Mister Xie Fang Memorized and Recited My Poems , On a Random Day I Sent Him This Epistle After Shangyin read one of his poems to me, he calmly rested his chin on his hands and said, “We have Beowulf, The Bhagavad-Gita, , the Bayajidda, the Sorrow at Parting of Chu Yuan, but there is…… Continue reading Mr. Xie Fang Memorized and Recited My Poems
Africa is a place of sublime contrasts and savage indifference. To view for the first time a lion hunt and kill, muscles rippling in the sun, to see it pick up the body of an oryx with just its teeth – and all beneath the great blue bowl of a sky that seems to stretch …… Continue reading Spearing the Fish
Shangyin was deep in thought, his ice cold Frappuccino was melting drops of water over his fingers. The mall plaza outside the Starbucks in Shenzhen was light and airy. Gray marble tiles gleamed for hundreds of yards under the noonday sun. In the near distance, I could see a street sweeper and a mall worker…… Continue reading Thirty Four Rhymes Presented To The “Five Classics” Scholar Liu
“When I wrote the Berceuse”, Chopin told me, “ I was dreaming of many things. I had just read a book from the East called the Gita. It is a religious tract that talks about life being an illusion, and how shadows are real, and how we are the reflections of what lies in the…… Continue reading A Poem On The Huizhong Peony Battered By The Rain
When Li Shangyin visited J.S. Bach in Leipzig in 1736, he was surprised at the size of the great composer’s family. Children were everywhere, under the stairs, by the gate, even lying on the harpsichord. Although the school building was cramped, the view over the moat was pleasant. A faint mist covered the idyllic countryside,…… Continue reading My Cherished Son
On Sunday, after Li Shangyin alighted from his purple phoenix in Los Angeles, at Hollywood and Vine, most people ignored him. It was about three in the afternoon, when it was both too early and too late to do anything. So, while some in the city were following the Lakers’ latest draft picks or the…… Continue reading Heyang Poem
A friend of mine once asked me, “What would a farmer in Italy or a cab driver from the Bronx want to know about China?” As I think of this question during the Chinese New Year I thought of three things based on my living in Shenzhen for the past fifteen years: the color red,…… Continue reading A Spring Day
Two Pages Of 40 Verses For Li Gong In Return For His Painting Of The Pines A cool dew covers ten thousand plants1 I open the scroll to reveal the old pines Everywhere the mountains are covered with a sea of green How they grow on such peaks remains to be seen? Unaided, their lonely…… Continue reading Painting of the Pines
闻道阊门萼绿华，wén dào chāng mén è lǜ huá 昔年相望抵天涯。xī nián xiāng wàng dǐ tiān yá 岂知一夜秦楼客，qǐ zhī yī yè qín lóu kè 偷看吴王苑內花。tōu kàn wú wáng yuàn nèi huā Towards Chang Gate, it is said, where lived Liu Hua, For years I gazed, as though from the ends of the earth afar. I wish I had just one night in the Chin Tower To steal a glance at King Wu’s inner courtyard of flowers.[1] At last…… Continue reading Poem Without a Title 16
The first time I met Chopin, I almost believed he was a stuck-up idiot. My beloved loves music, and has often talked to me of her favorite composer Chopin. Quite on a whim, I decided to travel to 19th century Paris and meet the man. An old general who is a friend of mine often…… Continue reading Poem Without a Title 6
A Tang Poet From Nairobi 