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Issue_4_FREEK Three Poems - George Freek
 
 
NIGHT ARRIVES (After TU FU)
 
I watch the moon rise.
It rises without thought.
It rises without pain.
And when I’m gone,
it will rise again.
But what is that to me?
Birds no longer sing.
I stare at my unmade bed.
Forty years ago my wife and I wed.
My tears have now been shed.
The clouds open,
as if giving birth to
nothingness. The night
closes in like a fist
with grim finality.
Stars emerge in a black sky,
and light the night
with a merciless irony.
 
 
                                                                                                                                                                                          
THE FASCINATION OF POETRY (After SU TUNG PO)
 
The sparrow builds his nest,
but the wren sleeps in it.
The world’s a nasty place,
even for the human race.
Stars dance as if the universe
was inhabited by elves.
But December winds
nose through the street                                                             
like angry swine,
searching for scraps to eat.
Half drunk, I watch
from my doorway. The moon
goes up like a curtain
on a play. The show
is old and stale. The end
is predetermined.
Yet I’m unable to turn away.
 
 
POEM (After LI PO)
 
The clouds disturb my mind.
I walk in their shadow,
as they absorb the light.
Theirs is a dialogue with the night.
 
The moon appears in solitude.
I know nothing of what it thinks.
It has nothing to say.
It will simply go away.
 
Crows curse the sky.
But nothing replies. I think
my life has been wasted.
But to whom should I apologize?
 
 
 
George Freek is a poet/playwright living in Illinois. His poetry has recently appeared in Hamilton Stone Review, Samizdat Literary Journal, The Lake, The New Plains Review, The Stillwater Review, Literature Today, and The Tower Journal. His plays are published by Havescripts, Inc., Playscripts, Inc., Lazy Bee Scripts (UK), and Off The Wall Plays (UK). gfreek@juno.com
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