EMERALD CITY
(verdegris/bronze) (Li Shang-yin)
Emerald City I
emerald city, twelve cerulean gates
dust dispelled (shivering breath)
book flies (leaves wings) to high halls
no tree lacks its dragon (the myth)
stars sink below the ocean's floor
rain, vaporous, riding over river's source
dawn breaking forever now
waves' crystal reflection . . . is world
Emerald City II
lids lift to see her shadow / mirrored
thick stems (lotus) in waves' froth
". . . if you meet an immortal on the road . . ."
no, not, nowhere / forever were
myth-wings, gold on a silky wrist
bow turning scales … already reflections …
(Prince O soundless, still, inside his boat
under the piled, embroidered quilts)
Emerald City III
through, into, opened, was; forever ended
revolving doors clatter shut
the hare-in-the-moon watches all wane
under shallow grey, crushed wraiths
world thick, suspended,
the myth breaking "for so /
little" – voices rasp, lids turned:
it's world, pronged, and set against our heart
(verdegris/bronze) (Li Shang-yin)
Emerald City I
emerald city, twelve cerulean gates
dust dispelled (shivering breath)
book flies (leaves wings) to high halls
no tree lacks its dragon (the myth)
stars sink below the ocean's floor
rain, vaporous, riding over river's source
dawn breaking forever now
waves' crystal reflection . . . is world
Emerald City II
lids lift to see her shadow / mirrored
thick stems (lotus) in waves' froth
". . . if you meet an immortal on the road . . ."
no, not, nowhere / forever were
myth-wings, gold on a silky wrist
bow turning scales … already reflections …
(Prince O soundless, still, inside his boat
under the piled, embroidered quilts)
Emerald City III
through, into, opened, was; forever ended
revolving doors clatter shut
the hare-in-the-moon watches all wane
under shallow grey, crushed wraiths
world thick, suspended,
the myth breaking "for so /
little" – voices rasp, lids turned:
it's world, pronged, and set against our heart
- These poems are way after the three untitled poems by the T'ang dynasty Chinese poet Li Shang-yin (813-858 AD), known by their opening words, Emerald City…” or "Emerald Walls…”. (More conventional/scholarly translations can be found in A.C. Graham's 1973 Penguin Classic Poems of the Late T'ang.) These almost baroque poems are rich in arcane Taoist and other mythological lore, but (it has been argued) this conceals a more everyday tale of the waxing, consummation, and waning of a love-affair. They provide a major source of imagery for Gustaf Sobin's poem 'BRONZE', subtitled 'An Exercise in Style’, with the further gloss "(Li Shang-Yin)’; this was published in Sobin’s Celebration of the Sound Through (New York, 1982). Sobin’s poem has here been folded back into my 'faithless' versions of the Chinese originals. These new poems are for Tony Frazer, with affection, and in recognition of his early championing of Gustaf Sobin's work.
Harry Gilonis
Martin Anderson adds:
- As Harry Gilonis notes, the poem ‘Bronze An Exercise in Style’ was included in Sobin’s Celebration of the Sound Through (1982). This was Sobin’s second volume of poetry published by the journal Montemora, edited by Eliot Weinberger, as a supplement: the first was Wind Chrysalid’s Rattle (1980). Tony included a sizeable sampling of Sobin’s poetry in the very first edition of Shearsman magazine in 1981. He followed this up, like Weinberger, with a supplement to Shearsman magazine in the same year: Sobin's Ceasurae:Midsummer. This was followed by numerous appearances of Sobin's poetry in the magazine, the first short study of Sobin’s poetry by the late Phillip Crick and two more chapbooks; Carnets 1974-1982 (1984) and Blown Letters, Driven Alphabets (1994). In addition Shearsman and Oasis (under the late Ian Robinson) jointly published Sobin’s chapbook Nile (1984). Tony regarded Sobin’s work very highly indeed and he did his best to promote it and bring it to the attention of as many others as possible. It is quite unlike anything else written by an American (or any other poet writing in English) in the last quarter of the twentieth century. I am sure I am not alone in being grateful to Tony for bringing Sobin’s work to my attention. I am sure that, if he were alive, Gustaf would have had no hesitation whatsoever in contributing to this Festschrift for Tony. Like others he was a beneficiary of Tony’s largesse. It seems only appropriate, therefore, that we include Sobin’s early Bronze An Exercise in Style, along with the Gilonis contribution which was generated by it, as Sobin’s own tribute to Tony.
