No, we are still an English organization! LOL

   Huan Lingyun, one of our dinner companions on this year's cruise, mailed me this six foot six inch, hand written Chinese poem. The poems age, over 1200 years, does not seem to take anything away from its effect upon the modern reader. Although i had hoped to put a picture of the framed poem in this newsletter, the sheer size of the endeavor has set it back on the to-do list, so there it is, in its rice paper nakedness. Lingyun, generous to a fault, would not even accept postage for the package, so i thought a bit of foreign exposure was the least that i could do!

   Another reason for using this poem is the fact that it is proof that great poetry can be timeless. Are we writing today what will be affluent in ten or twenty centuries?    The spring is upon us, and the scramble to catch up after an idle winter here at the "Palace" has comenced! The eighteen months of monthly chapbook releases, though entirely enjoyable, were more draining than at first considered... Therefore, Poetry Palace Gift Shop will now release new chapbooks irregularly, continuing to increase the variety of brilliant poets for those students who wish to take part in the benefits of this project.

   The next two poets, one from California, the other from Nigeria, both brighten and shadow the bouquet of verse that we have been able to pick from the global interest of poets thus far. Look for the releases of these chapbooks as we travel through this spring!

   Because the poem following is of such length, i will end this here. Hope you enjoy this ancient love story in verse!

   We are still open for submissions! All volumes for the year of 2005 must be completed before the end of April. Trying to balance editing and printing during a hectic paving schedule this past year proved to be too exhausting. If you, or someone you know, are interested in having your verse be an addition to this colorful and inspiring series, PLEASE submit as soon as possible.

   We are also looking for articles for this newsletter! If you have an essay on a poet, or form of poetry, we would be glad to run it here! Let us know!

   I, again, would like to remind all the Palace Poets that the poem and picture/art option for the newsletter is open to all. Maybe you could go through your photo albums in search of poetic inspiration. Maybe you will even find the whole idea enticing. A scrapbook of your life with accompanying verse might be quite the heirloom to leave behind! :)

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

A SONG OF UNENDING SORROW

China's Emperor,
craving beauty that might shake an empire,
Was on the throne for many years,
searching,
never finding,
' Til a little child of the Yang clan,
hardly even grown,
Bred in an inner chamber,
with no one knowing her,
But with graces granted by heaven
and not to be concealed,
At last one day was chosen for the imperial household.
If she but turned her head and smiled,
there were cast a hundred spells,
And the powder and paint of the Six Palaces
faded into nothing.
...
It was early spring.
They bathed her in the Flower Pure Pool,
Which warmed and smoothed
the creamy-tinted crystal of her skin,
And, because of her languor,
a maid was lifting her
When first the Emperor noticed her
and chose her for his bride. The cloud of her hair,
petal of her cheek,
gold ripples of her crown when she moved,
Were sheltered on spring evenings
by warm hibiscus curtains;
But nights of spring were short
and the sun arose too soon,
And the Emperor,
from that time forth,
forsook his early hearings
And lavished all his time on her
with feasts and revelry,
His mistress of the spring,
his despot of the night.
There were other ladies in his court,
three thousand of rare beauty,
But his favours to three thousand
were concentered in one body.
By the time she was dressed
in her Golden Chamber,
it would be almost evening;
And when tables were cleared
in the Tower of Jade,
she would loiter,
slow with wine.
Her sisters and her brothers
all were given titles;
And, because she so illumined
and glorified her clan,
She brought to every father,
every mother through the empire,
Happiness when a girl was born
rather than a boy.
...
High rose Li Palace,
entering blue clouds,
And far and wide
the breezes carried magical notes
Of soft song and slow dance,
of string and bamboo music.
The Emperor's eyes
could never gaze on her enough-
'Til war-drums,
booming from Yuyang,
shocked the whole earth
And broke the tunes of The Rainbow Skirt
and the Feathered Coat.
The Forbidden City,
the nine-tiered palace,
loomed in the dust
From thousands of horses
and chariots headed southwest.
The imperial flag opened the way,
now moving and now pausing-
- But thirty miles from the capital,
beyond the western gate,
The men of the army stopped,
not one of them would stir
'Til under their horses' hoofs
they might trample those moth-eyebrows....
Flowery hairpins fell to the ground,
no one picked them up,
And a green and white jade hair-tassel
and a yellowgold hair- bird.
The Emperor could not save her,
he could only cover his face.
And later when he turned to look,
the place of blood and tears
Was hidden in a yellow dust
blown by a cold wind.
...
At the cleft of the Dagger-Tower Trail
they crisscrossed through a cloud-line
Under Omei Mountain.
The last few came.
Flags and banners
lost their colour
in the fading sunlight.
...
But as waters of Shu
are always green
and its mountains always blue,
So changeless was His Majesty's love
and deeper than the days.
He stared at the desolate moon
from his temporary palace.
He heard bell-notes
in the evening rain,
cutting at his breast.
And when heaven and earth
resumed their round
and the dragon car faced home,
The Emperor clung to the spot
and would not turn away
From the soil along the Mawei slope,
under which was buried
That memory,
that anguish.
Where was her jade-white face?
Ruler and lords,
when eyes would meet,
wept upon their coats
As they rode,
with loose rein,
slowly eastward,
back to the capital.
...
The pools, the gardens, the palace,
all were just as before,
The Lake Taiye hibiscus,
the Weiyang Palace willows;
But a petal was like her face
and a willow-leaf her eyebrow
--
And what could he do
but cry
whenever he looked at them?
...
Peach-trees and plum-trees blossomed,
in the winds of spring;
Lakka-foliage fell to the ground,
after autumn rains;
The Western and Southern Palaces
were littered with late grasses,
And the steps were mounded
with red leaves that no one swept away.
Her Pear-Garden Players
became white-haired
And the eunuchs thin-eyebrowed
in her Court of PepperTrees;
Over the throne flew fire-flies,
while he brooded in the twilight.
He would lengthen the lamp-wick
to its end
and still could never sleep.
Bell and drum
would slowly toll
the dragging nighthours
And the River of Stars
grow sharp in the sky,
just before dawn,
And the porcelain mandarin-ducks
on the roof grow thick
with morning frost
And his covers of kingfisher-blue
feel lonelier and colder
With the distance between life and death
year after year;
And yet no beloved spirit
ever visited his dreams.
...
At Lingqiong
lived a Taoist priest
who was a guest of heaven,
Able to summon spirits
by his concentrated mind.
And people were so moved
by the Emperor's constant brooding
That they besought the Taoist priest
to see if he could find her.
He opened his way in space
and clove the ether like lightning,
Up to heaven,
under the earth,
looking everywhere.
Above,
he searched the Green Void,
below, the Yellow Spring;
But he failed,
in either place, to find the one he looked for.
And then he heard accounts
of an enchanted isle at sea,
A part of the intangible
and incorporeal world,
With pavilions and fine towers
in the five-coloured air,
And of exquisite immortals
moving to and fro,
And of one among
them-whom they called
The Ever True-
With a face of snow and flowers
resembling hers he sought.
So he went to the West Hall's
gate of gold
and knocked
at the jasper door
And asked a girl,
called Morsel-of-Jade,
to tell The Doubly- Perfect.
And the lady,
at news of an envoy
from the Emperor of China,
Was startled out of dreams
in her nine-flowered canopy.
She pushed aside her pillow,
dressed,
shook away sleep,
And opened the pearly shade
and then the silver screen.
Her cloudy hair-dress
hung on one side
because of her great haste,
And her flower-cap was loose
when she came along the terrace,
While a light wind filled her cloak
and fluttered with her motion
As though she danced
The Rainbow Skirt
and the Feathered Coat.
And the tear-drops
drifting down her sad white face
Were like a rain in spring
on the blossom of the pear.
But love glowed deep within her eyes
when she bade him thank her liege,
Whose form and voice
had been strange to her
ever since their parting
--
Since happiness had ended
at the Court of the Bright Sun,
And moons and dawns
had become long
in Fairy-Mountain Palace.
But when she turned her face
and looked down toward the earth
And tried to see the capital,
there were only fog and dust.
So she took out, with emotion,
the pledges he had given
And, through his envoy,
sent him back a shell box
and gold hairpin,
But kept one branch of the hairpin
and one side of the box,
Breaking the gold of the hairpin,
breaking the shell of the box;
"Our souls belong together,"
she said,
"like this gold and this shell
--
Somewhere,
sometime,
on earth
or in heaven,
we shall surely be"
And she sent him,
by his messenger,
a sentence reminding him
Of vows which had been known
only to their two hearts:
"On the seventh day
of the Seventh-month,
in the Palace of Long Life,
We told each other secretly
in the quiet midnight world
That we wished to fly in heaven,
two birds with the wings of one,
And to grow together on the earth,
two branches of one tree."
Earth endures,
heaven endures;
some time both shall end,
While this unending sorrow
goes on and on
for ever.


by Bai Juyi in Tang Dynasty




Huan Lingyun



Lingyun has also translated at least one poem from Just Scribbled Words into Chinese.


~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~





"I find first thing in the morning to be the most inspiring and productive."

Trish McQueen

Palace Poet XX



~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~





"I was made to write poetry. Poetry is my oxygen for the soul. I cannot survive without it."

Jeralyn Klopotic

Palace Poet XXI



~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~





"Sometimes, I get this creative energy that just has to come out. I’m a compulsive writer."

Heidi Greenhaw

Palace Poet I



~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Poetry Exercise

     How about we just write a story in verse this month? If you do and would like to see it in the newsletter, emasil it! :)

     Have an exercise you created for improving your writing? Would you like to see it in this newsletter? Send it to

Poetry Palace

     Remember, if the exercise is easy, the benefit is minimal… :(

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Thank You, Again, For Your Visit!

"My mind is like a city of one way streets

all leading to its center.

Poems and parts of poems

and parts of possible poems

stampede frantically

in Twilight Zone redundancy

down each street

and i live

in the dust above the collision

unable

or willing

to control the bits of their shrapnel

as they tear through me

writing all that i can hold on to

long enough to slate.

I am not sure if i messed up the blueprints

or the construction

or if the city was already there waiting for me.

My best days are when i scribble frantically

or share those scribblings.

I guess that makes this one of my best days!!!





Thanx"



thomas beal

Palace Poet XIX