I sit alone with my wine,
staring at the stars.
They look very far away.
I’ve reached old age.
I will soon be gone.
The stars are here to stay.
I’ve written six hundred poems.
It’s time to stop. I’ve said
what I can. It’s time
for drinking wine.
I watch the dead leaves
float down the river
to end in the sea. It’s
the same with my poems,
and the same with me.
-after Tu Fu
George Freek, USA
As I stare at the sky,
and the night deepens,
it seems like a hole
the stars fall into.
Trees wave like black
umbrellas. Life moves on.
It’s nearly over before
it’s begun. After
sixty years, that’s all I know.
I have said what I could.
I only seem able
to drink wine and laugh.
And my future
will be just like my past.
-after Lu Yu
George Freek, USA
What can be more deceptive
than this October sun?
It promises new beginnings.
Old men dipping biscuits
in weak tea, smile
to reveal missing teeth,
as they turn from dying leaves,
falling from denuded trees.
They don’t think of what’s to come.
They think only of the sun,
of things not yet done.
But when I laugh at them,
my laugh is hollow.
I, of course, am one of them.
– after Lu Yu
George Freek, USA
The Social Poet 