Short Poems

War es immer wie jetzt? Ich kann das Geschlecht nicht begreifen:
Nur das Alter ist jung, ach! und die Jugend ist alt.

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone.

. . . . ye cannot bind the free
And mountain-surging thunder of the sea.

I am no sorrier for you than I am for myself:
We are both human beings …
Alas! both of us have come through the gates of the dark
And thither return …
Why should we pity each other here in the night?

autumn's hot sun—
nowhere on his military cap
twinkle the stars

the mantis
crawling on the ground
snarls at the ground

The extreme pain of hunger and cold pressing one body,
before the eyes—hungry ghosts, before the eyes—men.
Within the burning house of the Triple Sphere, a five-foot body:
this is ten billion Mount Sumerus of suffering.

There was an Old Person of Barnes,
Whose garments were covered with darns;
But they said, ‘Without doubt, you will soon wear them out,
You luminous Person of Barnes!’

If never a sorrow came to us, and never a care we knew:
If every hope were realized, and every dream came true;
If only joy were found on earth, and no one ever sighed,
And never a friend proved false to us, and never a loved one died,
And never a burden bore us down, soul-sick and weary, too,
We'd yearn for tests to prove our worth and tasks for us to do.

Spies, you are lights in state, but of base stuff,
Who, when you've burnt yourselves down to the snuff,
Stink, and are thrown away. End fair enough.

CLOSE-MOUTHED you sat five thousand years and never let out a whisper.
Processions came by, marchers, asking questions you answered with gray eyes never blinking, shut lips never talking.
Not one croak of anything you know has come from your cat crouch of ages.
I am one of those who know all you know and I keep my questions: I know the answers you hold.