Garden Party: Act 2
Jalal al-Din Rumi
(1207-1273)
Garden Party
Worldwide Poetry Gathering
Matsuo Basho
(1644-1694)



Plato & Socrates


Li Po
(701-762)
Tu Fu
(712-770)


Mount Fuji
by Hokusai (1760-1849)


"When I'm 64"
by Beatles (1967)


James Joyce (1882-1941)
Finnegans Wake (1941)
"Daunty, Gouty and
Shopkeeper" (p. 539)


Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)


John Muir (1838-1914)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)


Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862)
Walden (1854)


Robert Bly (1926-2021)

Socrates ate all the tomatoes
Xanthippe saved for her salad
as Plato finished the potatoes.

Li Po and Tu-Fu had their wine
to toast the invisible ghost
Su Tung-p'o brought to dine.

Hokusai painted Mt. Fuji's top,
Basho's haiku at a silent pond,
the frog jumps in— PLOP!

Will you love me "When I'm 64"
in Sergeant Pepper's Club Band,
Beatles sing in the Apple Store.

Lots of Cherrios and pistachios
for wood-carver Geppetto and
his wooden puppet Pinocchio.

James Joyce's Finnegans Wake:
Daunty, Gouty and Shopkeeper—
lost to Secretariat at Belmont Stakes.

Inside the closet is Oscar Wilde
with his Picture of Dorian Gray
that'll scare the hell of any child.

Wordsworth wandered the hills
with his sister Dorothy counting
ten thousands daffodils.

No need to live in a chateau,
a hut at Walden Pond will do
for Henry David Thoreau.

John Muir asked Emerson to sleep
at Yosemite under the stars—
Whitman brought his herd of sheep.

Entertaining us all night,
guitar-playing Robert Bly,
reading Rumi to our delight.

It's all right now, have more to tell
from this year's Garden Party—
I've not yet rang the bell.

— Peter Y. Chou
     Mountain View, 12-6-2022
Xanthippe
Dousing Socrates


Su Tung-p'o
(1037-1101)
Stories of Not Being
Afraid of Ghosts


Frog Jumps in Pond
Basho's Haiku


Geppetto & Pinocchio


In 1973 Secretariat won
Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths


Picture of Dorian Gray
film's ending (1945)


Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)


"10,000 Daffodils"
by William Wordsworth


Ringing the Bell