me, have had little more effect than a restless peace. I have fought the steppenwolf bracingly, even embraced the peace. But I’ve yet to eradicate the behavioral mistakes I make, it seems. I get stuck doing wrong turns, sonder under undercurrents, waves circle back on themselves again and again indefinitely.
I help myself get upset, get wet,  drown myself in debt. Then beg, for you helping me. And that you did, amazingly. So this is a thank you, I guess.

I love you, won't ever love you any less.
And I am a rain dog, stuck in perpetual everchanging groundhog days. My missteps surprises no one but myself.
No help from anyone else will change this me. I am able direct myself once again, i’ve led myself astray. Make amends, make a straightaway out of this ever bending way, which could end up, ending me.

The Tiger Lily is gently removed from the lounge
so it wont ever come in contact with the cats fur
My visitor asks for Steppenwolf on the player
The song "Tenderness" has reticence
Its hard to know if we are romantically involved
having never kissed
Perhaps we share too much intelligence on one another
the quiet detective work overplayed !
We agree the   floorboards creak
they may need replacing
She inquires if the boiler needs replacing too

It ended up a free for all
After the hotdog eating contest,
A maylay to the left of the stage,
As Steppenwolf
( one blind guy and four nobodies) sputter through
Sookie Sue
As someone jumps onstage
And turns it into a real Fourth of July
       7/ 04/ 2005