Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Yitkbel May 2023
Originally written in Chinese, and translated to English by:

Yitkbel ****

Date of Original Chinese Version: March 25, 2021

Date of Translation: April 4, 2021 Easter Sunday



I.


Sailing upon new waves,

Post Modernity's Wake,

The 'wise men' arrive upon the Isle,

Isle of the Children Faithful and Wild,

Ascend the Peaks of Antiquity,

With a thousand coats of obscurity,

With New Clothes and New Shades,

Conceal the eternal Splendid rays.


They say,

'This is the Dusk of Illusion!'

'The Dawn of Disillusion!'

'Gone with the Ageless Eternity,

Behold the Age of Humanity!'


Stealing light with a sleight of hand,

As shadow disembark upon the land,


They say,

'The Sun is dead,'

'Go back to bed,'

'And dream about nothing,'

'That's all there will be remaining.'


The long night arrives,

Lingering, while daylight

Dissipates.


II.


Dreaming in the New Cave,

Never to the sun, awake,

The young fog stolen away

The old path and old ways.

Darkness roars, Ennui soars.

The Songs of Seeds cease.

Lost without light's embrace.

A thousand crows' throats brace,

Wings replace the sky's face,

So the children forget its grace.


They sing:


'The naive cannot comprehend.'

'The fools will not understand.'


They sing:


'Existence is meaningless.'

'Humanity is purposeless.'


How many youth heard?

How many within the herd?

How many youth lost,

And at what cost?

Except for us!

Except for us!

Except for us!


Within the Darkness of "Depth",

Disbelievers of 'The Sun's Death',

We abide the mockery,

With Truth's memory,

Peering beyond the seamless clouds,

Lone souls among prodigal crowds,

To nothing else we will ever yield!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!


III.


The 'wise men',

With a thousand coats of obscurity,

Finally taught the 'wayward child'-

'Too naive' 'Too faithful' 'Too wild'-

To gaze upon their shadow beneath,

Beneath their feet,

And say:

'That's all there is,

All there will be.'


Way above,

Above the fog, above the clouds,

Above the stars, above it all,

Manifolds of souls witnessing,

These wise men standing tall,

With their boastful clarion call,

Upon a speck of dust, believing,

It to be everything and nothing

Else.


They turn back, back to the Waiting

Of the Death of Time, Of the Death of Time,

As the crows carry on with their carrion rhyme.

They carry on, they carry on, singing:


'The Sun is dead,'

'Go back to bed,'

'And dream about nothing,'

'That's all there will be remaining.'


They carry on, they carry on singing:


'The naive cannot comprehend.'

'The fools will not understand.'


They carry on, they carry on singing:


'Existence is meaningless.'

'Humanity is purposeless.'


They carry on, they carry on singing:


'Gaze upon your shadow beneath your feet!'

'That's all there is, And all there will be.'



How many youth heard?

How many within the herd?

How many youth lost,

And at what cost?

Except for us!

Except for us!

Except for us!


Within the Darkness of 'Depth',

Disbelievers of 'The Sun's Death',

We abide the mockery,

With Truth's memory,

Peering beyond the seamless clouds,

Lone souls among prodigal crowds,

To nothing else we will ever yield!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!



Forever Children of Sunflower Field!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!
My collections:

https://linktr.ee/Yitkbel
Yitkbel May 2023
Written and translated by: Yue Xing **** Yitkbel

Originally in Chinese as lyrics on:

August 19, 2020

Translated into English on:

August 22, 2020


I


The wise man in the desert

Watches over the child

In the fields of gold.

The child in the fields of gold

Gazes at the zealous youth

At the foot of the mountain,

Climbing, climbing, climbing.

Wanting to bask untamed

Right beneath the fiery sun,

Wanting to tame the quiet moon

Crush it beneath his feet.

The feat of man.

The support and brace

Of morality and faith

To them are shackles

That must be freed.


II


As they roared:

Be reborn, nature!

Nature of man!

As they bellowed:

Go rebel, desires!

Desires of the self!

“Doesn’t the world cease to exist

Without the observer who is ‘I’”?

“I close my eyes and all living

To me met their timely demise”.


REFRAIN:


The wise man said nothing,

And the child wondered:

You who perceive yourselves

Collectively no less than Zeus,

Why gift yourselves the fate

Of Sisyphus?

Don’t you know that even time

Must melt away?

And yet there you are worshiping,

Keeping in dust as your

Salvation and eternal faith.

The rolling stone you’ll never eternally own.


III


Like ants upon an anthill,

At the crossroad of humanity,

Under the gas lamps still,

Quenched the humble fire with vanity,

Enlightened by tungsten’s burst,

Inaugurated Man “King of the Universe”.


REFRAIN:


The philosopher hovered away.

The poet sighed but stayed.

You all perceive yourselves

Collectively no less than Zeus,

Yet gave yourselves the punishment

Of Sisyphus!

Don’t you know that even time

Must melt away?

And yet there you are worshiping,

Keeping in dust as your

Salvation and eternal faith.

The rolling stone you don’t eternally own.


IV


Time grew, aged and will soon melt away!

The world leap or falter illusions must fade.

As the rolling snow boulder melts away,

Did you lose or gain in the spring days?


-Those who climbed the snowy peaks

Are now losing losing all in the decay;

Those who sown in the eternal pasture

Are now reaping reaping joyfully away.-


REFRAIN:


The kings wail and weep,

The believers rejoice in the days.

With great irony the Zeus of today,

Confined themselves to Sisyphus’ fate.

They don’t believe that even time

Must melt away,

So they worship and praise,

Keep in dust as all the

Salvation and faith,

The rolling stone they want to eternally own.


V


What hope we used to keep!

Humbly cradled in the eternal dream!

Yet we were lured to think ourselves wise;

A cluster of ants fighting to be lords of flies.

Perceiving dust as above unseeable souls,

Willingly, our rotting stones up a steep hill roll.

Boasting our strength, status, height of place,

While mocking modesty’s unseeming grace.

Unaware of the coming crushing weight,

As the uphill stone tumbles back to base.


Ever evading us,

Ever escaping us,

Ever the ennui


Of “Man: Controller of the Universe”

Ever confined to mere dust and earth.

Self-imposed exile, had the wayward son forgot,

The once great purpose? Now all for naught?


“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

“We are headed to nowhere!”

When the stranger to strange tides,

Kills, hides, and pretends to be the guide.


REFRAIN:


Matter ever shifts,

The soul never ceases.

With great irony the Zeus of Man’s beginning,

Brought themselves to Sisyphus’ end.

They don’t believe that even time

Must melt away,

So they worship and praise,

Keep in dust as all the

Salvation and faith,

The rolling stone they think they eternally own.


VI


Sweeping beneath the fog

Of the overturning dusk,

Endless, ceaseless dust

Engulfed the roller till naught.

Only the dreamer in the fields

To the invisible eternal yields.


Bewildered by the shadows,

Darkness of humanity’s days,

Only those who never forgot the hidden light

Can find the gate above without fear or fright.


Everlasting in the decay.

Peaceful in the destruction.

Must not be bound,

Must not be bound,

Must not be bound,

By a boulder of dust,

By a mountain of mud.

The invisible never caused me alarm.

So they have mounts of gold without end.

So they keep the sands of time within hands.

So they must ever dread and fear as it slips away,

Dust to dust without a trace.


VII


But we, we melt away the mockery with faith,

And lead the way with bolts of love and grace,

Back home to Eternity’s Gate!
Just popping in to update some poems written after I last posted.
Yitkbel May 2020
The Eternal Dream

By: Yue Xing Yitkbel ****
Friday, May 22, 2020
Originally written in Chinese on:
Wednesday, May 20, 2020

I had a whimsical dream
I dreamt the entire universe
Its truth revealed to me:
The giant beekeeper’s keep
The “cosmic ant-farm” indeed
But the ants are not we
The dormant ants and bees
They are the celestial entities
We are but their dreams-

The dust dreams it is an ant
The ant dreams it is a bee
The bee dreams it is a glowworm
The glowworm dreams it is a star
The star dreams to be the universe
The universe dreams to be the creator,
The creator dreams-

We
We are the stars’ dreams
We are the bees’ dreams
We are the ants’ dreams
Unbind by ashes and dust
We still roam on eternally
From innocent morning
To wizened even
We live eons through fleeting dreams
Fall at nightfall
Awaken when awoke
Traversing the endless
Living the eternal
Eternal endless dreams

The wayward soul that is me
Hovering above our universe
Sweeping the clusters of heavens
That are mere dust, ants, and bees
Yet the Keeper allows me to be
To take in the love that fills me
To experience, to see, in totality
The true greatness of Him
And our humanity.
Yitkbel May 2020
-I live, breathe, it seems
Awake in a dream
Memories ail and fade
I take naught away
But my soul never strays
My soul and love's aches
Only these two of the same
Could cross over the gate-

The men in the desert
Seek chalices not water
The men in the desert
Among grains of gold falter
The men in the desert
Frantically climbing upon one another
Failing hands towards the celestial river
The men in the desert
Suffocate in reach of height of matter
Wind sweeps dust, falls the ladder
The men in the desert
Their desperate faces fade and alter
A short deluge of ashes and dust later
The marks of the men in the desert
Were found still a few mirages further
Dissipated near the translucent border
"Only fools believe in unseeable water!"
They proclaimed louder and louder
Till thirst conquered them and only
Silence, the presence of absence lingers

Like the shadow that deathly cowers
When the light tears all slumber asunder
Rising in the East to empty my cup
Lowering it in the West to runneth over:

The Chalice of Life and Being
Is only a momentary timely vessel
For the absence of plentiful
Within without to hold
The clear, transparent
Truth of Water
Unbreakable
Across the labyrinth of shadows
Till we safely reach home
The Boundless Ocean of the Void
Where it is not devoid of anything
But could ceaselessly hold All

-Beyond time and space
The Boundless Ocean of the Void:
My Chalice of the East and West

By: Yue Xing Yitkbel ****
Friday, February 28, 2020 11:39 p. m.


     See Tao Te Ching "Chapter 11"
The Story of the Stone Translated by David Hawkes
While reading The Story of the Stone, I came across the line: "Each in the end must call a strange land home," which by its original Chinese version and interpretation/footnotes I understood it more as "we mistake a strange land as our home."
This, along with its lively description of the Void, (The Truth according to Buddhist philosophy) I finally gained a new understanding of what I had previously deemed as a rather nihilistic view of the hereafter.
     The idea and manifestation of "the lack thereof" permeates my life, ponderings, and poetry, yet I found no meaning in the idea that life is a blink of a dream between the Truth of the void, The Emptiness that is at the core of Eastern Philosophy.  But the answer was always there, (https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching-laotzu/taoteching-11.htm) as Lao Tzu dictated "The empty space makes it useful."
      I had always interpreted the void or emptiness as the lack of anything, and the inability to contain anything, true nothingness. (Though I just went back and looked at my Chinese copy of Tao Text Ching, and having read again the original and the accompanying commentary I realized that I had previously interpreted the Taoist idea of the "formless" birthing all of form and the 'there are matter within the void’ to be the relationship between our material and physical world and the exterior nothingness. And now I could reconcile it with my faith of the great beyond that is far from empty and runneth over of that which I could carry back and forth between Dreams and the Awakening: that sweet essence accented by a more earthly love that lifts me up far beyond it.) Yet it had always hinted to me throughout my own poetry, from the silence that beckons me to hear more mindfully to the love that is made much more profound in its absence, that the truth unseen really is like Lao Tzu's empty cup that is much more useful than a full one or one without a cavity to begin with.  

     The void, although seemingly contradictory, is possibility and space to contain everything.  

Continuing the cup analogy:
Truth is the space without and within the cup, formless thus unbreakable and eternal, yet endless and endlessly useful, endlessly possible.

The fragile weatherable cup of matter that is our blink of life and being. You wouldn't want one that is all cup and no space, all visible and observable without the cavity and gap.

And our souls are the water.
Yitkbel May 2020
Verse 1:

Love like a summer child

Bask in the sun of your reverie

Hear the bluebirds perking wild  

Place your faith in the serendipity

Gone it may be, the passerby daffodils

But my love just bloomed in the dale

Marigold Marigold

Have you been sent to love me well?

Pre-Chorus:

Love this summer child

Wayward, unkempt and wild

I am the dreamer and the dreamed

Sprung from the last chimes of bluebells

Chorus:

Love free

Love wild

Love is gentle like Lily of the Nile

Love is the summer wine mild

Love is the marigold caressing me

Like you are always

Like you are now

The marigold and the summer child

The marigold and the summer child

The marigold

The summer child

The summer child

Unkempt and wild

Bridge:

Alas the summer will always leave

As leaves fall in the young boy’s dream

To kiss the earth and dust of eternity

And leave only impermanence to me

Verse 2:

Love is always for the beguiled

But never trust your memories

Clever the disguises of bluebells

They were not chimes but knells

Softly the sunflowers gaze fell

And my love withered and paled

Marigold Marigold

Your love is the fool’s gold now

Pre-Chorus:

Grief my summer child

Into the swamp you fell

I was the dreamer and the dreamed

It’s time to wake, wilt, and wither now

Chorus:

Love escapes

Love wilts

Love is the flower morning glory

Love’s in the blue hydrangea dwells

Love in the marigold’s fiery envy melts

Like you were never

But you are now

The marigold and the summer child

The marigold and the summer child

The marigold

The summer child

The summer child

Withers and wilts

CODA:

Summer will always leave

Summer will always leave

Summer will always leave

As summer turns to autumn leaves
Summer Child

Lyrics by: Yitkbel

14:51 October 20, 2019
Yitkbel May 2020
Why must the Eternal Dreamer

Seek to sow his golden purpose

In a fickle poem, for a fickle world

Pleading to be a destined grain of late harvest

And not a seed of sand from the desert of abundance

Lost, like every other, in the wind

Drifting, fading, falling

Till only silence, with the lifeless dune

Remains.
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Yitkbel May 2020
The river of time ages
The river of time sighs
In the same distance of life
There used to be a thousand waves
There used to be a thousand sighs

Now that the river is senile
In its movement through space
In its movement through time
In the same distance of life
There are only a hundred waves
There are only a hundred sighs

For
The river of time ages
As the river of time sighs
And
The river of time sighs
As the river of time dies-

It once lived for our existence
It once lived for our lives
Now we await its death
Now we await its perishing
To repay the debts-

All the plunder of lost love
All the plunder of lost lives
All the plunder of lost souls
All the plunder of lost minds

All the plunder of lost hearts
Recovered, healed, shattered, and repeat
Till only what is truly within remains

Love,
Without pain.
Next page