J.P. Seaton

seaton

Translations of
the Chinese Masters

Contents

 

Ten Poems by Ou-yang Hsiu
  Ou-yang Hsui

Poems from "An Answering Music"
  Anonymous, Drunken Villagers
  Tu Fu, House Cricket and Song of the Bound Chickens
  Yuan Mei, Dog Days, At "Be Careful Bank," Night Thought, Talking Art, When the Clouds Come

More Poems by Yan Mei and Poems by T'ao Ch'ien
  Yuan Mei, End of the Year, Something to Ridicule
  T'ao Ch'ien, Drinking Wine XVI, After the Ancients

Poems from "Traces: Fifty Generations of Zen Poetry "
  Seng Yu, To everything there is a season
  Ling Yi, Drinking Tea with Hermit Yuan at Greenmount Pool
  Cheng Fu, Freedom's Good
  Kuan Hsiu, Chung-nan Mountain Monk, Mean Alleyways, A Hundred Sorrows, Leaving It to You
  Ching Yun, The Old Man of the Creek
  Yuan Mei, So Be It
  Ching An, Making a Fool of Myself

Poem from "World Views: New Writing About Nature"
  Kuan Hsiu, Hymn on the Way

Poems from "Getting Past Words"
  Ching An, To Show You All, on the First Morning of the Year, Facing Snow and Writing What My Heart Embraces, On the Spot Where Shih-chia Tz Sits in Meditation

 

A Web Chapbook from
The Literary Review


 J.P. Seaton

Translations of the Chinese Masters


YUAN MEI

Dog Days

Empty Mountain dog day door shut dwelling
Gown's light gause: I drip with sweat
Yet I bless this burning wind: it shrivels visitors
Long as there's sun, at least
I'll get some writing done.






At “Be Careful Bank”

Dangerous bank
                         hard to get over
Careful indeed
                        we help each other up
Might we, on flat ground too
Go on as we do
                         when we're here?






Night Thought

Midnight, sudden jerk
Awake
Wordless, heart still, sighs
Tonight the frost's first fall
That's all, and I
Forgot to cover the houseplants






Talking Art

Talking Painting? It's finding “the essence of life.”
In poems, that means “nature” and “feelings”.
A dragon, with his life's beath gone?
Better a rat, with some scurry left in him.






When the Clouds Come

When the clouds come the mountain ontologically dismanifests
And when they go, I guess, it exhibits phenomenological
Mountain-ness
Do you suppose
The Mountain knows?