2014
Seascape
So heavy has the night
grown
The horizon sags deep,
deeper
Into the heart of the
ocean, where
A new sun is slowly
reacting, rising
As if to push up the entire
world back
High above the morning
Quit It Tonight, Jesus
Come on, jesus
I know you are always busy
Writing your program for
All the lives in the
universe
Admit it that you
Simply hate
This code monkey
Business of yours; why
Not quit it tonight, but
Let each fate write its own
Why not come out of your little
castle
Walled with biblical pages?
Bored as you are, jesus
Why not just quit it
tonight?
American Free Speech: ‘Kill
Everyone in China’
During ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!
aired on 29 October 2013, a 6-year-old boy
proposed to ‘kill everyone in China’; in reply to the wide protest
against such verbal violence, the White House recently declared: “the principle of protected free speech is an important
part of who we are as a nation."
Apparently, it is not the
tiny guy
But his big parents
Who would very much like
To kill everyone in China
No, it is not even his
parents
But his teachers, the
picture
Books he reads, the movies
he watches
The computer games he
plays, and
The media bombs he hears
constantly
That encourages him to do
so
On the other hand, it is
not the yellow-skinned
Yellow-hearted Chinese
really
But anyone that has a hue
different from a wasp
That may turn out more
civilized, less hypocritical
Or as innocent as the
little angel sitting at the ABC’s
Round Table that Uncle Sam
and his dogs of war
Aim to kill, destroy, wipe
out from the earth
Just to get rid of any
debts they owe
To you and me
Evening Walk
Each time I take a stroll
after supper
I am haunted by the idea
why night falls down
Far thicker and faster
On my neighborhood than
elsewhere
In particular, I often see
the fanciest house trembling
Like a tortured monster, as
darkness shot
Out of its chimney,
greenish blood gushing out
From its pipes, giant
shapes charging
Towards the windows like
bloated moths, smelling
Of fresh human corpses,
myriads of muted voices
Screaming so hard as to
thrust open the entire roof
Every time I would keep
myself farther away from the
Residence, in case it might
drag me into the black fire
That backfires from inside.
The house belongs to
A new governor, just elected, a passer-by once told me
House Renovating
Our neighbor actually has a
much newer house
But they have never stopped
renovating it
For the past four years;
always so noisy
Even in the depth of dead
night.
More strangely, they hire
no one
But do everything by
themselves
Their materials looking
extra-ordinary, for
They are made of human
flesh and hair
Their paint smelling of
human blood
Their exterior walls dotted
with bloated eyes
Of human infants. No one
knows
What kind of house they are
trying to have
Chip
It all began with this chip
A chip broken off a
digitalized bone
See? This brown stuff
clustered
Around its rim is not rust
Nor is it thick human blood
Newly dried up; rather
It is red spirits, so
condensed
They need a longer time
To shake themselves off
And fly into the air, not
unlike
All the evils and devils
Locked inside the Pandora’s
Box
Looking forward to Snow
Like the notes of light
music
Sending from the other
world
More like the spirits
dancing
In a universal mime
Most like myriads of fairs
trying
To smooth every sharp angle
To fill in every crack or
crevice
To paint every surface into
soft white
With their tender fluffy
fingers, snow
Is expected to arrive, as I
am waiting
Through the prolonged piety
Of the church within my
mind, through
The solitary silence of my
soul
To come and perch on my
heart, as it is
Becoming a dying crow
Lost in the season
Within Our Coordinate
You are the x axis
I am the y axis
While everything else
Everyone else, including
Every world of dichotomies,
is nothing
Nobody, but a plot
Or a dot
Between us
Metasequonia King
Neither the oldest
Nor the tallest
Not even the thickest
But the only survivor of a
whole lost civilization
You have been standing for
centuries in my home province
Against all storms and
seasons
Among scattered cottages
with straw-thatched roofs
Walled with corn-stems,
deep in an unknown valley
You were discovered as a
living fossil the other day
And ever since then, a park
has been expanded
Into a national reserve,
where worshippers keep
Coming to pay their homage,
where your offspring
Begin their long march into
every city
Of the new world, where you
are growing
Strong and straight,
shading the main streets and
Back lanes, as if to remind
all foreigners of
Real dinosaurs and real ice
ages
Not unlike me, or my fellow
diasporas
A Modest Proposal
Now that we have had plenty
of NGOs
To protect Great Bamboo
Lemurs, China
White dolphins,
Ivory-billed Woodpeckers
Black Rhinos, Wildlife
Ginseng, Bois Denelle
Bobob Tree, Venus Fly Trap,
the Cycad
How about starting to think
about the ways of
Protecting or preserving
some gentlemen
And gentlewomen? Shall we
at least
Try first to collect their
spirits?
Calling
Like the little guy
screaming to his own death
On the collapsing bridge in
Edmund’s painting
My other self is constantly
calling
At the very top of its
voice from the deepest
Valley of my
sub-consciousness, from
The most remote corner of
my inner world
From the darkest spot of my
dream
Although its calls are
muted, they travel afar
Echoing even beyond a whole
continent
Like the calls of a blue
whale, whose salty voice
Has such a high pitch that
no human ears
Can hear them here and now
Big Rock Mouth
Far from Zhangjiajie, the
UNESCO-designated nature park
In China; farther from the
Louise Lake in Banff
The tourist hotspot in
Canada; yet close to the little town
Where I was born, and even
closer to
The paradise on earth, your
are actually an unknown corner
Falling off from Eden, rather
than a natural reservoir
Hidden in a remote valley,
where hills are more
Like green elephants, where
the water is sweeter
Than Coke Cola, with each
tree more outstanding
More graceful than a
fashion model walking around the Eiffel Tower
With each rock more
artistic than a masterpiece of
Beethoven or Picasso. Even
though no tourist has ever passed by
You feel neither lonely nor
upset: is it because you find yourself
Fully fulfilled among the
words arrayed in his poetry?
At the Estuary
As if the whole continent
is having a diarrhea
Trying to excrete all the
filth from within its body
This flattened asshole
throws out huge volumes of
Animal tears and sweat,
riding on swift currents
Of human blood, run off
from both banks; surging
On the surface are endless
waves of monstrous concepts
And constructs, followed by
rafts of skulls and skeletons
Every grain of sand
containing a stained soul; there are
No fishes swimming by,
except rotten human corpses
Eyes swollen like dead
octopuses, ebbs turning and
Swirling around to suck in
every cry from above the dark sky
As the most newly-invented
gods try to jump out of the flow
From time to time, as if to
call for help before entering the ocean
Family
Secrets (1): Best Poetry
Boil these few poems of
mine, Son
And you will be able to see
And even smell my spirit as
it
Evaporates above our family
name
Take a sip once in a while,
and you
You will never run short of
inspirations
Whenever you take up your
pen
Spontaneous Meditation
On a rainy night, you will
find
Yourself much sleepier
Than you seemingly remain
awake
That’s when you are safer
from
Wild beasts that may come
out
To disturb you; when less
light
And less oxygen make you
feel
More relaxed; when the
white noise
Fills in every blank of
your consciousness
More important, when you
become truer
Or closer to your entire
inner being
Stars and Humans
Each moving along its own
orbit
Stars never collide, no
matter
How crowded they are
In a corner of the
universe, but here
On earth we humans
Constantly run into each
other
Not only because we are
attracted
And live close, but also
because
We travel along the same
few paths
To gold, to fame, to sex,
or to office
The Gardener
Like a bee, he is always
busy
Attending the parties of
flowers
But he never really stops
to
Collect a single rose
Or dwell upon a tiny petal
Even when the whole season
Is in full blossom
The Hostess
She is not the hostess, but
she never
Fails to warmly greet
anyone that has just passed
Away: you are on the air
Grammatical Rules (1)
All proper nouns, like the
first
Person pronoun singular,
like
Your name, must be
capitalized
And can never be used in
the plural
Unless you turn out nothing
but
A common countable nominal
being
Grammatical Rules (2)
A pronoun must have a
Antecedent, with which it
Should agree in person, in
sex
In number, just like a
Married couple, a father
And son, a human and his
soul
Another Rainy Day,
Granville Street
Water splashing against
walls
And windows with each car
Passing by, colored umbrellas
moving
Above unidentifiable human
legs
Red light blinking towards
the storm and
White noise, every cherry
tree skeleton
Trying hard to find a
shelter, a long-necked man
Hopping around with
yesterday’s
Vancouver Sun on top off his bald head
An oversized truck full of
Thick cement pipes making a
large turn
As a bus is waiting for
strangers
To get off or on, all in
wet cartharsis
Which Is the Mirror for
Which
The word ‘mirror’ is a
mirror for the mirror
Just as a cave is a mirror
for bats, the painting
A mirror for colors, shapes
and lines, the cloud
A mirror for the sky or
heaven, the bark
A mirror for the wind, the
lake a mirror
For the mountain, the call
a mirror
For the cuckoo, and the
screen
A mirror for the human mind
When the thought is smashed
into cutting pieces
There will be more mirrors
for facts, for history
Have a Nice Dream
Sleep well and have a nice
dream, Son!
Take your time, Clock, and
have a nice dream!
Water the world well, Rain,
and have a nice dream!
Try not to snore, Oak, and
have a nice dream!
Stop your white calls,
Crow, and have a nice dream!
Have a nice dream, Osler
Street!
Have a nice dream, Night!
Have a nice dream, Jesus!
Call it a day, my
Otherself, and have a nice dream!
Four Frogs
For the past half century,
I have never seen
A single frog in this city,
not even in the whole country
But there are four
big-mouthed frogs leaping around
Afar in a ricefield of my
native village, four frogs
Squatting under the rotten
bridge on the way leading
To an unknown town, four
frogs playing on a big
Lotus leaf in my heart,
four frogs calling constantly
From the dark pages of
history invisible at midnight
Four frogs meditating under
a puti tree transplanted
In a nature park, four
frogs swimming into a fish net
Like bloated tadpoles, the
same four frogs whose
Monotoned songs resonating
aloud in different tongues
With different pitches,
yes, the four frogs still there
Another Afterlife
Like a goat fleeing from
the zoo
My trueself wandered afar
Into the heart of darkness,
where
I saw Milton’s Satan
struggling
With agonies, while swarms
of spirits
Trembling amid a black fire
Following Dante’s steps, I
tried to
Find Yuan Wang, the supreme
ruler
Of the underworld, hoping
to
Exchange my soul
For his little brushpen
(he uses to keep his
registry book
Much like Dr. Faust selling
his
For worldly knowledge
My majesty, I began to negotiate
But there is no registry here
The king said, just suffering subjects.
Meanwhile, others are also
trying to
Greet him in an endless queue
Here I find no classes
No sexes, no age or racial
differences
Except human souls drifting
into
A huge alchemic furnace,
where
They are boiled with
conceptions
Until we all evaporate
above the ground
Like mists, on a sunny
summer morning
This is neither escape nor
astray
Word Journey
While hiking in the wild
I found a foreign word
Lying on the yin side
Of a slope as night began
To fall, I picked it up
Trying to use it to light
My way ahead, but the word
Did not burn, nor did it
give
Any smell. Then I chewed it
Like a condensed energy
candy
But it was tasteless and
too hard
So I put it against my
chest
And let it resonate with my
heartbeat
When a fresh sun hops aloud
High above my darkened
dream
I finally coughed it out
with blood
Never knowing it
To be a noun or verb
The Worst Fear
There is a kind of fear,
much
More worse than feeling
itself
Also, it is so subtle that
you
Can hardly distinguish it
from
What you must have felt
each
Time you are hard pressed
with
Loss, ageing, danger, death
Becoming overwhelmed with
Worry or anxiety
This fear has a nickname
Called love
Or
Philosophy, among myriads of
Constructs in metaphysics
Objects in nature, or
Phenomena in history
Is, according to old Hegel
Like the god in the temple
Like the killing field
Like flowers and fruit
Like Minerva’s owl
Like digestion
Like physiography, the same one motto, or
Like the animals listening to music, which may
Become real when expressing
itself
Or expressed through the
rational alone
More exactly, like a drop
of summer rain
The yin seeking balance
with the yang
Within a pumpkin, the words
squeezed
Out of your ball pen, the
emptiness in
A meditating mind, and that
is all
There is, or there is not
to it
Helleh
While all my fellow humans
hope to
Enter heaven after they
die, I am alone
Living in paradise already:
An earthly realm I have
built myself
With the light from
Lapland, where the setting sun
Shines with the morning
glows above golden snow
The air from Shangri-la,
where the yin
And yang are in pure and
perfect balance with
Each other in every grass,
every cloud
The water from Waterton
Lakes, which
Reflect the mountain of
trees as clearly
As the mountain reflects
upon the clear water
That’s all my spirit needs,
not the fragments
Of the meaning about Eden
long lost
But the whole backyard
within my solitary heart
Greatest Gift
The most generous gift life
has offered each
Of us is our own mind,
something that is
Not a hidden mine, but an
open field
Where you can grow rice,
tea, corn, or bananas
Where they can cultivate
hope and even magic
Itself, most important, we
can enjoy absolute
Freedom, with which to
destroy or build anything
Anyone, anytime to our
hearts’ content
Examples of Euphemism
Shoot!
Americanization!
Gosh!
Donkey!
My Goodness!
Uncle Sam!
OMG!
USA!
Jeez!
The Elephants!
Darnit!
Foot!
The ‘F’ word!
The ‘A’ Letter!
GD!
What These Words Have in
Common?
Among all the nouns in all
languages, this word has the most synonyms,
which include agent, auctioneer, banker, bargainer, bootlegger, broker,
bursar, businessperson, canvasser, chandler, changer, chapjack, clerk,
concessionaire, consigner, costermonger, dealer, discounter, dispernser,
distributor, entrepreneur, e-tailer, exporter, fencer, gyp, haberdasher,
haggler, handler, hawker, higler,
huckster, hustler, jobber, merchandiser, merchant, marketer, monger, outcrier, palterer, peddler, pitcher,
pusher, rep, reseller, retailer, salesclerk, salesperson, , scalper, seller,
shopgirl, shopkeeper, smuggler, solicitor, tinker, trader, trafficker, tycoon,
vendor, wholesaler…
What else to spell or sell?
Village Fair
In this open market
There are as many
Tangible or intangible
As human or inhuman
Goods for sale for all of
us
To bargain round the clock:
Hopes, dignity, countries
Identities, square pumpkins
Soft rocks, virginity
Names, blood, perms, wounds
3-legged goats, siamese
frogs
Burned blood, isolated
ideas
Sex, feeling, manhood
Among other words, other
imaginings
How much is this
How much are you?
Convergence
His presence is falling
upon me
More forcefully than a
summer shower
Downpouring right from
heaven. Everywhere
My mind wanders around will
hung
A rainbow high above my
absence
It is this wet metaphor
that has balanced
All the yang elements in my
heart with the yin
Ones outside my bloated
selfhood
Music
Ancient Indian legend has
it
That the origin of music
Was an om, supposedly the very
First and the most
primitive note
(Whose frequency can cause
resonance
If you adapt yours to it)
Although most educated people
would say today
It is the big bang
That has been pushing its
sound waves
Farther and farther
Beyond the boundaries of
the universe
A fundamental feature
That can offer penetrating
pleasure to any human
Ears anywhere anytime
Is the silence, a blank absence
Where the yin and yang
reach
A higher balance within
A meditating mind
A sound of silence
A note whose frequency
resonates with your inner being
Hawking
Some sell themselves for
power
Some for sex
While others for fame, for
money
Yes, we are all hawkers
trying to sell
Whatever we have, or have
not
Before the sun sets
In a village fair, where
vendors
Far more outnumber buyers
Motifs: the Proto Bagua
Poem
qian
Far from the southern sky
comes along my later
Father, whose head turns
towards the Northwest
And on a robust horse, his
brain shines like gold
dui
Beyond the West Lake a young girl
Tries to drive a herb of
sheep into a metal
Mouth sucking in all the
painful pleasures
li
an oriental woman of beauty
rises
slowly above the southern fire
her eyes burning with wild
sparks
zhen
high above the eastern wood the yellowish dragon
kicks all the thunders around with its sharp craws
while his son moves back
and forth following his own heart
xun
as the wind keeps blowing
through the southeastern wood
your daughter feels lost at
the entrance like a hen eager to
leave for something beyond the fence and front yard
kan
both above and below the house overflows the water
while a man in the middle
finds himself trapped like a wild hog
whose ears would hear nothing from the west or north
gen
a young boy uses his strong
hands to move the dark earth
from the nearest ground
to the northeastern corner
where to build a big hill
to block his beloved dog
kun
everything will go smooth as long as our mother is
still busy cooking at home and cows feeding them
selves happily on the grass land stretching to south
Exit
Not to overstate this
But for hundreds of times
I have imagined myself
Leaving for an African
Forest like a dying
elephant
So that I can bury myself
there
In total obscurity and
oblivion
As if I had never come to
this
World. Yes, I am really
haunted
By this suicidal whim
Not because I am tired of
Suffering from this
unbearable
Loneliness, anxiety
That makes me a living dead
But because I long
For that ultimate dignity
Godly Joy
Sometimes I just wanna
retreat
From my position in life,
like a soldier
From his in a battlefield.
No, not exactly
That would sound like a
deserter; rather
I wanna hide myself within
the boundary
Of my yellowish skin;
better to withdraw
Into the deepest corner in
my heart, where I
Don’t have to care whether
to sit or stand
Where to look at or put my
hands
What to smell, say or hear,
a womb-like place
Where I can focus all my
attention on my
Inner being, and let my
outer self deal with
All the troubles of life,
like bills, food, tea
Telephone rings, junk
emails, mortgages, etc.
In a word, I wanna find a
war-free zone
Where my innerself is
absolutely free
Without having to return to
the cage
Like the pigeon I really
wanna keep
Hypergrammatical Rules:
Adjective
Either as a complement
After a linking verb
Or as a modifier right
Before a nominal property
You are a part of speech
That can never be a subject
Even an object on your own
Like most humans who live
Only to describe others
Fuck the Guard Dog
But beware of the frog
Fuck the Shakespearean
sonnet
But beware of the poetry
scribbler
Fuck the inner party
But beware of the
politician
Fuck the mid-summer sky
But beware of the west wind
Fuck the red red rose
But beware of the thorny
stem
Fuck the trendy concept
But beware of the coinage
What I wanna say is
Feel free to fuck, pal
But beware of the hug
Wealth Accumulating
Ending her 3-session
lecture
On how to plan your fiancé
And finance your plan, the
advisor
Says, ‘Attitude’ is all
That determines success:
Because in this magic word
‘a’ is letter 1 in the
alphabet
‘t’ 20,’i’ 9, ‘u’ 21, ‘d’4
and ‘e’ 5
In other words, ‘atti’
accounts for half
And ‘tude’ for the other
Together they add up to 100
per cent
Now begin to count, you poor idiot!
Balancing Up
Beyond the bay
You are the presence
Of water
Though that is never the geography
Once you move
You become what is flowing
Wherever you stay
You join the current
(Without overflowing with it)
To dissolve into a transparent moment
At which your spirit is to reflect
While none of us has the cause
For staying here
You stay
To balance things up
Rain, in Vancouver
Out of days of days
And weeks of weeks of
Rain,rain that hit every roof
That cleansed the air
That wetted all masks and clothes
That flooded the widest gaps
That ran off from the narrowest sidewalk
Have you deconstructed your dried inner being
Until another, just another rainy season
Loneliness
All feelings are sharable, somehow
Except loneliness
Loneliness that drives you into the very depth
Knowingly
Like a caterpillar retreating, hiding itself
In its own cocoon
Where it keeps gnawing at the wall
Until it
flies out, like a butterfly
Seeing Shapes
Something was flapping, afar
(Was it a butterfly from the Amazon?)
Beyond the mountain shadow
While many futuristic figures
Perhaps the aliens
Are migrating secretly
Perhaps we shall have to too?
Nullius in Verba: the Progress of Science
To see
Each
phenomenon
In shape
Line
and
Color
Is
To believe
Its very
essence
In number
Quantity
and
Relationship
Zheng He vs Columbus
When the Ming eunuch set out to sea
With his 30 thousand men in huge boats
He was going to look for nothing, not even
For his emperor, be it fur, spices or even gold
On the contrary, he was ready to give fine china
Tea, silk to any barbarians they could see
In Southeast Asia, Middle East, or North Africa
More than a century later, Columbus began his venture
With a couple of hundred sailors, aiming to discover
Every kind of treasure, who might very well
Have all died without the help of local Indians
PS: soon after their voyages, the Chinese were conquered
By barbarians, while the Europeans founded their global
empire
Autumn Dew Purple
One of the famous six combat
horses favoured by Tang China’s great founding emperor Taizong, Autumn Dew
Purple is the only surviving stone relief of the six set.
While still alive, you were determined to die a heroic death
On the battlefield, like one of Taizong’s most valiant
And capable generals; more than a thousand years later
Long since your demise, your beauty and spirit have
helped
Your stone relief survive all human wars and natural
disasters
Now standing still in Penn Museum, you are never to
Evaporate in the light of a manmade sun, but your noble
Blood has dried up into a solid purple, far away from
your
Home, where you were born to guard your rider, amid
autumn dews
UN
At the security council in Heaven
Christ is 99% of a mummy
Newton has long since dozed off
Laozu is to abstain from voting
While Satan and Allah are fighting fiercely
To chair the meeting
Newton’s Third Law
Just as there is an equal
And opposite reaction
For every action, you are to
Receive whatever you give
Be it a curse or verse
How much does it contribute to happiness/success?
Knowledge: 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5=96%
Work hard: 98%
Luck: 47%
Love: 54%
Money: 72%
Leadership: 89%
Wealth: 69%
House: 49%
Power: 98%
Attitude: 100%
That is, if letter ‘a’ accounts for 1, ‘b’ for 2…
---------------
Time
Is definitely not
An indefinitely big orange
But we have cut it
Into regular slices of carpels
So thin and so tiny
We can no longer get the taste of
Its shiny flesh, nor can we
See its juicy color while
Eating it
Now we have even forgotten it both looks
And tastes like sunlight
At the Numidic Quarry
An open museum
Embedded here once upon a long time ago
How was the all powerful Roman Empire
Chiseled out of this side of the mountain
Chip by chip
Piece by piece
Until it became so re-crystalized
As a whole civilization?
Pursuing Happiness: Episode 1
Happiness
Is a sunbird
Incubated at the tallest twig
Of your heart, where only the creature itself
Can peck open the eggshell to fly out; if you
Crack it open from the outside
It will die before it is born
Knot Theory
Your attachment to your past is
A big fast knot, while your connections
With all in your network
Nothing but a string
Of loose hitches
Cut the knot, and you will
Get broken bits, but untie the hitches
You will have a whole line
As simple as straight
As you like
Homemade Specialty
This bottle of wine is brew
out of sunshine
That dish of vegetable comes
from the garden
in my heart
How do you like it?
The Art of Origami
Each time I run short of inspirations
I would try to fold the dull season
Not into a decoration
But into a bird
I always hang it high
Above my head
Like my own spirit, where I
Can hear the droning complaints of
Each creature over its pain
The pity is, my senses are often too soft
To hold the shape firm
Self-Portraying: A
Word Is
Actually Worth Much More
Than Ten Thousand Pictures
Although Many People Would
Allege the Opposite Is True
In-lightened
Intimacy: in the Name of Art
Once upon a long long time ago
At a drab karaoke corner in the far far east
Half-heartedly, without knowing this was
Actually a prearrangement made by
His old mischievous schoolmates
He climbed upon a colt-like girl
From his small native town
Squeezing several drops of yellow syrup
Into a tiny plastic bag embedded
Between her thick legs, like a primitive robot
Fulfilling a domestic task; there was
Neither foreplay, nor after-joy,
No orgasm, no dirty talk, no eye contact
No exchange of names, feelings, experiences
Except a big-solidarity, as red-faced
As the muted memory of his red pasts
When they departed in a dull evening
Did he eventually write a poem about this experience
As he had hoped?
Modern Civilization
1
0
Time Changing
I have neither cash
nor even a bank account
Let alone a safebox,
But I do have
This password
For all my websites
Psycho-Astrology: Mind-Looks
At the center of my inner space
There is a big black hole
It keeps sucking in all
The dark matter
Besides light
Like a transparent magnet
Attracting not only luck
And smiles, but also
Every kind of misfortune
Every kind of evil spirit
That’s how I look
What my heart is
Would Or Wouldn’t: the Variations of the Wing
If every human had a pair of wings
(Made of strong mussels and broad feathers
Rather than wax like Icarus’)
Who wouldn’t jump high or become eager to fly
Either towards the setting sun
Or against the rising wind?
Who wouldn’t migrate afar with sunshine
And glide most straight to a warmer spot
In the open space? Indeed
Who would continue to confine himself
Within the thick walls of a small rented room?
Who would willingly take a detour
Bump into a stranger, or stumble down
Along the way? More important
Who would remain fixed here
At the same corner all her life
Like a rotten stump, hopeless
Of a new green growth?
Limbo Residence
The whole street stretches
towards the sunlight
While my windows, only my windows
Are all heavily curtained
behind darkness
------------
2014,6,4
Ceteris Parisbus
Allah
Buddha and
Christ will join each other to stand for a new
Alphabet
Beginning with
Change
Inner Dersertization
Along the border of my yellowish skin
I have planted rows of rows of huyang trees
To guard against the Goby engulfing
My entire inner territory, where
The last oasis is threatened not only
By the deforestsration in the outer world
But also by the drought that has been
Blowing away almost all of the topsoil
Covering my living spirit
Truth
Is as cold as hard
As a big chunk of floating ice
That each human eye can see
Only one surface
At a time from
Either the boat or the bank
While it flows towards the sea, where
It will evaporate up to the tropical sky
Kharma: A Mega Romance
It has taken the entire human history
For her and him
To meet
To be together, and
Sure, they will spend
All their futures alone
On an earth
Newly broken off
From this planet
Two Worlds
With only one sun
Moving around your world
You have to dream
In total darkness
Half of the time
And deal with
All kinds of shadows
During the day
Given as many as nine suns
That keep turning
Around my inner universe
My soul dwells in a realm
Full of light
Self-Insight
First, take off all your clothing
Then, skin off your masks
As well as your tattoos
Bit by bit, or
Layer by layer
Until you can tear your whole selfhood off
From your consciousness, and you will
See your true spirit
As fresh as tender
As a spring sprout
Ready to grow
Into a new onion
Tenancy Paradox
In this rented life of yours
Why to own a house by mortgaging it
Against your free will?
Carnivores: the Progress of the Humankind
While all the beasts in the wild
Enjoy both rotten and fresh corpses
We the rest in walled rooms eat
The fresh or frozen body parts only
Short vs Long: a Dichotomic Poem
Short is my attention span, even
Shorter is breath, and the very
Shortest is my inspiration, but long
Long will be my life
In this short line
Thin vs Thick: Another Dichotomic Poem
This cup of tea
Made out of my life
Looks as thick as my blood
Or your hair
His hope
Even that forest
But it tastes
As thin as the human fate
Light vs Heavy: Another Dichotomic Poem
They all say light is the lightest of all
But I find it tremendously heavy
Heavy with each proton full of
Weighted souls
Paper Plane: for Yuan Hongqi
I can never afford a spaceship
Nor do I even have a toy rocket
But I have many a sheet of paper
I have folded it, kept folding each
Into a plane, and launching it
From my humble homesite
One after another
High into the night sky
To fly close, closer, and the closest
To where his Buddhahood is sitting
Above a lotus flower, where his smile
Shines like the sunlight upon his sons
And grandsons down here, where he will catch
A plane gliding to him like a blue bird
Can you see its wings
drafted with the poems
I have written for you,
Dad
Saying Yes
Yeah! Ya! Yup! Yebo!
Okay! Sure! Excellent!
No problem! That’s it!
Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!
Yes! Aye! Uh-huh!
Certainly! Of cuz!
That’s more like it!
Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!
All right! Great!
Absolutely! You can say that again!
Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!
All’s right with the world!
2014, 6, 24
Cock-A-Doodle-Doo
Born in a year of the rooster
You were fated to crow
But not so high in the sky
Like any other bird flying fast by
Rather, you perch low
Low on a broken fence
(Still reserved for ghosts and spirits)
Crowing as aloud as you can
To welcome every sun
Looming above the dawn
Yes, you are vociferous, both because of
Your breed, and your personality
Soundscaping
Buzz! Baa! Bark! Bray! Bow-wow!
Chirp! Cluck! Coo! Croak!
Growl!
Hiss! Howl!
Moo! Meow!
Oink!
Purr!
Quack!
Rattle! Roar!
Slurp! Sniff! Squeal!
Tweet!
Woof!
Yap!
Shh ! Who’s winning the vote
On the animal farm?
Every Book Is a Horse
Long since have I been riding
This little book from the start
Under our village poplars
Each holding many a cicada
Whose song can lead me
To a puti tree far beyond the lotus pond, where
Everyone has a book to write and, if not
Everyone is a book
To read or ride
Song of a Tone-deaf: for Allen and George Yuan
There is often such a time when you, a no-songster
Would want to sing aloud to yourself, a song
That everyone else might also love to sing; the song
Whose lines you never remember, nor can you
Control your pitch as it rises and falls randomly
On its own, nor will you keep the tune on the
Right track; the song whose rhythm you do not
Care to follow, while lost in your little privacy
The song that has an evasive melody
Deeply encoded in your heart
Although you sound like a duck or donkey
Your voice is full of euphonies
Trance
While meditating at dusk
I see an enlightened butterfly
Breaking newly from the chrysalis
Of my mind, like a
Message emitted into
The night sky, waiting to be
Picked up by an unknown radio
Flapping against the autumn air
Is my inner being, from bough to bough
Marpole, Vancouver: for Liu Yu
It rains a lot in Vancouver
Often does this rain remind me of
The days when you sojourned here
With my family, after Father left all of us
While walking in the rain, you would
Recall, under my big umbrella
How you once waited in a drizzle
With me in a broken basket on your back
To cross the widening river, not far
From our village when I was crying hard
For a large spoonful of flour soup (you were too
Weak and too hungry to produce any milk)
Seeing you do nothing about my hunger
The ferry man asked, Where
is its mom?
I am his mother! You
replied, tears rolling down
With the raindrops on your childish face
How old are you then? –
Almost 17.
It is raining again in Vancouver, and beyond this rain
Your voice echoes aloud on the other side of this world
Final Relaxing Moment
Don’t be afraid, pal
It’s really going to be
The most pleasurable dream
You can ever hope to have, where you
Will be put on a pile of soft light
Drifting slowly and weightlessly, just
As you used to shake in your mom’s womb
Where all your consciousness is sponged
Out of your mind, where you will have no hearing
No smelling, no tasting, no touching, except
A single outlandish idea about your selfhood
Stuffed with nothingness, which you feel as if
You could catch and throw it around
Like your own body, your own spirit
Modern/Americanization
Every year there is
As much summer
As many a tree here
Than in my native village in China
But there is not a single cicada
At any twig, or among any clusters
Of leaves, a cicada that I used to listen to
Singing aloud monotonously, like a
Fine saw working on a rusty metal
Or between my boyish ears
What I hear is a deafening American voice
About selling every human
Behavior, every human whim
That keeps penetrating each animal ear
Y as in Yolk: for Misako Chida
totally lost in chan meditation
i perceive my yellowish spirit
bloated into a yolk-shaped balloon
hanging so high in the blue sky
as i start to float around, looking
for an answer to the question
about the first letter of my family
name, i find my entire inner being
enclosed tightly with huge rose petals
rather than sitting above a lotus flower
down on the ground is left behind my outer self
shrinking like a stuffed crow
[note: written on 12 june 2014 Thursday to pair Misako
Chida's "looking for an answer"]
Autumn Wind
You have chopped off every head
Every head-shaped
Or every head-like object
In the wild field is left nothing
But stumps, each as naked as a human soul
Shivering within a skeleton
Childhood Secrets
When I was three or four, I buried
Several hard-gained marbles
Near our rented room, hoping one day
They would grow into magic trees
Half a century later, I dug them all out
On a dull afternoon. The moment
I put the first one on my table, a flock
Of crows flew up; when I thought of
The second, it burned like a forest fire
Now I hesitate to write the word ‘immortality’
Lest my last marble should melt with diamonds
Community Theater
Deep at the heart of our world is there
No stage, a place where we can put on
Shakespearean plays, or perform
Our own shows; rather, with the
The shades of our inner beings, we create
Our drama up on a huge open wall
Where each of us makes a soliloquy
Without seeing any other human shape
While gods and ghosts are dancing
In colored costumes near the spotlight
Neither is there writing on the wall besides
Reflections of shadows of democracy
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