Author: Byungafallgren

The New Remorse

~ Byungafallgren ~ Leave a comment 
The New Remorse
   Oscar Wilde 

The sin is mine; I did not understand.
   So now is music prisoned in her cave,
Save where some ebbing desultory wave
Fret, with its restless whirls this merge stand.
And in the withered hollow of this land
   Hath summer day herself so deep a grave,
   That hardly can the leaden willow crave
One silver blossom from keen winter's hand.
But who is this who cometh by the shore?
(Nay, love, looking and wonder!) Who is this
   Who cometh in dyed garments from the Saith? 
It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall hiss
   The get unravished rose of thy mouth,
And I shall weep and worship as before. 

Oscar Wilde was born on October 16, 1854 in Ireland,
poet, playwright, and novelist. He died on November30, 1900.

Stars

~ Byungafallgren ~ 2 Comments 
Stars
Robert Frost (1874--1963)

How countlessly they congregate
    O'ver our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as tree
    when wintry winds do blow!--

As if with keenness for our fate,
    Out faltering few steps on
To white rest, and place of rest
    invisible at dawn,--

And yet with neither love nor hate,
    those stars like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
 without the gift of sight.

Ten Days

~ Byungafallgren ~ 6 Comments 
Ten Days

The bell shattered the silence.
She opened the door ajar, the chain in safety;
her heart leaps to see his face, 
the past ten days fluttering in her mind;
little bird of time.

He went to visit his siblings , and
she didn't go with him. Law-daughter teased.
He might not come back. 

It was our agreement, Mother said.
shortened visit was not in his favor;
her stay would be only a few days.

When young, they were like,
me-and-my-shadow togetherness;
when old, they each have their own shadow;
they even have their own space for ease.

the ten days separation is water;
water cannot be cut. 

©Byung A. Fallgren

Shadow

~ Byungafallgren ~ 2 Comments 





Shadow 
(From Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, 
by Tao Yuanming.)

There is no way to preserve life. 
Drugs of immortality are instruments of folly.
I would gladly wander in paradise,
But it is far away and there is no road.
Since the day that I was joined to you
We have shared all our joys and pains.
While you rested in the shade, I left you a while:
But till the end we shall be together.
Our joint existence is impermanent:
Sadly together we shall slip away.
That when the body decays Fame should also go
Is a thought un-endurable, burning the heart.
Let us strive and labor while yet we may
To do some deed that men will praise.
Wine may in truth dispel our sorrow,
But how compare it with lasting fame?

"Substance Shadow, and Spirit" appears in Arthur Waley's
A hundred and Seventy Chines Poems (Alfred Knopf, 1918).
Tao Yuanming , also known as Tao Qian, is believed to have
been born in the year 365 in China. He is one of the great
hermit poets of ancient Chinese literature. He died in
the year 427. 



 

			

	


				
					


				
					


				
					


	

			
The Days When the Stars Wept
		

				

						 ~ Byungafallgren			 ~ 6 Comments					

				

		

The Days when the Stars Wept





To be a youth was a curse in nineteen-sixties
in the tiny corner of the world;
the peninsular divided in two, South and North;
joining in the bloody demos, after school hours,
like extra-curricular classes.
mostly out of patriotism; to rebuild the loose system.
the more often the parties went on, the more of them 
fell, the petals in the storm.
Everyone prayed in silence for miracle, to save them.

Then the time had come;
the night sky above the city was blazing;
the air smelled of gunpowder.
Everyone's heart leaped, but no one 
talked about it, in fear of the dark net
that might swallow them. 
the old leader's demise, and the General assumed
the Blue House as the frontier of the new age.

Many years later, the childhood friends still gathered
in memory of their brothers 

who vanished 
in the night wind. 

©Byung A. Fallgren