My One Poem in Bahasa Indonesia

SORE DI MALIOBORO

Orang-orang, banyak warna.
Abu-abu, kehujanan.
Mantel-mantel, kecil di bawa.


Thanks to Yulianti for correcting the syntax of the title

Two by Du Fu

Slender grass in the shore breeze.
Tall mast on a lonely boat.
Stars sink over spreading fields.
The moon rides on the river.
Too old and sick for office--
and will scribblings make my name?
Drifting,drifting, what am I?
One gull between earth and sky.




MOONLIT NIGHT


Just now, alone in our room,
you gaze at the Fuzhou moon.
Our children--I ache for them
from far away--they don't see
why you brood upon Changon.
Fragrant fog scents your gathered hair.
Lustrous moon chills your slender arms.
When, among the gauzy curtains,
will we lean together again,
these tears dried on our faces,
their traces limned in moonlight?

Immoral Structure

On the putative moral structure of the world and/or the character of God:

Are we horrified by the expendability of the lives of unbelievers? Or, say, by the killing of babies to save them from condemnation to eternal torment by their birth into unbelief? Then the horror is not in the logic--often flawless--by which we argue ourselves into these atrocities, but in the premises from which we begin.

Perfect Nonsense

I wrote this
while eating cherries
and it lacks something
I think
for not having
the cherry juice
on the handwritten original.
But it makes so much
more sense
as an imperfect
copy.

Un-American

College football and basketball: an extraordinarily successful scheme for making the minor leagues in these two sports popular and lucrative.

A Million Monkeys Typing for Millions of Years

This sentence is written in a language every sentence
of which perfectly mimics a sentence in English,
but in which language the meaning of any sentence
bears no relation to its apparent meaning in English.

Hey, a self-referential sentence can be a poem too.

Damn, there went another few million years.

So, what language do monkeys type in?

Doh!

A Bloated Basho

My version of a haiku by Basho, repacked in a larger, tanka-shaped box:



Double Vista Bay.
Farewells at the end of fall.
We part as these shells

open upon tender flesh,
as eyelids upon the eye.

A Thought About Big-Box Retailers

To the extent that discounters make themselves able to discount by paying lower wages rather than by real efficiencies, they hire your neighbors to to do jobs for less than the going rate, then offer to split the saving with you. You take yours in in lower prices. They take theirs in greater profit. Or they hire you for less and offer to split the saving with your neighbors. So for you and your neighbors it evens out--minus the greater profit taken in each case.

Two Versions of a Broken Verse by Li Bai

Resentment on the Jade Stairs

Midnight on the stairs of jade,
white dew soaks her silken hose.
Draw down then the crystal shade:
fall's moon glitters in its gems.




Stood Up on the Jade Stairs

Midnight on the stairs of jade,
white dew soaked your silken hem.
Draw down then the crystal shade:
moonlight glitters in its gems.

Some Spare Parts for a Renga

Boats drift apart, together
tug the stake on the night shore.



Moaning, moving together,
old couple turns in their sleep.



She's sitting on this,
the cat who lies on my book
when I read in bed.



Even my foolishness
has its place in the world.

TWO BY SAIGYO HOSHI

Destinations unknown,
two ships that left harbor
side by side, now diverge.



Before the dubious shrine
I stand dumbstruck and crying.

HITOMARU: My Versions in English

Not combing my morning hair,
so lately pillowed in his hand.



Dim in the mist of morning
off the shore of Akashi:
the island hiding the boat
upon which sail all my thoughts.



Walking past my door
unglancing: how she tells me
"so then, die of love."