Li Bo Unkempt
This is Li Bo. You may also know him as Li Po 李白 (701–62), the great poet of Tang China, master of swoop and soar, wanderer, man of wine, so enamored of the moon that he tried to embrace her reflection in the river, fell from his boat and drowned. Favorite of the Emperor—but only for a while, as such energies cannot be long contained at Court.
Li Bo Unkempt presents seventy of his verses, a few letters, some rhapsodies and songs. They dance all through Tang high culture, inhabited by planets, hermit women, swashbucklers, grottos, calligraphers and buffoons, Li Bo’s friends, lovers and alter egos. He’s too shy, too quick to make introductions, but this volume allows us to hear the poetry’s stories, their temperaments, to glimpse their secret economies of exchange. The book also offers background material, brief essays, a kind of Lonely Planet™ guidebook to this extraordinary realm. This way the strange will become familiar, and only then can we appreciate how truly strange it is.
The authors and translators regard these poems as magical acts. What is offered, then, in this volume, are multiple ways to realize that magic. The essays are demonstrations, a spell-book, an extension of this non-ordinary knowing. Things too delicate to be said directly. So the book proceeds by analogy, by juxtaposition, latency, innuendo, jump cuts, dialetheia and flirt. All this a way to understand a deeper claim: that Li Bo is an immortal.
And what might that be…?
excerpt from the book
Four poems of wine
Under the moon
Heaven, if you didn’t love wine,
the Wine Stars wouldn’t be in Heaven.
Earth, if you didn’t love wine,
then Earth, you shouldn’t have wine springs.
Since Heaven and Earth love wine, right now,
loving wine doesn’t embarrass Heaven.
Just hearing this, I’m clearer than a sage,
returning to Dao, I’m as murky as a saint.
Since sage and saint are already drinking, right now,
why seek to become immortal?
Three cups and I penetrate Great Dao,
one full dipper and I join with Perfect Spontaneity.
Just get the pleasure that’s in wine,
don’t let on about it to the sober.
Bring on that wine
for Billie Holiday
Hey, man, don’t you see that River rollin’ down from Heaven?
It’s headin’ out to sea, an’ it’s never comin’ back.
Hey, man, don’t you see that mirror in the great hall, grievin’ your white hair?
Black silk threads in the mornin’, snow at night.
In this life to get what you want, you gotta celebrate,
so don’t lift some empty golden goblet to the moon.
For sure we gotta use the stuff we got from God—
just drop a thousand pieces of gold, it’ll all come roarin’ back.
Stew the chicken, kill the goat, but to be merry
you got to drink up all three hundred cups at once.
Hey Jack, hey there Prez,
bring on that wine, don’t you stop, man!
I’ll sing a song with you,
give me your ear, ok?
The best music, the finest food, don’t do the trick,
just vow to be drunk forever an’ never sober up.
All the wise an’ worthy of old times got forgotten,
only the drunks left us their names.
When Queen Sheba feasted with King Solomon,
the wine cost ten-thousand a barrel, an’ everybody frolicked.
So, boss, how can you say you’re short on cash,
you have to spend it dry so I can toast you, man.
Your dappled horse, your fancy furs,
just have the kid take ’em out an’ trade ’em for good wine.
Together, sir, we’ll melt the sorrows of ten-thousand ages.
On a spring day I wake from drinking and state my aspirations
Living in this world is like a big dream—
why labor your life away?
So I’ll be drunk all day,
and topple over, sleeping in the front hall.
Waking up, glancing round the courtyard,
a single bird sings in the flowers.
Were I to ask the season,
the spring wind would speak in soaring orioles.
The breath goes right out of me.
I pour myself another cup of wine.
I sing in floods, I wait for the bright moon.
When the tune ends, I’ll already have forgotten these feelings.
Face-to-face with wine
Immortal Redpine nested in Goldflower Mountain,
Divine Anqi swam in Faerie Sea.
These immortals of old took wing,
and where are they now?
This floating life flows quick as lightning,
transforming suddenly to light.
Heaven and Earth never wither, never fall away,
but our beauty moves off, leaving us behind
Face-to-face with this wine, unwilling to drink,
flush of feeling, whom do I await?