George Freek

The Blue Garden (After Liu Yong)

I stare over empty flowerpots
at my decaying garden.
The roses are dead.
Hibiscus no longer blooms.
I don’t get out of bed.
The day drags into night.
Stars flicker and fade.
They’re distant dreams,
and the moon is
not what it seems.
Who can understand
what it means? My life
has gone astray.
I lost my sense of place.
I’m now fifty-eight.
I know nothing.
And it’s getting awfully late.

Thinking Doesn’t Make It So (After Su Tung Po)

A black moon rises
in a blackening sky.
Overhead, a hawk circles.
I hear a night bird cry.
It’s frightening,
but everything must die.
I fall into my bed,
but I’m unable to sleep.
I walk into my garden.
The stars glisten
like a widow’s tears.
They don’t cheer me.
They’ve been dead
for millions of years.
I think of the girl
I loved years ago.
Is she living or dead?
It’s foolish to wonder
I don’t want to know.

 

George Freek is a poet/ playwright living in Illinois. His poems have recently appeared in The Stockholm Review of Literature, A New Ulster, Dreich, Miller's Pond and The Gentian Journal.