I've shut you out of my heart 12 yearsThousands of hoursHundreds of miles I've shut you out Golden lightCrystal blue watersBurning me up to the bone

Two thousand years ago There was a woman of exceptional beauty, So exceptional, the legend goes, That whenever she looked At her reflection in a pond, The fish would forget how to swim, And sink down into the darkness. Two thousand years later, I have forgotten how to live, Crushed by a vision of her ghost.

We boil spring water to make tea, Sitting on a grassy knoll above the water.The waterfall continues as it has always done,Ten thousand years with little change.How many lovers have sat as we have,Happy and content above this spring?I'm a cautious man,But this woman's a water dragon.She takes off all her clothes,And leaps in from our heights above.AD 865

A warm spring night under the skyscrapers I stand under a blossoming tree Each flower burning and sparkling in orange light As a street lamp burns From within its tangled branches. The beautiful sight takes me back to Nashville last spring, And you - shimmering under a blossom tree too. You, me, and a friend, How I wished then that you could be mine, The music of your spirit still ringing in my ears, The music of your pre...

As the taxi made its way up the winding roads of Victoria Peak, Gael wondered which house the party was going to be in. He had scoped out many of them when he first arrived, but Victoria was a long trek from Kowloon for a poor young westerner without a car. It was at least 20 minutes by train, and then there was the walk to the top. Gael rarely took taxis, but tonight was an exception as he wanted to take advantage of eve...

The low hum of twenty cement trucks permeated the construction site. Six trucks lined the edges of the pour site, while ten more idled in a long line around the perimeter ready to replace the others as soon as they had completed the evacuation of their mixers. Once the pour started, it would continue without interruption for twenty hours. Laying the foundations of a skyscraper is a very precise and methodical process. Any...

There is no way, there is no balance, All the world is chaos and injustice. Tradition insists that women are darkness, And men are lightness - but tradition is wrong. She was my light- my burning flower, Without her I reside in an eternal moonless night. Losing the last remnant of any love in my heart, I reach enlightenment, fading sorrowfully into the void. AD868

On Receiving a Letter From the Capitol I sit in my room, unable to breathe, All the color has left the world. A letter arrived from Chang’An today, I’ve read it a hundred times, The characters make no sense to my eyes, An official notice of execution. The magistrate tells me it is true, My love has been sent to the yellow springs. But how can she be dead? I saw her in my dreams last night. AD867

Poem From Chongqing Official duties have taken me so far from home, Down in this southern land of mountains and heat. Only a few hours after sunrise, And already all my clothes are wet. I think about a woman who rules my heart, Alone in her bed, night after night. I write poems on stones and walls and tables, Unable to erase her presence from my mind. AD866

Flower Mountain Flower Mountain, beautiful and perilous How many faithful men have fallen from her face? Her elegance and danger make my heart race, Men weren’t meant to scale such peaks. My prayers are said between heavy breaths, At a lonely shrine on her western cliffs. Exhausted, I rest for the night in a hermit’s hut, Where we drink wild tea and write poems. AD848

Perched on the cliffside, Overlooking a little mountain river. I shift my wine jug on the stone, Searching for a stable place to let it stand. Bare trees, and a cool breeze, A bird sings a spring song in the pines above. Such peace is rare in these uncertain days, But such beauty will live forever. I smile down at the sparkling water, And the sun reflects its smile back up at me. AD848

We rowed out to an empty island on the Wei river, Mooring our boat to a fallen tree. She moved like water through the forest, Like a flood through my heart. The night was warm and bright, Lying on my blanket, we chanted poems to the stars. Naked, we woke up wet with morning dew, Making love, we warmed ourselves in the rising sun. AD865

The first days after the fields are planted, Peasant families all walk the river bank. Young boys show off their strength, Seeing who can climb the tallest trees. Young girls sit with their mothers, On bamboo mats in the grass. Five old men sit on a rotten log, Drinking cool wine and talking about the past. All our sorrows and suffering, Are merely paths to moments like these. AD849

The Great Flood (Upon Hearing About XinMei’s Death) The gods and dragons are furious, Sending flood waters down upon my province. Everything I’ve ever known, Washed away into oblivion. My love, her husband, my village, her prison, Just memories now stolen by the void. Is it karma for our affair so long ago, Or karma for the evils of our empire? Are we all just blossoms in the wind, Torn apart by the eternal tempest? AD 85...

The fortresses burn - blood flows everywhere, Birds feast on the ruins of a grand age. I seek solace from the violence in the mountains mazes, Eating wild berries, my stomach aches with hunger. One moment you are feasting and warm, The next moment alone, cold, and hungry. I sit by an ancient and indifferent waterfall, So close to death and yet its beauty still moves me. My thoughts wander in the silence, Will my bones lay...