SONGS OF DEPRESSION
by Yang Wan-li (translated by Jonathan Chaves)

1.
I don't feel like reading another book,
and I'm tired of poetry--that's not what I want to do.
But my mind is restless, unsettled--
I'll try counting raindrop stains on the oilcloth window.

2.
I finish chanting my new poems and fall asleep--
I am a butterfly journeying to the eight corners of the uiverse.
Outside the boat, waves crash like thunder,
but it is silent in the world of sleep.

"I'm wealthy..."

by Bashō

I'm wealthy--

going into the new year

with 20 pounds of old rice

WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS
by C.P. Cavafy (translated by Keeley & Sherrard)


What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

      The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

      Because the barbarians are coming today.
      What’s the point of senators making laws now?
      Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

      Because the barbarians are coming today
      and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader.
      He’s even got a scroll to give him,
      loaded with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

      Because the barbarians are coming today
      and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

      Because the barbarians are coming today
      and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

      Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
      And some of our men just in from the border say
      there are no barbarians any longer.

Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.