To the Tune of “Dreaming of the South Side of the River”

After combing and washing,
she leans alone on the River Gazing Tower.
A thousand boats sail by, but none are his.
Slant sunlight like lingering passion on the unhurried water.
An islet of white duckweed. She’s broken inside.

Note: In line 5, “islet of white duckweed” is a traditional Chinese coded phrase for the place of departure and separation. 

To the Tune of “The Water-Clock Sings at Night”

I

The willow weeps long silk,
a slender spring rain.
Past the flowers a water-clock sings forever,
startling frontier geese,
crows on the citywall,
even gilded partridges on the painted screen.

A thin perfumed mist
seeps through the curtain
and grief fills the ponds and pavilions of Lady Xie.
One red candle
behind the drooping embroidered curtain.
She dreams on forever of things he won’t understand.

3

The jade incense-burner smokes
and a red candle sheds tears,
casting slant light on the hall of paintings and an autumn sorrow.
Her painted eyebrows are fading
and her hair is tangled clouds.
the night is forever, the quilt and pillow cold.

On the parosel trees
rain falls at the time of the midnight drum
unaware of the pain of separation, this intense bitterness;
leaf by leaf,
plink, plunk,
it drips on the empty steps till dawn.

Wen Tingyun (温庭筠) 812-870
(Wen T'ing-yun, Wen Tingjun) 

Tang-dynasty poet and writer. Born in Shanxi province, Wen hailed from an influential family. When he arrived in the capital in his twenties to take the jinshi examinations, he was already known for his literary and musical talents. Despite such credentials, he failed to pass the exams, but found minor posts on the basis of personal connections.

Wen, whose aristocratic birth allowed him many leisures, lived the dissolute life of a drunkard and frequenter of brothels. Wen is known as the first poet to seriously explore the potentials of the ci form. Derived from ballads performed by professional female singers in the wineshops and brothels of the day, ci borrowed metres from existing musical scores and were themselves sung to instrumental accompaniment.

During Wen's lifetime, two collections of his ci poems were in circulation: the Wolan ji [Plucking the orchid collection] and the Jinquan ji [The golden fish-trap collection]. Although both of these have been lost, seventy of Wen's ci poems survive.

[ music :  afi | reading : sharper / chinese anthology of poetry ]
    "read the lines in the mirror through the lipstick trace"

.day.seventy-two. [ lxxii ]

ugh.. universe frustrating...

and something must be wrong with me..

I'm studying Macros in Excel.. in my off time.. *shakes head* all that data work is getting to me.. I'm terribly obsessed with 3D pie charts (angles&colours) and percentiles, atm.. I really need something better to do at work than create these things.. I guess it betters our stats somewhere.. *sigh*

Trying to get that poster finished, I think I wanna re-take those shots.. I'm just not happy with what I've got. I don't like the limits I'm working with.. but I don't remember leaving a brief case full of cash lying around, so I'll just have to make due without my three-grand manual-digi-cam.

Well I think I've only missed one dose in all these months.. thats pretty impressive.. now if I could only remember to do yoga so diligently... I think I work too much..  then again, I work when I sleep, so I don't really sleep much if thats the case...

I have terrible concerns for our future.. I don't think the war in the middle east is going to do anything but escalate at this point.. its frustrating dealing with day-to-day life issues (and petty minded individuals) knowing so many more serious things are happening in the world.. and right in front of us.

I've been pretty down the last week.. I'm hoping that I am not relapsing.. its not something I think I can handle another time. I might just need more things to do..

*sigh* well back to my reading.

loveless love, my non-readers..

+lyinghere.laine+

.day.sixty-nine. [ LXIX ]

no, I didn't plan that.. but thats pretty funny... and accurate..

I feel up and down. backwards, forwards... sideways somedays..

things have been pretty busy. work has been good. been doing a lot of stuff on the weekends I guess, so I haven't been too free; I'm sure its just cuz its summer.

Just finished a photoshoot. Not happy with it, but I'll clean some of them up and at least get them photoshopped to work on an event poster for Hallows.

Lammas is coming up August 1st which is on a Tuesday for crying out loud... *sigh*

I'm not really feeling much of anything right now. not sad, not really happy. I'm not a blank slate either I suppose, I'm balanced at least.

I haven't written in over a month so thats got me a bit concerned, but I've just had some projects and things distracting me lately. I know I will get some more work up soon. been cooking more which is good. I have some good company, just trying to keep physical contact up... its been frustrating with all of these little changes.. but I'm dealing.

*sigh* yay, affective mood disorders..

+laine+

Lammas :  The Summer Sabbat festival from sunset August 1 until sunset August 2 and it is also called Lughnasad after the God Lugh. It is the wake of Lugh, the Sun-King, whose light begins to dwindle after the summer solstice. The Saxon holiday of Lammas celebrates the harvesting of the grain. It is a hot, lazy, delicious time of the year.  In the heat of the day, the air is still, and the force of the sun remains strong, even though its sway over the earth is slowly diminishing day by day.  In the cooler nighttime, in this gloaming, when so many rituals begin.

nb: Roman Numerals : L means 50.  and thus 60 is LX, so LXIX equals 69.

Drunk as Drunk

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

Pablo Neruda (1904–73) was the pen name of Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, who was born in Parral, Chile. Translated into dozens of languages, he is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century.  Neruda was accomplished in a wide variety of styles, ranging from erotically charged love poems, surrealist, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. 

In 1971, Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature after several years of being overlooked for his political activism. He died of heart failure twelve days after the Chilean coup d'état. Already a legend in life, Neruda's death became charged with an intense symbolism that reverberated around the world.