¡@
| The Image | The Year of Spotted Fish | Voice in the Night |
| A Song of The Ox | The Nightingales are Dead | Only The Tiger |
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
Get the image out of the zoo.
Open wide the doors of cages.
Let all meat decay in coolers.
¡@
How do we start the dance again?
How tease movement from idea?
How skip wildly through a forest?
Yes, bring the image from the zoo,
And strip it naked in a storm.
Bring release, and then the rain.
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
This is the year
of spotted fish¡X
of endless roads
that make their way
among the cliffs
that hide the sea.
This is the year
of sacred drought¡X
of buffalo
on desert sands
that burn the sun
and kill the tree.
The year of flesh
has come and gone¡X
and we have lost
the gift of fire
that brought us through
the world we flee.
The Fisher King
limps sadly by¡X
his mythic seed
he watered well
to heal the wound
that set him free.
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
It was not in the streets of Laredo
that a young Texan lay bleeding, but
in the city of Xiamen where the
sound of the shot went unheard by
all except the dying and those who
had already died. It was there that
a voice in the night sang a ballad
American cowboys sang in the days
of their youth, in the days of the
youth of their country, and I alone
joined in--linking my voice to that
of the dying--to sing the sad refrain.
The day had long gone, and the voice
in the night kept singing as though
waiting for the dawn to come again--
as though the end would surely bring
the beginning of times both ancient
and modern--kept singing the song,
groaning anew the words of the cowboy,
and I joined in to sing the refrain.
It was not in the streets of Laredo
that a young Texan lay dying, but
in the Chinese city of Xiamen where
the sound of the shot remains unheard.
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
Mine is a song of the ox¡X
the ox that lost his shadow.
The ox that crossed the desert
is the ox that left his bones.
They were scattered in the wind,
and rain has gently washed them
for the coming of a day
when the shadow is the ox,
when the ox becomes shadow.
There is a kind of breathing
in the budding of a rose,
but in singing of the ox
lies the mystery of the yoke.
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
Somewhere under rain
where air is thick and warm
dogs are dogs in fact,
atoms on sliding boards
of melodious sounds
unheard, where sounds are formed
only because of clouds.
The nightingales are dead,
lost in ancient strings
imitating movements
of the wind. You¡¦ll find them
no more, even in dreams.
A yelping dog is all
we have to form the curves
of wings in flight, echoes
of what might have been¡X
beyond the human mind.
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@
I will throw open
the gates of the poem.
I will throw open
doors of loveliness
before quaint rumors
of shadow portend.
As revolution
beyond all knowing
only the tiger
can soothe the aching,
and I, in my heart,
will call him brother,
as I have the tree,
will name him lover
embracing angels
in spite of cages.
And I will call him
maker of seasons
bending the branches
of trees in the wind.
In greenest of times
I will surely follow.
¡@
¡@
¡@
¡@