Best Famous Lai Poems
Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Lai poems. This is a select list of the best famous Lai poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Lai poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of lai poems.
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Written by
Yusef Komunyakaa |
Usually at the helipad
I see them stumble-dance
across the hot asphalt
with crokersacks over their heads,
moving toward the interrogation huts,
thin-framed as box kites
of sticks & black silk
anticipating a hard wind
that'll tug & snatch them
out into space.
I think
some must be laughing
under their dust-colored hoods,
knowing rockets are aimed
at Chu Lai—that the water's
evaporating & soon the nail
will make contact with metal.
How can anyone anywhere love
these half-broken figures
bent under the sky's brightness?
The weight they carry
is the soil we tread night & day.
Who can cry for them?
I've heard the old ones
are the hardest to break.
An arm twist, a combat boot
against the skull, a .
45
jabbed into the mouth, nothing
works.
When they start talking
with ancestors faint as camphor
smoke in pagodas, you know
you'll have to kill them
to get an answer.
Sunlight throws
scythes against the afternoon.
Everything's a heat mirage; a river
tugs at their slow feet.
I stand alone & amazed,
with a pill-happy door gunner
signaling for me to board the Cobra.
I remember how one day
I almost bowed to such figures
walking toward me, under
a corporal's ironclad stare.
I can't say why.
From a half-mile away
trees huddle together,
& the prisoners look like
marionettes hooked to strings of light.
|
Written by
Du Fu |
Peng lai palace imperial palace face south hill
Receive dew gold stem sky amid
West gaze jade pond descend Queen Mother of the West
East come purple vapour fill Han pass
Cloud shift pheasant tail open palace door
Sun surround dragon scales recognise holy face
One lie cold river startle year late
Number times blue chain shine morning group Penglai imperial palace faces the southern hill,
A golden stem to catch the dew is high up in the sky.
Gazing west, the Queen Mother descends at the Jade Lake,
From the east, Han pass is filled with purple vapour.
Like shifting cloud, the pheasant tail screens of the palace open,
Bathed in sun of dragon scales, I know the holy face.
Now I lie by this cold river, amazed the year's so late,
How many times by the blue chains was I there in the morning court?
|