Poems After Poets

(Note:  I wrote poems in Chinese when I was young, and have also translated poetry from Chinese to English in recent years, but this is my first attempt to compose a few in English.)


Ambiguity
—  After Gregory Corso

Her death
is as vivid
as memory
can evoke
and as blurred
as my memory
is to me


Layers of Sand

—    After C. P. Cavafy

The memories of the current flow down in me

like fine sand sliding into a pit on the beach—

sun-warmed, glittering, and slippery fine sand

The memories of the past sink deeper,

cold layers of sand now hidden beneath;

some grains near the top still occasionally shine through,

shortly before being covered, out of the sun

I want to dig them up; their disappearance upsets me,

and I'm upset, too, for the mix-up from my digging.

I look in, at the topmost grains

I don't want to stop digging for fear the sand at the bottom

will start to turn into mud, and the mud take over the pit,
as quickly as the river water takes over the beach

Three Paradoxes

—    After Wistawa Szymborska

When I speed across the intersection

I'm delayed, all cars deadlocked by mine

When I walk toward the horizon

I make it further away

When I look forward to tomorrow's sunlight

I come closer to the ultimate darkness