Long Forgetfulness Poems

These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation...

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Watching wan moonlight
illuminate tree limbs,
my heart also brims,
overflowing with autumn.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As I slept in isolation
my desired beloved appeared to me; 
therefore, dreams have become my reality
and consolation. 
—Ono...

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As I slept in isolation
my desired beloved appeared to me; 
therefore, dreams have become my reality
and consolation. 
—Ono no Komachi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Submit to you—is that what you advise? 
The way the ripples...

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Yes, love is no more or less reliable the more you check on this. Just like the frigid days of winter make their way for the pleasures that lay in awe of Spring I'm finding....

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ETERNAL RECURRENCE*


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“I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before and
 I hope to return a thousand times after.”  GOETHE 
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1.

Once upon a time, 
The Lord...

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Submerging myself with water of wistfulness
Trying to be rid of the loneliness in progress
I missed going outside and swimming in a precious, pure water
I’m looking above the surface instead of the ugliness of underwater

Today is...

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Unquotable quotes: Philosophers – XXII

Take Socrates: the insignia of a true philosopher is the bald pate and the luxuriant beard – the very reason why women make for such pathetic philosophers.
The bald pate facilitates the...

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She stirs first..restless..looking longingly over..senses awakened.
Their feet shuffle slowly under warm covers. The moonlight shines thru the window catching her face. .illuminating it…her tousled hair frames her face.
She looks up, hopefully for his eyes to...

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Autumn Leaves/Les feuilles mortes de Jacques PREVERT (1900-77) 
Translated by T. Wignesan 

(Note: As far as I can make out, this poem is at the heart of all versions of « The Autumn Leaves "...

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REINCARNATION

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“I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before and
 I hope to return a thousand times after.” GOETHE 
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1.

Each soul an ambassador was and is...

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HERE. ONCE STOOD OUR HOME

I can't forget in a hurry,
Here once stood our ancestral home,
As was told my great- great- great- grand father
Who told my great-great-grand father,
Who told my great grand father and who 
In...

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I was chatting with a friend the other day when I suddenly realized I’d missed a good chunk of the conversation. My brain jumped off the focus train without my being aware of it and...

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In recent years I had grown so forgetful, like noon without memory of night.
I forgot special events and sundry items, like books, my phone, or flashlight.

It was turning into a frightful nuisance, like long shadows...

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No, I do not agree that your pain has to last forever. Here's exactly why, friend. 

"All scars heal just as much as we allow them to become a scab." "As they eventually all grow...

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I cannot express orally, how and how much,
I am unable to say its source and its flow;
Is it from a human or it has divine touch?
Sometimes it is fiercely fast, and other times slow;
Why it's...

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Encounter with guardian angel January 20th, 2022

We (myself and thee missus)
experienced shell shock
analogous to war weary soldiers
back home from the western front
experiencing battlefield flashback
analogous to awakening dormant
post traumatic stress disorder.

Mental health challenged renter
twice threatened us
(think...

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I am anxious
as my 5:30 beeping alarm
grows defiantly louder,
reminding me of surreal difference
between asleep, longing for better days awake,
and,
now awake,
longing for more sleep
struggling toward alarming predawn buttons
to release from this first crisis
for depressing life's day-rousing...

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Between Earth and Ecstasy
My soul, wrought from the dust of falling stars,
Has embraced the undisturbed illusions, resting not in halted slumber,
They levitate, and like the crescent moon blooming, dark stirrings grow within me,
I rend the...

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ORIGINAL TITLE HAIKU 35
1#
Brewed tea
Wife and myself
Nothing between us
2#
He was metamorphosed 
Into a frog
When his wife had left him
3#
I needed
A lonely woman
Thousand years back
4#
She shivered
In yellow sun
Struck by her coyness
5#
God travels
With three suitcases
One for me
6#
I...

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Employment quest sought December 11th, 2021

Across cyberspace,
the following epistle
yours truly (me) doth lob
as the figurative pressure
tightens on the virtual knob,
I would moost certainly benefit
from a part time job
hence this rather goofy atypical reply
crafted (at initial
ten...

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And then I took this box of blight, and cast it into the sea of forgetfulness

Once I had finally realized, that it had become a Pandora unto myself....

A portal of passage towards darkness' infiltering of...

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There's more than meets the Horus Eye, in the recording industry
Too many whispered songs have come like a dream
Have came in the ear like malefecium shot from a midsolstice night ween
Entering in the rear of...

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carving their names on the world’s flesh like scars,
they won’t waste their breath on the news of dead men.
if there are things humans should learn, it is how to
leave their emotions out of the equations...

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In the collected fleece 
Soft white dappled against a crisp blue sky
Morning broke to its light of passion
As the phantom shades
Bowed their acquiescence
To the brush works of beauty 

All came to nothing
Rolled beneath the rubber
Black...

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as I continue my walks with the lord, I than say to the lord, these things for which you are showing me men shall surly come after me. than the lord say to me what...

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