Kato Gyodai

***

In the dawn

whales roaring;

a frosty sea.

***

Steve Abel - Gone

Ikkyu Sojun

***

No beginning,

No end.

Our mind

is born and dies:

The emptiness of emptiness!


Steve Abel - Cinders of the Sun

Ikkyu Sojun

***

If at the end of our journey

There is no final

Resting place,

Then we need not fear

Losing our Way.

***

Cibelle - Green Grass (Tom Waits cover)

Kuroyanagi Shoha

***

To wake, alive, in this world,

what happiness!

Winter rain.

***

Corinne West & Kelly Joe Phelps - Horseback In My Dreams

Choko

***

This final scene

I'll not see to the end...

my dream is fraying

***
Farriers - Coastlines

Kyoshi Takahama

***
He says a word,

and I say a word - autumn

is deepening.

***

Gwyneth Keen -- Motherland (orig. Natalie Merchant)

Sekitei Hara

***

Autumn wind.

Two plates,

Their designs differ.

***

Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion - Never Far From My Heart

Kyoshi Takahama

***

I caught a petal fallen from cherry tree in my hand.

Opening the fist

I find nothing there.

***

Audie Darling - Little Bird

Matsuo Basho

***

What luck!

The southern valley

Make snow fragrant.

***

Doug Peters - Samhain Song

Yosa Buson

***

Not quite dark yet

above the withered fields.

and the stars shining

***

Breathe Owl Breathe - Own Stunts

Matsuo Basho

***

Another year is gone;

and I still wear

straw hat and straw sandal.

***

Part Timer - Unfound (feat. Heidi Elva and Aaron Martin)

Sami Mansei

***

Living in this world -

to what shall I compare it?

Its like a boat

rowing out at break of day,

leaving no trace behind.

***

Sparklehorse and Radiohead - Wish You Were Here

Monk Sogi

***

That man's life is but a dream -

is what we now come to know.


Its house abandoned,

the garden has become home

to butterflies.

***

Green Man Music - Pact

Ono no Komachi

***

Though I go to you

ceaselessly along dream paths,

the sum of those trysts

is less than a single glimpse

granted in the waking world.

***

Jo Mango - The Black Sun

Shiki

***

cockscomb flowers

fourteen, no maybe fifteen

blooming over there 

***

Libbie Linton - I Am A Stone

Ki no Tsurayuki

Crimson

***

Crimson

Waves weeping

Tears on

My sleeves alone

Is the colour stronger.

***

Jennifer Kimball - Motherless Child

Saigyo

***

In a mountain village

at autumn’s end—

that’s where you learn

what sadness means

in the blast of the wintry wind

***.
Tristram -- Rhyme or Reason

Shiki

***

So enviable . . .

maple-leaves

most glorious

Contemplating death

***

Tristram - Someone Told Me A Poem

Shiki

***

After killing

a spider, how lonely I feel

in the cold of night!

***

The Mariner's Children - Coal

Shiki

***

While I turned my head

that traveler

I'd just passed . . .

Melted into mist

***

Dana and Susan Robinson - The Cuckoo

Matsuo Bashō

***

This dark autumn

old age settles down on me

like heavy clouds or birds

***

Dana and Susan Robinson - Zephyr Wind

Taneda Santoka

***

sake slopping over

on our knees

wish we were together

***

Anthony Reynolds with Vashti Bunyan & Charlotte Greig - Like The Sun Feeds From The Flowers

Taneda Santoka

***

somehow

the sound of swallowing sake

seems very lonely

****

The Mariner's Children - Golden Pine

Yosa Buson


Elegy to the Old Man Hokuju

***

You left in the morning, at evening my heart is in a

thousand pieces.

Why is it so far away?

Thinking of you, I go up on the hill and wander.

Around the hill, why is it such a sadness?

Dandelions yellow and shepherds-purse blooming white --

not anyone to look at them.

I hear a pheasant, calling and calling fervently.

Once a friend was there across the river, living.

Ghostly smoke rises and fades away with a west wind

strong in fields of small bamboo grasses and reedy fields.

Nowhere to leave for.

Once a friend was there across the river, living, but today

not even a bird sings a song.

You left in the morning, at evening my heart is in a

thousand pieces.

Why is it so far away?

In my grass hut by the Amida image I light no candle,

offer no flowers, and only sit here alone.

This evening, how invaluable it is.

Priest Buson

with a thousand bowings 

***

Cowboy Junkies - We Hovered With Short Wings (orig. Vic Chesnutt)