2019, 12, 26 [Thursday]
Heart-Renditions: Lesson 2 in Chinese
Characters
怒: anger influxes
when slavery
Rises
from above the heart
愁: worry thickens as autumn
Sits
high on your heart
闷: depressed whenever
your heart is
Shut
behind a door
意: meaning is defined as
A
sound over the heart
思: thought takes
place
In
in the field of heart
忘: forgetting happens
When
there’s death on heart
忍：to tolerate
is to bear a knife
Right
above your heart
East Etymology: Lesson One
in Chinese Characters
臭：stinking results from just one bit
of too much self-conceit
黨：party in politics means to
uphold the principle of darkness
认：knowing
someone
involves paying attention to whatever s/he says
值：worth is determined by how
straight a person stands
债：debt must be paid because it’s
a human responsibility
武：military
forces are
used only to stop war and maintain peace
吻：kiss is an act of not only the
mouth but also the heart
Collectivism: Another
Lesson in Chinese Characters
猋：three
dogs
running together means to fly fast
毳：three
pieces of hair put together indicates as much subtlety as sensitivity
贔：three
mounts of money deposited together stands for hard work
鑫：three
kinds of metals stuck together signifies prosperity
垚：three units of earth piled together represents
a mountain towering against the sky
森：three
trees
standing together presents a whole forest
淼：three
bodies of water flowing together describes a vast expanse of sea
焱：three
fires
burning together refers to an extremely bright flame
Retreating
You do not know why, but
you
Just cannot help trying constantly
to
Withdraw your self-consciousness,
thinned or thickened
From your presence, even before
your family &
Friends, before your fellow
human beings, before
All artifacts, including every
man-built structure
& shrink your entire
selfhood into an increasingly smaller
Point until it vanishes
into the ethereal
You imagine yourself already
becoming such a blank
Dot, drifting invisibly in
a parallel world, real or virtual
Now both too crowded for your
shameful spiritron
Fact vs Fiction
The encountering is a sheer fabrication
Of yours, made wishfully during
a summer storm
Which was real, though the summer is
An imagination, which did
offer a warm feeling
Though the warmth is
fiction, which seems as real
As the feel, though your
loneliness is but an invention
Loneliness Redefined
Beginning with l as in the word long
or
Love, followed by o
as in oh or, rather
Overwhelmed [with
Numerous whims &
Endless wishes, each
Living a luxurious life in a
different realm, while
Interacting with
Nothing but
Everything as
Solid as soothing as your self-sufficient
Selfhood.] With this one
line embedded between L (as in
Long love) & double S (as in super
stories)
How can you possibly feel loneliness?
Given the Top Four Most
Common English Verbs
To be [or not to be
Whatever
or whoever you are]
To have [or not to
have]
Whoever
or whatever you may wish]
To do [or not to do]
Anything
or nothing you would prefer, &]
To say [or not to
say]
Nothing
or anything you may intend to]
We are all rendered equal as
we cross
Every borderline, filling
in every gap
In
action as in thought
[Or
otherwise]
English Composure
Isn’t it a nice day? -- Sure it is!
There will be a storm tomorrow. -- Wont’ there?
The train has probably derailed. -- So what?
The Ship is surely sinking. – Let’s play
another song!
The queen passed away last night. -- Oh yes?
Frankenstein has won the election. -- O, come
off it!
Our mother earth will explode. -- No great
shake.
This is the end of the universe. -- Amen!
Behind the Homeless
You
are a wild cat
Never in want of a companion in summer or
winter
Partying with others is unthinkable, even
immoral
You prefer to be alone, a state where you can
Stretch your solid selfhood into a colored cloud,
or
Shrink
your feline consciousness into a blank dot
Loneliness
is all the luxury you enjoy. &
Here is your personal religion, in which
I often hoped to share your forbidden mobility
But in your shadow I have been transmuted
Before I know it
Into
a bohemian artist. On a bus stop bench
At a street corner, between two protruding
walls
You tattoo the landscape with humanity
You cannot help preaching for freedom,
wandering
In
a parallel between your inner and outer worlds
How It Really Came about
You threw a formless conceit into a cauldron of
Bubbling
consciousness, patiently adding
Hours of days of months to the fire
Until it vaporised & flied high up into
An unseen patch of sky. Before it fell from
Above, you searched for a container of every
Conceivable kind, a plate, a bowl, a cup
Even your own palm. At a shiny moment
In a little swirl, you caught it
With a net. That’s not fantasy
None of that. As in this stanza you have
contained it
Foreign Frequency
My ears cannot hear the sound
Neither can yours, not even all the earthly
Ears combined, including those of moths
Bats, owls, elephants and whales
Only mechanic or electronic ears
May detest the frequency range, &
So can your inner ears, as long
As you set your mind-frame like
An amplifier.
Indeed, when you empty all
The noises, white, pink or blue, from your
Inner being, you can readily hear
The choir of summer stars twinkling above
From the most distant corner of the cosmos
2019, 11, 20 [Wednesday]
First Gathering after 42 Years of Separation
Like a wolf dying of thirst
That cannot wait to gulp down the whole stream
You lunged towards her, desperate to know
Everything about her in particular. Alas
She said, my life experience after we
Left the school is as tasteless as plain water
But being a veggie now, I drink water only
You whispered, as tea is a bit too harsh, coffee
Too bitter, while even a small glass of wine
Would make your heart beat unbearably too fast
Being Mindful
First, let your body relax
In the present moment
Then, let your pasts go
With all your memories, &
Finally, let your spirit fly
Out of the cage of your mind
Looking Forward
How I am looking forward to my last breath!
For the dying moment is
To be the very most enjoyable (which I know
From my deadly drowning on the other side
Of this world as a village boy) &
Most rewarding time when I can, indeed, get
All the confirmed answers
I have been trying so hard to find
About life, about the world &
Above
all, about myself
Looking Back to Forward
Despite countless showers or storms
Weathered through, I have never yet
Seen a single ray of rainbow
(As everyone has expected)
Yet fortunately I find myself
Living now in an eternal sunny season
Within the territory of my heart
Behemoth
My other self has a stronger presence
On the other side of this planet, firmly set
In a different time zone, where I could flirt
freely
With Qi Hong, the girl I might well have
Pursued, should I not decide to concentrate
Upon my teenager ambitions
But I
am sitting still
There among young trees on a hilltop, lost in a
mood of
Meditating about how the other half of the world
Is rotating around the darkness of tomorrow, &
How all my past concerns are burning to ashes, one
By one, as in a summer forest fire far beyond the skyline
Empathy
Perhaps just a bit too long
Watching the last leaf
rubbing against my window
I have forgotten
if I is the tree, or
the
tree am I
The Most Romantic Thing Ever Done
Is that I once kissed the most handsome fir
In a forest: a full array of tall trees
Grasping the earth so firmly
All urging me to stay
As beautiful as the sky, the ocean, the stars
& mountains, yet more reachable, ready
To date, to make love, to live or die with
Especially for me.
Each
opens itself wide
Heart and soul, exposing fully to sunshine &
Storms alike, standing against winds, rain
Birds, insects, snow, viruses besides hostile
Animal hands, where I find myself standing
At
the very tip of a twig
It could die or be fell down, but its seeds
Will take root far beyond. So
Leave me alone, let me stay here before
The wind blows me back into the city crowds
Crows Are Being Born Again
It is
an undeniable fact now:
They have arisen from the bare ground
Like the phoenix flapping its wings out of its
Legendary ashes, where are they going?
Nowhere but high up into a virtual space, a world
That, like history book, is full of black headlines
Big names, & bold details. All transmitted
Into numb numbers. Even the most unidentifiable
Has become a comet shooting above its dark caws.
Each
Taken for an angel winged with the rainbows
Of tomorrow, while all cranes and swans are lost
In their dances to the tune of death
Youth
The nursery rhyme jumps from my aging chest
Eager to embrace the changing world with zest
Hello, young trees! Hello, summer’s sunshine!
How are you all doing along this humble line?
I will resume my old childhood dream
I will try this new feature like ice cream
I will return to my long lost native place
On this planet’s other side to find the face
& confess to her as the apple of my eye
Pretending I can restart my life, can’t I?
Before: for Qi Hong
Returning to Mayuhe, where we were forced
To ‘receive re-education from poor peasants’
(During the Cultural Revolution), before asking
Cheehoong to dance among the pine trees we
Planted, before hiking to the valley to pick up
Fresh mushrooms, before holding high our glasses
Of life filled with wine, tea or coffee, before
singing
The song we enjoyed singing the most when
We were young & gay, before taking turns
To elaborate on our edited resumes, before
Our grandchildren ask for yeye or nainai to
tell
Them new stories about the last revolution
It’s high time, after 42 years of separation, to
say
Farewell to each other, first & foremost,
before
We retreat from this party, this stage of world
While we still can sit straight beside one another
My Tree
Definitely it is a tree. Though I cannot
Touch it with my fingers, I perceive it
Growing, very slowly, against summer
Storms & winter frost until its branches have
now
Reached out along my limbs & meridians
Its roots grasping deep & tight
Into my inner soil.
I
carry it like my own child
Like a shadow as it becomes almost overlapping
With my whole being. If it continues to grow
With its leaves, can I return on a rainy day, to
Make a nest for my soul as high up in Yggdrasil?
2019, 8, 26 [Monday]
Why No More Super-Sapiens, Saintly or Satanic
It was all via Columbus
It was right from the New World
It was simply because of his unintended introduction
That a shepherd later known as Syphilis began to lead
an increasingly large flock of innocent lambs, including Franz Shubert, Arthur
Schopenhauer, Edouard Manet, Charles Baudelaire, Guy de Maupassant, Friedrich
Nietzsche, Fan Goh, Mozart, Beethoven, Gustave
Flaubert, Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin, A Bing; other suspects including Oscar
Wilde, Emperor Tongzhi, the Lincoln couple, Hitler, Lenin, Darwin, Edgar Allen
Poe, Starlin, Einstein, Hugo, Napolean, Albrecht Dürer, Fyodor Mikhailovich
Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Robert Alexander Schumann, Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud,
Alphonse Daudet, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Christian Johann Heinrich
Heine, as well as Dr. John Hunter himself, to march from the ditches of
obscurity to the grand hall of fame
Until even you & I wish to join them to become a super master in our
own right, but
Alas, we have now to stop dreaming about becoming super-sapiens, wicked
or wrecked, as a side-result of the invention of penicillin?!
Witch-Hunting
Keep driving, drive
the Naples disease
To Frenchmen, the French disease
To Italians, the Spanish disease
To the English, the Polish disease
To Russians, the German disease
To the Polish, the Christina disease
To the Turkish and Arabs, the Portuguese
Disease to Indians, the Chinese disease
To the Japanese, the Cantonese disease
To Pekingese, all along the trails trodden by
The great Pox, the Great Imitator, the Great socery
Button scurvy, sibbens, frenga, dichuchwa
Durer’s ‘synhilistic man’, keats’s ‘femme fatale’…
Until a doctor finally caught it in a little poem, where
An innocent shepherd called Syphilis turned out
The greatest hunter
being hunted, or
Until we have no more super sapiens, saintly or satanic
Whose spirits are still drifting around
Like a spectre over old Europe
Shhh
The cosmos is expanding
Black holes sucking
Old stars sparkling
New stars being born
Manmade satellites moving around the earth
Earth rotating & revolving
Clouds colliding
E.signals shooting
The swishing of traffic on Granville Street
Sawing at the house construction site nearby
Power-washing
Mowing
Talking to a fellow human
Tick-tacking of the clock
Buzzing of the fridge
Computer fanning while in the present moment
My heart is beating, as silence presents itself as
A vast stage, where noises enter or exit one after another
As if to drive all the ears out of my protobeing
HeLa’s Cell
Originating from Eve
This line is continuing to stretch
Longer,&
longer
Multiplying every mitochondrion into
More & more cells
Each an independent life, as
It reaches deeper & deeper in our body
& heart
To pass on the story about her love
While Walking, Helen Observes That
not a single tree begins to branch out
until after it rises a certain height
above the ground. Perhaps it
needs to grow thick, tall or strong
enough to stand against storms
to enjoy the sunshine, or to greet
people like you & me
no matter what, all the branches
combined remain exactly thick
as the trunk itself
do you mean there’s more than one law
about all green growths?
Pine Cones
To spare myself the nuisance of mowing, &
To give my lawn a unique look, I have covered
My whole front yard with pine cones collected
From every corner & shade in our
Greater neighbourhood.
On a rainy day, Helen
Observes each has closed itself tightly as if
To protect its virginity, or hide
Its shyness, but on a sunny day each
Re-opens itself wide as a wild blooming flower
Sensitive as they are, they are always ready to recall
Their evergreenness, while trying to outlive the season
During the storm, retaining their living dignity
Even when deadly so low on the ground
Giraffe vs Mule
So highly arrogant is
The giraffe as it outstands all humans
Even the tallest carnivorous animal
Be that as it may, it is no taller than a mule
When it bends down
To eagerly drink water from the stream
Like a naked mole rat
On the Scale
Put any alphabetic letter
Even in a lower case
At this end, & see if
All the great books
(you have?)
Ever written
& published will go
High
up or deep down
At
the other?
Dust
After returning to
dust
I plan to transform my proto-
Consciousness into a golem
Not in man’s image any more
But with a nanochip at heart
It needs no companion
To connect with the universe
Except via the flow of spiritual energy
As language in
stead
Beat Or Join
I can’t beat death, so I will
Join
it & become part of
The unbeatable; I can’t join
Life
either, but I’ve beat it
Though not with my fists
But
with my spirits. Yes
No body can win death, but
Everyone
can join the winner
Life Is, for Me
A play, where my role is an extra with few lines
Where I can never help
uttering bloopers
A song, which my voice is to sing aloud
Though I was born a tone
deaf
A dream, where my consciousness suffers
Every single moment from
insomnia
Light vs Dark
All until the sun sets
Where the dark
To engulf
The whole world
Keeps flooding in
With dreams
Of light, dreams
All about daybreak
2019,7,22 [Monday]
D-Dream
When I was a dream child, I dreamed of all that was
dreamable, including a remarkable ancestor in particular, whom I could brag
about to my playmates. However, as I grew older, I learned that my grandfather had
left us nothing but an unknown family name, while my father was no more outstanding
than any other in the street. So, I began to dream about attaining enough fame,
wealth and/or power to become someone in my own right.
Alas, despite a thousand weeks of psychological and
physiological hardships in the past, I have come only to prove myself as ordinary
as my father and grandfather, whom I have been striving so hard to emulate and,
to my greater dismay, that my sons are even lesser.
Now I still dream from time to time. In the most memorable
one, I come to good terms with my mediocrity. After all, being no body is a
standard form of human being, perhaps no less than a form of nirvana.
After Fortune
All of us were born with an equal and fixed amount
of fortune: If you are fortunate with one thing, you will be not with another;
if you are fortunate now, you will not be then; and if you are fortunate in one
big matter, you will not be in a dozen or even hundred small matters, or the
other way around, with only a few exceptions. As it may come with or without
our knowing it in any, even a formless form, often do we fail to feel fortune.
Naturally, we constantly cannot help complaining about, or spitting curses on our
lack of luck. However, if we just change our own outlook, we are bound to discover
that we have been fortunate enough all the time not only to have been still
alive, but also to be able to find happiness.
It is true that for every infinitesimal bit of
happiness we may have to go through an unproportionately big mass of
unhappiness; however, the ability to feel happy itself is the greatest fortune
that we are all born with.
Cage & Bird
I
am a cage, in search of a bird. -- Kafka
Wherever my mind flies, it’s still
Confined tightly
To this world, this very cage of
Sensory
& imaginative cells
In other words, I is the cage, while the whole
Universe am a bird
Mega-Romance: the Longest & Shortest Human Story
The couple became one
Then two, &
One again.
Winter Vision (2): To the Tune of Tangent
As myriad swans duelled deadly
Up in heaven, their feathers fell
Among human whims & wishes
Covering the whole world with
All the whites & silences of
The season, where a little crow
Pops up to witness the landscape
Becoming so united in sight &
Sound, so seemingly peaceful as for the war
To continue in whiter earthly wildness
Melencolia: Albrecht Durer’s Secret to Immortality
Engraved deep
on his inner slate
Is not melancholy, but an anagrammed
Limen/door leading right
To the (heart of) caelo/heaven
Back Then: Seven Innocent Sins
How I wished to eat meat or seafood once a month! Now
I have enough cash to buy it every day, but I cannot eat what I want because of
so many damned health restrictions!
How I used to need just a few more hours for a
dreamful sleep at night! Now I have more than plenty of time for the bed, but
no more dreams except insomnia!
How I would fantasize about putting my constantly
hardend young penis in a vaginal! Now it’s way too soft for the most charming
female though easily reachable!
How I desired to be known locally, nationally &
internationally! Now I have gained some reputation across dozens of countries,
but which turns out meaningless to my selfhood!
How I longed for money or wealth! Now I have
finally accumulated millions of dollars, but I find that it can give me no real
peace or happiness, except more worries!
How I envied those having power to play with! Now I
have experimented with both political & apolitical power only to feel
myself even weaker inside than most!
How I dreamed of living longer than a godlin, but
now with so many bodily problems getting from bad to worse, I often hope to die
while still in decent human shape!
Greatest Regrets
Kouzhun’s six renowned regrets in Chinese history:
That I have pursued my selfish goals while serving
as a public officer
That I was not thrifty enough while at the peak of
my financial prime
That I did not learn well while still young
That I failed to take the lesson after going
through the crisis
That I ranted and raved too much while drunk
That I paid little attention to my health before
losing much of it
Vs
My little-known private ones after immigration to
the West:
That I wasted 5,000 hours of my youth during my schooling years
That I failed to develop and explore my initial interest
That I fell in love with, and then married the wrong woman
That I decided to choose the left one trail at the crossroad
That I gave up on my dream
That I paid little attention to my innerself then
The Art of Meditation
1/
Keep every sensory cell of yours
As widely open as the sky
To receive every single
Perceivable signal in
the universe, &
Observe closely, more closely
How your stream of consciousness flows
Through fields
Valleys
Ridges
& …
2/
Or, simply hunt every whim
Popping up, looming up
Above the horizon of
Your bubbling consciousness
Counting Down
Ten great bottles sitting on the wall – tenth
amendment
Ninth circuit: Nine tailors make a man – ninth
circuit
Eight ways to Sunday – eighth wonder
Seven day wonder – seventh heaven
Six of one and half a dozen of the other – sixth
under feet
Five o’clock shadow – fifth column
Four more years in office – fourth estate
Three cheers – third degree
Two wrongs don’t make a right – second nature
One good turn deserves another – first rate
Happy new year! Happy new life!
First rate. Second nature. Third degree. Fourth estate.
Fifth column. Sixth feet under. Seventh heaven. Eighth wonder. Ninth circuit. /To
the nines. Tenth amendment. /Hang ten.
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure
Two’s company; three’s crowd. /2 heads are better
than one.
Three hots and a cot.
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. /
: Five golden rings. /
Seven deadly sins. /
Nine times from ten. /
Ten out of ten. /
Mindfulness
Of all animals, I used to wonder
Wondering if fishes really have
As they say, the shortest memory of all:
Only seven seconds
Or, their pasts, if any, are supposedly
No longer than the present moment
That is, they have virtually no pasts, nor do
they
Ever care about their futures. They just keep
Swimming, blowing bubbles, chasing
Their own shadows into ever deeper ends
As if in a wide flow of consciousness
Often would I feel envious of fishes that are
So mindful about their each passing moment
Now I seem to feel like one
Spiritual Relativity
I am a speck of dust, just as it is
To the Himalaya Mountain, which is
Just as it is to the earth, which is just
As infinitesimal as it is to the Milk Way
Which is, in turn, just as tiny as it is
To the whole universe, which is
Again, just as tiny as it is to the imagination
Where even the indefiniteness itself is
No bigger
Than a tiny concept
The Stanza Suggested
The stanza suggested standing straight
So I did, looking high up
(With an inner Hubble Space Telescope)
At the smallest dark spot, where
I find you see
Another thousand Milk Ways glistening
In the dim corner of this vast
Universe, parallel to your imagination
As the earth flies with the cosmic winds
Like a speck of dust
Breathe light
The same cosmos is evolving inside out
Grammar vs Government: S/He
At
the very sight, they
Fell in love with them, but shortly
They became unhappy with them
Though their only soul-mate. They
Charged them for lying to them
All the time &, in no time, put
Them into prison after long torture
Without further due, they resolutely
Remove them from their mind
At the very cost of their heart
Zoological Note
Though a lousiest swimmer, the cat
Loves to eat small fishes the most, which
In turn, find earthworms most delicious
Though they can never come ashore
Let along living deep in soil. Similarly
God tied a meaty bone right on my nose
Which will lead me to keep running
All the way to my death, but never
Allow me to have a single bite of
It even in my American dream
