Writing-Reading-Breathing Poetry Poem by michael spangenberg

Trilogy By Compounding 03 Poems

Variation #01 - A Fantasy For Anne Yun

The moon tonight is the color of 
drenched carnations. The magpies 
flap and chatter briefly when candles
 are lit, dispelling early evening shadows, 
creating a pool of creamy illumination.
 Such is the reality of my place in time
 as I greet you, Anne Yun, in your reality.


I am your honored ancestor, you are
my beloved progeny. I am so grateful
you remember me as a poet and scholar, 
and not that weary wanderer of endless, 
dust-clouded frontier roads, an imperial 
messenger delivering countless letters 
from countless imperial courtiers 
to obedient soldiers in countless camps.
I have no thirst for victory or power.
 I have no stake in military glory. Still 
it is for these things I live and work. 
I have a genius for friendship, but I am 
always saying good-bye to friends. I have
 a longing for family life, but my wife weeps
 and ages alone, and I have never seen 
my youngest daughter.

Tell me, was my life 
not a useful life, a life lived for others? 
Did I not serve faithfully the army that
 faithfully defended our borders and passed
 forward through time this magnificent land
for you and your contemporaries? When I think 
of you, your lives in a prosperity I never knew, 
in a peace I never enjoyed, I am content and sleep
 an ancestral sleep of fulfilled dreams. And tonight 
all my dreams are focused on you, Anne Yun, 
my descendant, my distant daughter.

You carry 
within the ancient impulse to write poems. How do
 your poems reach me? I do not know. They do not
 arrive as words written in graceful calligraphy 
on precious parchment. They are a presence, 
rather than things. Sometimes I know them as 
as a perfume which sweetens the air, whose essence
I breathe in and out with pleasure. Other times
 your poems appear in the fumes of southern wine, 
and I drink deeply of its inspiration. On a few occasions, 
I have heard one of your poems recited by a soldier 
at a camp fire, and his comrades are quiet and composed.

...

The last time I saw Li Bai was a night of gentle beauty.
 The autumn air was criss-crossed by warm and cool breezes.
The sky was stretched across the dome of heaven 
like an immense roll of silk. The silence gave way to songs 
sung by youths and maidens.

I complained about the injustice 
of our lives. Li Bai smiled and poured more wine. 'My friend, 
we may be just madmen aging into more madness, or maybe 
the moon will flood us with wisdom, and we will be both mad 
and wise at the same time. Let others sort out the good and
evil of things. I hope our children will prosper in a future
happiness we cannot even imagine. But I will imagine our faraway
children as creative, and productive, and fulfilled.' That was 
Li Bai's legacy to me, and now I pass it on to you (poem by Daniel Brick) .

Variation #02 - Your Visit To Anne Yun

So special
 - Your distant daughter
 Du Fu - You are the warrior
 - Your valour
 keeps guard - Against the evil forces - 
That corrupts the land 
- You leave to your descendants - A legacy
 - A garden of lush green 
- Where flowers bloom
 And pure sun light falls - 
Your youngest daughter - 
Whom you have never seen
 Finds the magic - 
Of your words - 
Poetry written in breeze
 - Poetry holds her
 Your legacy flows like river
 - A river that never dies
 - Clouds collect water from river
 - They go floating far 
and far to unknown lands 
- And poetry writes for them - Who read
 Poetry - lives for poetry
 - And daughter remembers
 Du Fu (poem by Yun, Anne) .

Variation #03 - Emily Jane drinking tea with Deng Li-yun

"Mild und leise - softly and gently - wie sie lächelt - how she smiles - ever brighter" - in her was life - and she gave life to her father - but how can she not know him - he who's inundating, mirroring love - purity of natural honey and cashmere wool - who issues commercial paper - US governmental bonds, supposedly risk-free - and tender song lyrics - tribute to his youngest daughter - who never knew he ever existed - or still alive - both kept in the dark - whereabouts as question marks- lonesome, evil mothers - children as tradable commodity - comme nuclear devices - Sun Tzu's art of parental warfare - WMD against former lovers - sole custody - compromising the soul of the family - corrupting life itself - translating ocean blue nights into the screeching ultraviolet yellow of daylight robbery - no worries - perfectly legal - the BC province of wicked minds - pregnant of police brutality - federal family laws of death & destruction - father's writing protest songs of love and justice - daughter's reading his love sonnets - once upon a time in far away family - living up to the promise of boundless poetry - transcending time, the generations - the audacity of hope ascending - how come - the wind doesn't cease blowing - a gentle breeze - how come - somewhere over the rainbow - ocean blue rain's pouring, washing away multiple imperfections - two precariously broken-up lives - retirer pour mieux sauter - (one step backward, three forward) - OMG - light's shining in the darkness (John: 1-4) - light shining upon two friendly faces - "ertrinken, versinken - to drown, to founder - unbewusst, höchste Lust: unconscious - supreme delight" - And the light shineth in darkness - and the darkness comprehended it not (john" 1-5) - テレサ・テン (poem by smilingStocks)

Credit to where credit's due: Yun, Anne and Daniel Brick, online fellow poets at Poemhunter.com, smilingStocks compiled the 3 poems in this special edition of an unique daughter-father-poetry anthology) .