The Myth: A Tanka Sequence

I gaze
into the bedroom mirror
in the depth
of a winter night
nothing there, and yet...

Death
with half-opened eyes
glances at me --
I ponder if
poetry can redeem my life

my pondering
turns into the winter light
filling the sky...
snowflakes of words
fall and pile up on the page

page after page
my poems morph into crumbled balls
lying
pale by a garbage bin
to write or not to write...

it’s been said
nothing new under the sun --
I wage
one fight after another
against a poet’s loneliness

Chinese Translation:

神話：日本短歌序詩

在冬夜
的至深之處
我凝視
卧房的鏡子
空無一物，然而…

死亡
半睜開的雙眼
在瞄我 --
我懷疑
詩能否拯救我的生命

我的猜想
化為冬日之光
填滿了天空…
詩句像雪花般
飄落並堆積在紙上

一頁接一頁
我的詩句化為紙團
蒼白地躺
在字紙簍邊
繼續寫或不寫…

曾有傳言
太陽底下無新鮮事 --
我從事
一場接一場的戰役
對抗作為詩人的寂寞

Atlas Poetica, #8.