#li ho

[mournfulroses]

Li Ho, from a poem titled "Melancholic," featured in The Erotic Spirit; An Anthology of Poems of Sensuality, Love, and Longing

[gennsoup]

If heaven too had passions even heaven would grow old.

Li Ho, A Bronze Immortal takes Leave of Han

[godzilla-reads]

100 Days of Poetry: Day 41

The Northern Cold by Li Ho (tr. A.C. Graham)

The sky glows one side black, three sides purple.

The Yellow River's ice closes, fish and dragons die.

Bark three inches thick cracks across the grain,

Carts a hundred piculs heavy mount the river's water.

Flowers of frost on the grass are as big as coins,

Brandished swords will not pierce the foggy sky,

Crashing ice flies in the swirling seas,

And cascades hang noiseless in the mountains, rainbows of jade.

[finita--la--commedia]

The passion of spring: it’s not something words will tell.

Li Ho (790 to 816), from “Dawn At Shih-Ch’eng” in: “Classical Chinese Poetry. An Anthology”, translated from Chinese by David Hinton

[wordlings]

rhapsody frontier

the wind in wing is a broken spring the street towards you in border   priceless borders of her dress banners drizzle in the dew   the pale the grief cold brass the night silence watches remote and murmurs   half-past two the gutters sputtered the rust of skeleton muzzle shakes   street mamp luttered form as past stiff and polished white is green   like serpents breach upon th' watch the swallows up the smells of clocks   come chestnuts in the morning the lamp and the lady who sputtered clings   the wind is wet in broken wings regard the moon, la lune     ... Riffed mixture of Eliot's "Rhapsody On A Windy Night" and Li Ho's "On The Frontier"

[gennsoup]

Faces of orchids as spring departed cried noiseless tears: Migrant geese in the reeds of the isles proclaimed that spring had come, In the slime of desolate moors the floods of autumn whitened.

Li Ho, The Liang Terrace

[gennsoup]

Heaven is inscrutable, Earth keeps its secrets. The nine-headed monster eats our souls, Frosts and snows snap our bones.

Li Ho, Don't Go Out of the Door

[animus-inviolabilis]

"On and on for ever" by Li Ho (791-817 A.D.) [Translated by A.C. Graham]

The white glare recedes to the Western hills, High in the distance sapphire blossoms rise. Where shall there be an end of old and new? A thousand years have whirled away in the wind. The sands of the ocean change to stone, Fishes puff bubbles at the bridge of Ch'in*. The empty shine streams on into the distance, The bronze pillars** melt away with the years.

*‘Bridge of Ch'in’: Shih-huang-ti, who founded the Ch'in dynasty in 221 B.C., is said to have tried to build a bridge over the sea in order to see where the sun rises; spirits pulled it down as he was building it.

**‘Bronze pillars’; those which supported the bronze immortals which collected dew for the elixir and.or the bronze pillar of Mount K'un-lun which holds up the sky.