Tom Montag


FIVE POEMS AFTER THE CHINESE MASTERS

AFTER SU SHI'S
"LATE AT NIGHT"

I drank and drank again
at Eastern Slope tonight

and get home at midnight.
My maid servant's breathing

rumbles like thunder.
No one answers the door

when I knock. I stand here
leaning on my cane and

listening to the river.
What I want and what I get

are never the same. Why
do I chase and keep chasing?

The night is quiet: no wind,
no ripples on the water.

How I'd like to take a boat
down the river and disappear.



AFTER WEI ZHUANG'S
"GET INTOXICATED"

My advice: get drunk tonight.
Don't talk about tomorrow
in front of today's wine jar.

Let's appreciate being here,
the wine that you provide,
our mutual affection.

Remember: our days are brief.
Happiness is a jar full of wine.
Rejoice when a cup is offered.

How many times in this life
will we get to refill it?



AFTER LI ZHIYI'S
"I LIVE BY THE RIVER'S HEAD"

I live where
the river begins.

You live where
it ends.

I long for you
every day.

We drink water
from the same

river. When will
it stop flowing?

When will my grief
cease? I know

your heart is like
my heart: our love

will survive
this distance.



AFTER THREE LINES
FROM SU SHI'S
"WILLOW CATKINS"

In her dream
she is
riding the wind

thousands
of miles to
find her

lover.
The orioles
wake her.



AFTER SOME LINES
FROM YAN SHU'S
"LOVESICKNESS"

Is my heart
large enough

for such
sorrow?

I can see
to the edge

of the earth,
the far reach

of sky, yet
my longing

knows no end.




Tom Montag is most recently the author of Seventy at Seventy: New Poems; The River Will Tell You: Poems Along the Keya Paha is forthcoming in 2020. He has been publishing poetry and creative nonfiction for more than fifty years in a wide variety of little magazines. He teaches at The Mill: A Place for Writers in Appleton, Wisconsin. He was a founding contributing editor for The Pushcart Prize and he blogs at The Middlewesterner. With David Graham he co-edited the recently published anthology Local News: Poetry About Small Towns.

He writes: "These poems are selections from my versions of poems by the Chinese masters. They are not so much 'translations' (since I don't know Chinese) as they are re-imaginings of the originals."
 
 
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