Buddha,
pour me a cup of poetry
from your warm mouth
this empty
night
Wind Five Folded, 1996
Sanford Goldstein
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
佛佗，
從你溫暖的嘴
倒給我一杯詩
這個空虛
的黑暗夜晚
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
佛佗，
从你温暖的嘴
倒给我一杯诗
这个空虚
的黑暗夜晚
Bio Sketch
Sanford
Goldstein has been publishing tanka for more than fifty years. He was
born in 1925 and is now 94 years old. Long ago, he wrote haiku, but
decided to focus on tanka. His latest books, three in the last two
years, have each said this would be his last.
The opening tanka of Sanford Goldstein's 'Buddha: a tanka string" is bookmarked by religiously/spiritually significant and symbolically rich contrasting one-word lines, "Buddha" (L1)and "night" (L5).
ReplyDeleteAnd the command/imperative sentence (Ls 2&3) after "Buddha" and the modifying phrase (L4) of "night" effectively forms an emotionally dialectical relationship.
Below is my Muse kyoka, which I think could be read as a counter-poem to Goldstein's Buddha tanka:
Deletethis quiet
morning snowfall ...
black coffee
awakens the muse
to muscle in
Failed Haiku, 4:39, 2019