This Cup

Nainai: 
4 lines of 7 words
- had an October birthday
- pouring wine indicates birthday-related feasting akin to our eating cake
- 'flowers atop mountain' symbolizes 'blessing upon blessing'

Celebrating each other's birthdays with my nephew
My nephew's wife has an October birthday.

Seventy years almost eighty from one family
Celebrate pour wine this time of year
Golden anniversary almost here children grandchildren sing
Tenth month another party flowers atop mountain

Gonggong: 
12 lines of 5 words, followed by 2 lines of 3 words, and finally 1 line of 9 words.
- from a new (for us) section in his volume Chapter 2: Southern Provinces about the time of Japanese invasion. He was sent to these Southern Provinces to work, his wife and children stayed in Shanghai. He traveled around these areas. Because of the war, life was difficult. Only when he had some leisure time, he wrote poems to pass the time and entertain himself. He collected fifty poems from this time. (Personal note is that my gonggong had mentioned this fact, that there are fifty poems in each section, in his earlier introduction. I find it funny that he states it again.) 
- "Dragon snake" my mom and I infer is Pros and Cons
- blue sea symbolizes all the changes of life

Pretty Water

The name of a place where I ran into my friend Huang Min, an old classmate from my studies in Tokyo. He similarly worked in finance. I wrote this poem for him and sent it to him. 

Longtime friend three years since
Not changed old appearance looks
Defending justice eyes almost burst
Order some cups of tea
Writing papers heart so suffering*
Detailed discussion how to prosper
Create develop Three Three System 
Profit giving small farm homes
People things written 10,000 thoughts**
Revisions below pen dragon snake
Editing poems to old maids***
Eradicating this not so extreme
Blue sea doings
Tell not fully
Made me feel so sad depressed stop travel car

*Huang Min wrote many books on finance about this area full of poor peasants.
**Many people wrote papers on this area before. Huang Min revised these documents. 
***These people were so poor, they had a custom of renting wives because they could not afford dowry. Indicating how pathetic and horrible their lives were. Huang Min wanted to eradicate this custom.

(Finally got my mom to give me a Basic Poetry Lesson as there are several kinds, even more than this list, which I wrote in pinyin to help me when having Chinespañol--half hour Mandarin, half hour Spanish--chats with my South Seattle friends:
Shi1 - form poem 4 lines or 8 lines, or more of 5 words or 7 words
Ci2 - structured poem, like having a song and replacing lyrics
Ge1 - song
Fu4 - song)