Tu Fu – “Day’s End”

Oxen and sheep were brought back down
Long ago, and bramble gates closed. Over
Mountains and rivers, far from my old garden,
A windswept moon rises into clear night.

Springs trickle down dark cliffs, and autumn
Dew fills ridgeline grasses. My hair seems
Whiter in lamplight. The flame flickers
Good fortune over and over — and for what?

“Day’s End” by Tu Fu seems very self-explanatory and literal with the exceptions of the concluding line of each stanza. The first stanza describes how the narrator had brought the “oxen and sheep” down from the pastures. He now sees the moon come up over the “mountains and rivers” in the distance. The second stanza clarifies that aside from the end of the day it is also the end of the summer season. The season is fall, and according to the metaphor of life and the seasons, the man, as shown by his white hair which seems whiter in the artificial light used to replace the sunlight (light of life), is nearing the final stretch of life. The line at the end of the first stanza is problematic in that there is no wind in the vacuum of space. Tu Fu may just be saying that the moon seems to be being pushed by the wind. “Good fortune over and over” could possibly mean that the artificial light gives life to the old man even in his and the world’s declining state (lack of sun and fall season). The old man realizes that he is growing older and may be wondering why the light is giving him false fortune and hope when he should be in a state of decline.

Charles Bukowski – “Metamorphosis”

a girlfriend came in
built me a bed
scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor
scrubbed the walls
vacuumed
cleaned the toilet
the bathtub
scrubbed the bathroom floor
and cut my toenails and
my hair.
then
all on the same day
the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet
and the toilet
and the gas man fixed the heater
and the phone man fixed the phone.
noe I sit in all this perfection.
it is quiet.
I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.
I felt better when everything was in
disorder.
it will take me some months to get back to normal:
I can’t even find a roach to commune with.
I have lost my rythm.
I can’t sleep.
I can’t eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.

The first things that caught my attention after reading “Metamorphosis” were the words “noe” and “rythm.” I determined that “noe” was not a typo of “now” because every reproduction of the poem has this spelling. The name Noe means peaceful, so I chose to interpret this part as “peaceful I sit in all this perfection.” This interpretation is ironic in that it brings up an opposition to the narrator saying that he does not like the cleanliness and perfection. Peaceful is also a binary opposition to chaos so the opposition is what he is actually feeling. This opposition along with the fact that the narrator was “robbed of my filth” instead of given cleanliness represents his adoration of disorder. This part reminds me of a quote by M.C. Escher that “We adore chaos because we love to produce order.” Following what this quotation says, the narrator should actually like the process of making order but not necessarily the result, which is how it turns out. He would rather live in filth because it is familiar and welcoming.

My next concern with this poem is the word “rythm.” Unless it was the custom at the time Bukowski wrote this poem to spell “rythm” without the first “h,” I wonder why he omitted the first “h.” My only possible explanation is that he wants the reader to correct him. The only word which is capitalized throughout the whole poem is “I.” Whenever I see a word which should be capitalized and is not, I want to capitalize it. This happens at the beginning of every sentence which does not start with “I” in this poem. I think Bukowski purposely leaves words without capital letters and misspells words to force the reader to create order. Once we make order, we may be artificially happy but deep down we realize that it was left filthy and disorganized for a reason.

Similarly to the way Bukowski makes the narrator go through a change from filthy to clean and wanting to go back to filthy, M.C. Escher constructs similar transformations and cycles in his artwork.

M.C. Escher's Reptiles