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A Lady Prepares
(From the Chinese of Wen T’ing-yun, c.812-870AD)

On the filigree hills of her bedscreen, the gold thread plays and fades,
as drifts of scented tresses enclothe her snow-fresh face.
Now languidly she rises, to line her comely brows,
and dallies with her toiletries, and sedulously combs.
Her flower form is captured in mirrors at each side;
her features likewise blossom, and in reflection shine.
And patterned on her garment of newly-broidered silk
are pairs of golden partridges aligning wing on wing.

The Poor Seamstress
(From the Chinese of Ch’in Tao-yu, 600 x 900AD)

In her poor thatched place she’s not known what it is
to wear beautiful scented silk.
She longs to put trust in a match of some kind,
to rescue herself from her sad state in life;
but who would enamour her movement and manner,
who, of some standing, make agreement with her?
Who would be willing to concede to life’s hardships –
acknowledge her need to be combed and adorned?
She could dare use her fingers, boast skill with the needle,
but could not contest those who paint eyebrows all day.
So, embittered, resentful, year after year,
she stitches the threads down, embroiders in gold
to produce bridal dresses that others will own.

Too Much Alone
(From the Chinese: Anonymous,1st/2nd centuries AD)

Deep green is the grass by the riverside.
Dense are the garden willows.
Fair, oh fair is the girl upstairs –
vivacious. She stands at the window.
And once she was a singing girl:
to a wastrel now she’s wed.
He leaves her so long and seldom returns,
and she’s too much alone in her bed…

From ‘Translations of Classical Chinese Poetry’

The court has noted, Sir,
your lands were gained by treachery;
mortared by much blood;
sustained by base barbarity.

And it has witnessed in addition, Sir,
your avarice has outstripped your rapacity,
and seizures and confiscations were, to you,
fair means of making good again your treasury.

And there is copious evidence concerning, Sir,
your life of vile debauchery,
a catalogue of sordid acts such as defy
all ancient and accepted notions of morality.

It has much grieved the court to view, Sir,
your decadent judiciary.
Your laws – expedient fabrications;
and you yourself have daily smiled on perjury.

Neither has it escaped our notice, Sir,
the common people dwell in abject misery,
sore-taxed, forced into labour,
starving, helpless. Crushed by penury.

And most clearly you incited, Sir,
the other and more blessed orders of society
to ape your own corruption till they became
well-schooled in arrogance and in hypocrisy.

In summary, the court has found you guilty, Sir,
of gross and foul iniquity –
abuse of power, oppression,
high callousness, and downright inhumanity.

And now, we solemnly pass sentence, Sir,
upon such heinousness and thorough-going perfidy.
The people will be silent!
The sentence, Sir: Untouchability.

From ‘Epigrams’

Why do the say
‘the reason why’
when why is the reason,
and the reason is why?
Oh, boy, it annoys.
And there’s more that’s annoying.
They apostrophise esses
when they ain’t no possessives,
adjectivise ‘fun’ – and now
they’ve begun to computerise, mun!
lol! wtf! Wot’s the sense in that stuff?
They use fragments and run-ons.
Infinitives? Split!
(If the kingdom woz mine
I’d hang all the swine
wot use language like this).
College grads? College grads?
Their speling is loathsome.
If you just spel ‘dipploma’ right
these days – you get one.
Makes me sad and downhearted …
I shouldn’t of started.
In fact I’m so mad that
my scansion’s departed!
Wot cheeses me too
is (as everyone knows)
the much over-used ‘however’
acts as a sort of transitional adverb,
and should never, ever be used
as a conjunction, because, eejits,
the rule here is that
when it appears in a medial position,
unless it functions parenthetically
as an interrupter, it should not nohow
be neither preceded nor followed by a comma.
Use a semi-colon or a stop, you morons,
for gawd’s sake. Silly buggers
and stupid-arsed fools.
Larn to write proper, damn you!

From ‘Epigrams’

In Loegria

I am the man
who lives to the east
of the Dyke.
Forgive me for this  –
the finger of fate
and a broad, open gate
had long pointed the way;
and smooth
was the tongue which
enchanted the Plain.
I wandered behind
the procession of blind
seven centuries long.
I turned to the west:
but the broad gate was gone.

Exile

When daylight dies upon the shrouded hills
and a veil is cast upon the unclothed fields,
and the journeying sun sinks low –
when woods lie speechless
and the voice of the wind is stilled,
and waves lie quiet as a sleeping breast –
when the pale young stars portend
the Sabbath of the night
and her spell falls gentle on the resting earth,
I think of home.

From ‘Welsh Past and Present’

(From my room in the Garrison Officers’ Mess,
Friedrichstrasse, late December, 1974). 

In my topmost room with the sloping roof
I draw aside the drapes and look into the night.
The trees, all black, are coated white. Four storeys down, 
all neatly parked, lie ten snow-covered tumuli;  beyond,
the rimed wrought-iron gates blink idly in a street lamp’s light.
And just across the still, white way, a ghost
against low cloud, another handsome, stone-built edifice
ringed all about by trees; discreetly placed;
secluded, shadowed, and sedate. Now moon comes out
and throws upon the snow-cloaked street
black bars – long shadows of the trees. All’s silent
in the snow’s bright spell. These mansions –
all solidity and style; the nineteenth peeping
through the years and speaking of their grand Imperial past;
of Prussian mettle; Bismarck; Kaiser Wilhelm’s day …
and yes, this hour, a horse-drawn carriage driving by, side-lanterns lit,
hooves muted by the powdered white, drifts easy to the mind.
And over other rooftops, in the old, old town,
among a maze of ancient, gabled streets
dead silent and unpeopled now beneath this midnight’s snow,
the great grey mass of the Marienkirche
stares upon an empty platz, deserted but for
the grave Prince-Bishop; yes, he stands there still,
frozen to his solitary pedestal of stone;
and all there’s much as it must have been
the whole of seven centuries ago.
Tonight, Time tells its tale compulsively –
for in the east grey banks of cloud break free, and spectrally,
the tall stone tower of the Balkenburg stands out,
and high upon the staff the wind has caught
its heraldry – three bars gemel black on white
stream out against the stars. All stark against the midnight stars,
seven centuries stare back at me.

From ‘Memories, Moods, Reflections’

I searched the ink-black void,
to see where he might be, 
and among the tumbled stars
of strange-flung constellations,
with all the while the ice-cold winds
of nothingness hard-driven on
my cheek. In all the yawning velvet 
maw of space – he was not there.
And then! Against the great but
distant glory of the sun, a small,
black dot, as of a bird that homed –
ungainly, though, and lawless
in its flight…  and it was him!
Falling, falling, as a stone cast hard
into a pit. Oh, like a stone
or like some stricken bird he came,
falling, always falling and his form
increasing as he fell, until
– and I too dazed to note
the moment of precise approach –
he came right by, still dropping fast
and plunging headlong, and his wings
– those glorious wings! –
dead twirling leaves, dashed out
so uselessly behind. I strove so,
then, to be with him, but could not
for the rushing of his pace,
except that for one brief and fleeing second
I was favoured by the gods
– and looked into his face. Ah, me! His eyes
were open wide, but with the gaze
and glaze of death on them.
My boy! My son! I thought he would have
seen me then – I do not know –
but on the ashen mask there was
no trace, no jot of recognition shown.
Then gone, below me, hurtling
down the gulf until he was again
a dot of black against the misty
silver-blue of earth and sea. And gone,
forever gone from me… But then
– great gods! – just as it seemed
he would impact the wine-dark deep –
his wings, I swear – and did they?
Did they? Imitate a flutter? The blood
surged hot and swiftly to my breast,
and down I chased
through dark and icy winds
to be with him.

From ‘Of Gods and Men‘

(Cilmeri, December 11: for those who still gather there)

You see, it must have been somewhere,
in this sloping field or that;
where Dafis walked his dog today,
whose snout went snuffling
in a certain broom-choked patch;
where lovers lay last summer in the flattened sun-dried grass,
or lay, for that matter, in that self-same spot
a hundred or so years ago;
or there upon the hillside where the fat, incurious sheep
chew now upon the cud.
Or beneath that rooted blackthorn, succoured
by the good black soil that sucked the seeping blood.

But no-one knows the exact place, now,
where the spearhead bit into close-knit mail,
where the long sword’s steel described its arc
when the whetted blade swung at its mark –
where there and then it was the cross, the talisman, the shield,
was wrenched from round the very neck of Wales.

And now the needle thrusts against the sky
in a chosen place that’s plain to see,
in the still, the cold December air, where the chill is felt
as it might have been those seven hundred years ago.
And banners flap yet in a rising breeze as they did in that age gone by –
and songs are sung and verses read
for the one who fell, nearby, somewhere
    – but no-one knows exactly where –
in whose living name fresh tribute is paid
from year to passing year, from one year to the next.

From ‘Welsh Past and Present’

Then suddenly,
it came to me how swiftly
men could change.
How hands that raise
so lovingly an embryo
to first fine shoots
then splendid flower,
red raw, can bring
another’s hour of death.
Can crush another life.

I see each measured blow
thud to the flesh; each
drop of blood star on the soil

and I know fear.
               I have no part in this.
I shut my eyes.
               I am not here
my body cries …
               I stand; I watch
as mesmerised  –
caught in the monstrous
web of some dark
spider in a tower
a thousand miles away  –
which stirs: decrees:
               Resume the play.

From ‘Memories, Moods, Reflections’

(From the Chinese of Li Bai, 701-762AD)

Under flowering trees, a flagon of wine.
No friends to join me; solo am I.
I beckon the moon by raising my cup …
Ha! he, me, my shadow – a threesome will sup.
But what, now! The moon cannot gulp down a draught,
and my shadow jumps round me, this way and that!
Buuut – the moon and my shadow are still my good friends,
and we’ll toast to the Spring till it comes to an end.
I sing, and the moon swings and sways to the song.
I dance, and my shadow romps wildly along.
While I’m lucid, the pleasure remains, my good friends!
When I’m reeling… I’m sorry… our friendship must end.
But that friendship is pledged; we can roister at large
when we gather like this again under the stars!

From ‘Translations of Classical Chinese Poetry’

(From the Chinese of Hsin Ch’i-chi, 1140-1207AD)

When drunk I veer to gleefulness
– it’s no time to be grieving –
and lately felt our sages’ books
held little worth believing.

Last night, falling drunk against a pine,
I asked it, ‘How’m I doing?’
But thinking it meant to hold me up,
pushed it, and cooed ‘Get going!’

From ‘Translations of Classical Chinese Poetry’