thread dedicated to all things LI PO (1 Viewer)

the only good poet

One retreat after another without peace.
LI PO thread

Since there seems very little out there i've discovered - or maybe because i'm bored tonight, or after a certain cache, or just plain DRUNK -

"wine makes its own manners." Li Po (AD 701-762)​

I thought i'd instigate a thread dedicated to our most illusive of contemporaries, Li Po (Li Bai, in cantonese), and pull (pool?) "our" resources...

you might even call this, rather than a thread, a forum within a forum: Li Po on a cherry blossom sailing down the yangtze river of bukowski.net...ha.


IN THE MOUNTAINS:
A REPLY TO THE VULGAR

They ask me where's the sense
on jasper mountain?
I laugh and don't reply,
in heart's own quiet:

Peach petals float their streams
away in secret
To other skies and earths
than those of mortals.



indeed...
 
Mo' Li Po

DRINK ALONE BY MOONLIGHT (lll)

If high heaven had no love for wine,
There would not be a Wine Star in the sky.
If Earth herself had no love for wine,
There would not be a city called Wine Springs.
Since Heaven and Earth both love wine,
I can love wine, without shame before God.
Clear wine was once called a Saint;
Thick wine was once called "a Sage."

Of Saint and Sage I have long quaffed deep,
What need for me to study spirits and hsien?
At the third cup I penetrate the Great Way;
A full gallon"”Nature and I are one ...
But the things I feel when wine possesses my soul
I will never tell to those who are not drunk.
 
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thanks pops! check out this translation:

DRINKING ALONE BENEATH THE MOON

Surely, if heaven didn't love wine,
there would be no Wine Star in heaven,

and if earth didn't love wine, surely
there would be no Wine Spring on earth.

Heaven and earth have always loved wine,
so how could loving wine shame heaven?

I hear clear wine called enlightenment,
and they say murky wine is like wisdom:

once you drink enlightenment and wisdom,
why go searching for gods and immortals?

Three cups and i've plumbed the great Way,
a jarful and i've merged with occurence

appearing of itself. Wine's view is lived:
you can't preach doctrine to the sober.


the last line makes me laugh: the corollary: would anyone, in their right mind, preach sobriety to the drunken?!

i have finished off
the last beer -
everything now
is especially
clear;
specialized
intelligence.

Me Po.
 
One of my textbooks has like 4 or 5 Li Po poems (as I may have noted in another thread). I'll post them next time I get my hands on it.
 
LI PO chanting a poem, hanging scroll, ink on paper (mid-13th century

ABANDON

With wine I sit
absent to Night, till
(Fallen petals
in the folds of my gown)

I stagger up
to stalk the brook's moon:
The birds are gone
and people are few!


the translator noted that this was perhaps Li po's most drunken poem and yet, in the original, it was also a miraculous work of art.
 
Li Po, one of my favorites.
His work speaks to me more than the alcohol itself. But together, I feel so enlightened that I'm almost on the verge of bursting into flames.
 
almost there

thanks pops! check out this translation:

DRINKING ALONE BENEATH THE MOON

Surely, if heaven didn't love wine,
there would be no Wine Star in heaven,

and if earth didn't love wine, surely
there would be no Wine Spring on earth.

Heaven and earth have always loved wine,
so how could loving wine shame heaven?

I hear clear wine called enlightenment,
and they say murky wine is like wisdom:

once you drink enlightenment and wisdom,
why go searching for gods and immortals?

Three cups and i've plumbed the great Way,
a jarful and i've merged with occurence

appearing of itself. Wine's view is lived:
you can't preach doctrine to the sober.


the last line makes me laugh: the corollary: would anyone, in their right mind, preach sobriety to the drunken?!

i have finished off
the last beer -
everything now
is especially
clear;
specialized
intelligence.

Me Po.

Dear Me Po,

Nice translation
indeed.

Gotta love Li Po.
He drank himself
to enlightment...the
triumph of the liver
over galleons of beer,
under the burgundy
light of the moon.

If yer sober, ignore
this message...blurp!

He Po
 
DRINKING ALONE BY MOONLIGHT

[A nice translation too...it goes
with the third one I first posted.]

1

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

II

IN the third month the town of Hsien-yang
Is thick-spread with a carpet of fallen flowers.
Who in Spring can bear to grieve alone?
Who, sober, look on sights like these?
Riches and Poverty, long or short life,
By the Maker of Things are portioned and disposed;
But a cup of wine levels life and death
And a thousand things obstinately hard to prove.
When I am drunk, I lose Heaven and Earth,
Motionless"”I cleave to my lonely bed.
At last I forget that I exist at all,
And at that moment my joy is great indeed.
 
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DRINKING ALONE BY MOONLIGHT

[A nice translation too...it goes
with the third one I first posted.]

1

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

II

IN the third month the town of Hsien-yang
Is thick-spread with a carpet of fallen flowers.
Who in Spring can bear to grieve alone?
Who, sober, look on sights like these?
Riches and Poverty, long or short life,
By the Maker of Things are portioned and disposed;
But a cup of wine levels life and death
And a thousand things obstinately hard to prove.
When I am drunk, I lose Heaven and Earth,
Motionless"”I cleave to my lonely bed.
At last I forget that I exist at all,
And at that moment my joy is great indeed.


Gah, I think you beat me to my favorite selection...
 
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