Actual poem

Dear Internet users who may stumble upon this page with various degrees of intent,
Here is an actual poem I put some degree of thought into.

We who play games of dice on ancient squares
Hawks above a carrion world
At wit’s end know all things thus stand;
Who lives many is one round year’s image.

We have played games of doubling back
To follow strings, played them fast and well.
We’ve watched the here and there of mind
Converge and vanish in a voting urn.

Been mirrors of clean bronze to our own world.
Have watched projectors in dark rooms
Followed arts’ chronologies; graves first
Then slow fleshing out of such bones

Till we greet ourselves;
But we know no women.

Response to Palinode Project Post

In the Wineshop of Chinling

The wind scatters the fragrance of the willows over the shop
The sing-song girls pour the rice wine heated for the guests
My friends have gathered to say goodbye
Drinking cup after cup, I wonder why I should start
"Say, can you tell me about the east flowing river---
Does it stretch as long as this feeling of departure?"

-Li Po,
Trans. WCW

In the wine-shop of Philadelphia

Bottled wine made from vines rooted in place:
Nature hath them somewhere, law hath them here.
I who wander but from one man cannot
Wonder whether my nature is a law.

Is it law that hath me drunk from looking
At new cities, festivals of foreign wills
Or law's brief absence and friendship filling air?
There's only a question, and some bottles.

-Me

Vin en bouteille, fait de vignes enracine:
Par nature en un lieu, grace a la loi en celui ci
Moi, qui vogue mais d'un homme ne peut pas m'echapper,
Je me demande si ma nature est loi.

Es-ce la loi qui m'enivre de l'allure
Des villes inconnus, carnavales d'etranges volontes
Ou l'absence momentaire de cette loi, et l'ambience d'amitie?
Il n'y a qu'une question, et des bouteilles.

-Me
Trans. Me