i have a world apart

i came across a selection of beautiful poetry by the chinese poet li po. li po loved drinking and was an incredibly imaginative writer. when i think of all the great writers i have read (and whose work i love and admire) i find that drinking and imagination often balance each other out as much as they inform and support each other - for better or for worse. li po is believed to have written (a thousand or more poems) about thirteen hundred years ago.

at the risk of alienating purists, i've taken phrases that resonated with me and placed them side-by-side with contemporary art that i feel opens out the text and then also gets opened out by the text. (the images enlarge when clicked on).

"i have a world apart that is not among men."

daniel merriam

"all the birds have flown up and gone;

a lonely cloud floats leisurely by.

we never tire of looking at each other -"

nicoletta tomas caravia

"the birds have vanished down the sky.

now the last cloud drains away.

we sit together, the mountain and me,

until only the mountain remains."

alexandre rabory

"that shadow there is his lonely sail.

now there's nothing left of it.

all the blue is empty now.

all you can see is that long, long river.

it flows to the edge of the sky."

robert hawkins

"oh, go and ask this river running to the east

if it can travel farther than a friend's love!"

harlan simantel

all words li po