Ghost

From Still Life, Three Worlds by Dai Pan (潘岱). Poem 24.

Upon the prairie, here, zebras bend and tear,
Their breast, born from light, common and ordinary.
Fractured skies loom where clouds despair;
Sun pierces moon, ghosts lose their names in diary.

From jagged peaks do giants shattered gaze,
While dwarves below in broken wonder pause;
What fragments drift behind their eyes' maze,
None speaks, as through the void they clutch at straws.

To me, their severed hands reach through the boring life,
In layers tone, vision splits apart, colors stay alive,
Vast oceans where the spectral remnants drift.

Through cracked glass mirrors caught by chance,
There is the star, who claims as a start:
The prairie, sky, or face in disrepair?
Finally, eyes dissolved in darkness' snare, reveal.

Cite as: Dai Pan, "Ghost," Three Worlds, Still Life, poem 24, 2025. https://daipan.ink/still-life/ghost

Still Life 24

Ghost

Upon the prairie, here, // zebras bend and tear,
Their breast, born from light, // common and ordinary.
Fractured skies loom where clouds despair;
Sun pierces moon, ghosts // lose their names in diary.

From jagged peaks do giants shattered gaze,
While dwarves below in broken wonder pause;
What fragments drift behind their eyes' maze,
None speaks, as // through the void they clutch at straws.

To me, their severed hands reach // through the boring life,
In layers tone, vision splits apart, // colors stay alive,
Vast oceans where the spectral remnants drift.

Through cracked glass mirrors caught by chance,
There is the star, who claims // as a start:
The prairie, sky, or face in disrepair?
Finally, eyes dissolved in darkness' snare, // reveal.