After A Talk With Luo Ch'ing Poem by Denis Mair

Chinese literati landscape painting is fading away.
The rabbit from which they plucked fur for those wispy brushes has long ago gone up to the moon.
Tang Yin got light-headed from painting fans and was brained by a butterfly wing.
Fan Zeng's noble hero got a sore neck from the autumn wind.
C. C. Wang accidentally crumpled his latest masterwork and used it to blot ink.
Wu Guan-zhong cannot find a pupil to inherit his mastery of white walls.

Chinese literati painting is fading away.
Painters have been known to stare at asphalt roads, forgetting scenic destinations.
One was even seen dallying at a betel-nut stand, talking to a girl dressed in red.
They tie rice paper in knots, or beat it against the Great Wall.
They paint crowds of stick-men with eyes, while drunk and listening to Shostakovich.

Chinese literati landscape painting is fading away.
The security guard has activated the alarm and you must be out the door in fifteen seconds.
Chinese literati are no longer seen on the landscape, because
Chinese literati no longer paint landscapes.
There are no landscape literati
And there are no landscapes to be seen by literati.
There are missiles in Wang Wei's mountains.

Zhuangzi hid the universe in the universe, and literati painting was in that universe, so it is safe.
But in our universe, literati painting had to swallow a load of scrap iron.
It was wounded in soft places; it was broken and couldn't pass down.

Literati painting is fading away, but so much the better.
A ghost is softer than soft, and will not be harmed by sharp edges.
A ghost occupies any shape, and assumes more forms than steel.
Literati painting is dead, HEYA HEYA
Long may it occupy men's dreams!