2022, 6, 14 [Tuesday]
Tender in Between: for LL
As night
Falls
Can day
Catch it
From the other
Side of
This world?
Meanwhile
The broken heart
Is being
Caressed by
All the fingers
Of starlight
As tender as
Illuminating
Relay of Love: for LL
Living on the opposite sides of
The world, we take turns to go
To bed, each waking up
To become part of the other
In the same dream, even
About the same moment
Day & night
Though, alas, on different beds
In different time zones
For LL: Having Missed U
On my way
To Dao
I was so
Constantly
Held up
In my dream
Of U
Of me
Of us
As to become
Two quanta
Long lost
But as entangled
As ever
In Insomnia: for LL
In this
Expansive
Moment of
Post-midnight
There are all
The muted
Sounds of
Thought
Hauling
An indefinitely
Prolonged
Trail of feel
Like a train
Running with
Endless cars
On a rail
Stretching afar
Beyond
The morning glow
Reverie: for LL
Gushing
Out of his
Frame of
Selfhood
& flowing
Into her
Innermost
Lake
His missing for her
Kept splashing
Along
The wild
Stream
Of last night
Until it
Joins her
At dawn
Like a waterfall
Gathering: for LL
Sitting at the every
table
Is a rearranged array
Of familiar shapes of
Strange bodies (or
Strange shapes of
Familiar bodies)
Silhouetting boisterously
Against night. Reflecting
From the glass are
Different colors of your
Friends’ voices speaking
From disparate distances
One from Vancouver, another
From Jingzhou, a third from
Melbourne. When the party
Ends in the midnight
They’ll all withdraw into
Ghostly existences, some-
Where as far away from
The present as from
This spot of being
Like one of your whims
Bubbling only to break
Neighbor’s Garden: for LL
Each time I step out
Of my door, I wish to
Relocate my neighbor’s
Garden into my own
Backyard, or simply
Sabotage it to deflate
My deeply rooted envy
Yesterday, at twilight
I proposed to switch
Our houses like some others
Doing their wives
Or husbands
Just for a night
For a change
For fun
For a feel of
Ownership of
The grass that
Is always
Greener on
The other side
Of my fence
Do U Hear It?
From the heart of the Pacific
Far beyond the Pandemic
A Mobi Dick is screaming
As if to keep its throat clear
Or it would be choked to
Death with parcels of plastics
I/我, U/你 & E/伊: a Modest Proposal
As classic Chinese suggests, we can
Reasonably attain linguistic equality
In English as long as we all agree
To use I, still for the first person
singular
But U for the second, &
E for the third
All single-lettered
All capitalized
All sexes inclusive
Either case applicable, subject or object
& all equal in creation as
In speech acts
So, say after I:
I Love U
U love E
E loves us all
Simplification of Chinese Characters Reviewed
(1)
Is it a linguistic coincidence or undeclared prophesy?
But 60 years after Mao Zedong approved
The scheme for simplifying Chinese characters
We are now living in an open & reformed age,
where
愛/ai/ [love] has
become a feeling without a heart: 爱
親/qin/ [kinship] someone who is not to
be seen: 亲
兒/er/[son] a person without his
own brain: 儿
郷/xiang/ [village] a
place where there’s no male: 乡
厰/chang/ [factory] a building
with nothing inside: 厂
産/chan/ [manufacture] a process without
production: 产
雲/yun/ [cloud] a nimbus offering no rainfall：云
開/kai/ [open] an action to break
something doorless: 开
導/dao/ [lead] a guidance without the
Way: 导
Simplification of Chinese Characters Reviewed
(2)
More than half a century long after
The simplification of classic Chinese characters
& almost half a century well after
China opened its doors & began its reforms
To shake off its deformities or backwardnesses:
魔 /mo/ remains the same as魔 [evil], so does
鬼 /gui/ as鬼[ghost], so does
偷 /tou/ as偷[steal], so
does
黑 /hei/ as [darkness], so does
毒 /du/ as毒[poison], so does
贼 /zhei/ as贼[thief], so
does
假 /jia/ as假[fake],
so does
劣 /lie /
as劣[inferior], so does
罪 /zui/ exactly as罪[crime], which remains
As unchangeable as
Chinese per se, or does it not?
I __ U, E Says: for
LL
This is too weak a
word, but I do
Lurf, loave, luff or
Looove U, with the
first & foremost
L as in life per se,
the first & foremost
O as in ownership, the
first & foremost
V as in victory, and
the first & foremost
E as in essence,
with
Each & every
letter
Capitalized exactly
like
I, like U, like E
Etymology of Family:
a Bilinguacultural Poem
In English, family
is a word to say:
Father
And
Mother
I
Love
You
Where as in Chinse, 家is
A pictograph offering
A shelter宀
To or a big pig豕
The True Worth of My Life
Ever since retirement, I’ve been trying to
Examine & re-examine my life
In hope of digging some worth
As Socrates has advised us to
Alas, to my great embarrassment, I find
I am neither smart nor handsome, desirous
Of everything but good at nothing, thus
Having done nothing special, made no
Contributions to society, let alone history
Time and again, I cannot help wondering:
How have I managed to survive in so many years
Without being good at anything at all…?
Aha, after years of thinking
I now know the reason lies
In the way I am always good at
Eating & & excreting
In particular
I was gifted with human rights!
Cherry Flowers
Since the darkest moment
Of last
winter
Every cherry tree has been waiting
Anxiously for the advent
Of full
spring
Until every bud loses patience &
Wakes itself up eagerly
In the wee hours of morning
Hoping to get the first sight
Of the
season
Only after all their leaves have fallen
Onto the roadside do they come to
See their own flowers
As the spring per se
2022, 5, 17 [Tuesday]
Lexical
Insights into Lie/谎言 & Others
In
English:
‘Lover’
implies something ‘over’, while
You
can always ‘get’ something by ‘forget’
Similarly,
htere is an ‘end’ within every ‘friendship’
Just
as there is a ‘lie’ in ‘belief’ or what you ‘believe’
In
Chinese:
‘谎言’ (lie) is by formation a waste of speeches
‘相信’ (believe) means what a ‘man’ has to ‘say'
‘愛人’ (lover) is a friend at the bottom of heart
‘忘记’ (forget) involves a demise on the heart
Jade Bracelet (in Memory of 17 April 2022): for
LL
The
other night, when you were sleeping on a cot
Sandwiched between your husband & another
patient
In Zhuhai People’s Hospital, you dreamed of
me
Again (& that made me flattered!), in
which you tried
Every girlish way to hide my book of love
poems
(Inspired by you) from my ex as she fiercely
looked
For hard evidence to prove my (as well as your)
betrayal
Of love and marriage; even the thundering
snores from
Your neighbors failed to wake you up from
your deep
Sense of guilt. You said romantic love
between us was
Abnormal and immoral, even disgusting to the
young
& as my ex became merged on montage with my
be-
Loved wife, she kept hunting you down like a mad
witch
& as you tried to escape, the book turned
to a jade bracelet
& Dropped to the ground & broke into
pieces, but to your
Great relief, she was never able to catch you
red-
Handed, nor did your husband sit up to
protest while i
Watched with schadenfreude, on the other side
of night
Blue Disappointment (3 May 2022): for LL
It was not a nightmare, but you were wakened at
6:59
AM from your tense fear when my wife caught
you
By your hair and began to beat you black
& blue
You felt profoundly disappointed at the
bluest
Moment of last night when you noticed me watching
From a distance, as indifferent as you are
desperate
I assured you my wife has a most quiet
personality
A true lady who would never outperform her-
Self even in black fury; besides, with the
Pacific
& the Pandemic separating us from day to
Night, why would she accuse us since we have
Never even shaken hands with each other?
Nevertheless, you suffer greatly, as the
Chinese idiom goes
From the bad conscience of a thief, though it
is I who have
Stolen your heart from your body (as from
your marriage?)
The Conscience of a Thief: for
(in
response to your dreams made on 17 April & 3 May)
Every thief has, according to the Chinese proverb
A guilty conscience (which must perforce
Betray his wrongdoing), but the problem with
You is: I am the real thief (who’s stolen
your heart
From your well-maintained body as from your
well-
Guarded marriage), but it’s you, the innocent
victim, who
Actually has a conscience as bad as a snake
gnawing
At your heart
Even in your dreams you are more than
Ready to make a confession, to my ex, my
wife, or the
Whole world, without duress, though you have
committed
Nothing, except your emotional derailments in
thought
And language. Don’t you have the free will to
think, or
Say what you think? Isn’t marriage an
institution built
On and against love? Doesn’t a thief have the
right to
Love? Or, aren’t you are still entitled to
freedom of speech?
Where Algorithm Fails : for ll
Behind the thick clouds, without the light of
The sun or moon, it readily sees me through
Like a transparent being newly digitalized
Knowing well what I read, watch, hear
Even the way I move and think
But it never knows how much
I love you (since you yourself have no idea
About how much I love you), or how
My missing for you has whitened my hair
Given the feel I have hidden even from myself
Let alone my wife’s senses, how could
Algorithm
As the supreme god of the cyber world, get
the true
Knowledge of my inner realities, and control
My emotional attention or rule over my affection?
See, But No Touch: for ll
Each morning after getting
up, I charged
My inner being like an old battery by gazing
At you while video-chatting with you
On the other end of the day. (Alas, if only
I could never reach my hand into the screen)
Each night before falling into slumber, I
Daydream about holding you tight
In the starlight, like Wugang who keeps
Felling the laurel tree (to build a home
For Chang-e & her silver rabbit?) in the
moon
Beauty :: 美：A Comparison of Aesthetics
In
Chinese, 美 /mei/ (beauty) is a quality most
Desirable from a ram; by extension, any
creature
In nature that looks as big as a ram is
beautiful
Because it enjoys the mating precedence as
the male
Authority
While
in English ‘beauty’ is
A quality typical of a female, which may have
no-
Thing to do with ‘eau’ or water, but it
represents all
The tenderness embodied in a woman in man’s
world
Axis:
for ll
Like
the second hand of
An
un-fashioned clock
Wound
up with
The most
Enduring
longing of love
My
innermost being
Keeps
rotating around
The
very thought of you
Time Thought
Hold only your selfhood in your hand
But let go everything, everybody else, or
Live in the present moment, & leave
All your pasts & futures to time, or
Rather, leave only time to yourself
But all others to time
Inspirations
In the ever boiling cauldron of
Your subconscious, whims keep
Bubbling and evaporating up to
The air until the steam touches
The cool inner ceiling before
It falls down like raindrops
Fishing & Orgasm
Much like Jiang Ziya, the first Chinese
Strategist, the most influential sage
(Who helped found Zhou Dynasty
About three thousand years ago, who
As legend has it, fished without a bait
On his straight hook above the water)
He uses his fleshy hook, bloated
Straightened like a banana, to fish
In the pond between her thighs, where
She could not help biting at the tip
Of his hook as her whole womanhood
Splashes in the ripples of sensations
Virtual Pleasure > Sexual Bliss
As we concentrate more and more
On detractions in the virtual world
Our somatosensory system keeps de-
Generating until we become nothing
But a virtual being
That’s how we are evolving from corporeal
Being into a virtual existence; how we are
Trying to achieve immortality; & how our
Body joins our soul to live a higher life
To digitalize is to spiritualize, isn’t it?
Eudaimonia
Our search for happiness is, says
Eric Hoffer
One of the chief sources of
our unhappiness
By the same token, isn’t it also true that
our
Unhappiness
Is exactly that
Which makes us feel what happiness is all
about?
2022, 4, 15 [Friday]
Seeing Is Simply Being: for ll
Between my two dark pupils
Exists an unseen black hole, where
I hide my entire inner being, which
Sucks
all the rays
Emitted from your body as I keeps
Gazing at you
With an enlightened heart
Guqing (Ancient Zither): for ll
Lying bare on the bed, you present
Yourself like an exquisite Guqing
(The legendary Chinese zither)
Your skin purely snow white
Your flesh soft as summer clouds
Your body warmer than spring
Water, & your smell reminiscent of
The gardenia from early summer
With seven unseen classic strings of feel
Running from your breasts down to your
Bud, you are nature’s stunner instrument
That no other human can play on earth
Like I do, to the heavenly tune of beauty
They Miss: for ll
They miss summer sunshine on each winter night
They miss spring flowers in each autumn wind
They miss autumn fruits beyond each spring
dream
They miss wintry leisure in each summer frenzy,
while
I miss you in each missed moment of the season
Your Smiles: for ll
Lighter than the light music of moonlight
Your smiles shine through the darkest moment
Of last night
While your gaze, softer
Than the soft power of raindrops
Penetrates the hardest stone
Within
my feel
Bitter Melon: a Character Sketch
It is the bitterness of life that has made
Your face wrinkled, & your heart
Filled with its juice
Just like a bitter melon
But
you keep
All the taste to yourself & never pass
It on to people, even when you are
Boiled long together with any other
Ingredients
So, in the table of life
Only those privileged have learned
To like you as a dish, as nutritious as
Delicious
Feminism vs Patriarchy: a X-Cultural Poem
In Chinese, 妇人(woman) is a girl who’s overthrown
A mountain, & 夫人(madam) refers to a human that’s
Broken open the sky
Whereas
in English
Woman implies
herself as the wo of man, & madam is
Nobody but an other representation of male or
adam
Dew. Man. Star
Every dewdrop is the crystallization of all the
light
Of a star, its fall to the ground, or
evaporation
To the heavens enacts how a star, like you or
me
Comes
into and departs from this life, this world
Distracting Ourselves to Death
Dear as life per se, even dearer than love
Is freedom, but the very dearest of all
Is our free will, a gift of nature even God
Could not take it away from us
Alas, like Faust, we are now so eager to
Exchange it with just a worthless fragment
Broken off a waste
virtual reality
Notorious Nostalgia
Never was I able to carry with me
The bold frog calls, the raw smell of
The rice field, the tender touch of
The moonlight, or the fresh taste of
Pepper in my home town, but I have
Well remembered how to
Make the Jinzhou rice ball
& speak the Songzi dialect
Since I was a little village boy
One day I will forget them all, but
I will nevertheless be able to
Tell the taste, even with my eyes closed
& understand the vulgar speech
Even without a hearing aid
Noon
Michael
says he likes the noon time best
Not because the sun is the brightest then
But because all the shadows and shades
Are shrunk or retreated to the smallest
Spaces around human shapes, artifacts
Or other natural presences, when even
The soul becomes a shadowless angel
That can fly without leaving a single
Fragment of darkness on its long journey
Towards Heaven, but in the morning or
Evening, our shadows would grow longer
Colder and darker than our selfhoods, like
The leftovers of last night, even if we dwell
In an earthly paradise, or a paradisiacal earth
Season
Michael, the son of a petty poor peasant
Has a habit of collecting tender plants
In spring he would pick up a fallen petal
From a rapeseed and keeps it until it
Becomes a dry reminder of its heyday
In summer, he would find a blade of grass
In autumn, he looks for leaves of different
Colors; in winter, he would take home a
Thin bark from roadside, which he would
Insert between the pages of his memory
Even if the book has long since been closed
Immanence
It will set our mind in permanent peace, the
idea
That the soul has plenty of afterlives after
our
Bodily death, or survives our physical being
Within the shape of trouble of misery. For each
Selfhood there is a seed of anti-self that
keeps
Growing until it becomes perfectly identified
with
Our old selves. By the same token, each fortune
is
Off-set by a misfortune; each failure,
suffering
Chaos, emptiness by success, bliss, order and
Fulfillment. Just as yin keeps seeking the
balance
With yang or the other way around, the
opposites
Will be unified in the immanence as in
permanence
Since
each absence is a transitory state of presence
Why not
fill our hearts with peace and harmony?
Extents of Love: for ll
When
love is skin-deep, kiss; when love goes into
The flesh and blood, bite; when love bubbles
with
Bones, chew! Mike
told her there are three extents to
Which people release their intense love by way
Of mouth. Then he asked her what she would
prefer
To do with him, but she just kept giggling as he
was
Reminded of the popular saying: you fear she might
Melt if you hold her in your mouth, or would
fly
Away if you hold her in your hands. Not knowing
She would kiss or bite him, he confessed he had
been
Longing all the time to chew her, not with his
hard teeth
But with his tender thoughts before digesting
her in heart
Chineseness: a Sketch of Physical Features
Straight dark hair: to make a brush pen to
paint on rice paper
Less body hair: to maximize the surface
exposure to light
Dark eyes: to adapt to the extended darkness of
last night
Shovel-shaped incisor teeth: to dig deep into
the garden of a herbivore
Smaller nose: to survive by breathing in less
air of freedom
Flatter face: to receive more insults and
injuries?
Loach & Onion: a Conversational Poem for ll
Your love feels like a loach in a rice field
Full of splashing vitality but hard to catch
Your love resembles an onion: as I peel off
One layer after another, I can find no heart
In the core in the end
That’s because I wear
My heart inside out
Shall we fry the fish with onion, or make
A soup with these two
kinds of love?
2022, 3, 4 [Friday]
Loveland: for
As small as the screen of a cellphone
But much larger than the largest continent on
earth
This virtual land boasts our private Peach
Flower
Garden built with every thought & image digitalized
&
Auto-managed by the powerful algorithm of
Love
Yes, deeply lost in this land
Of tenderness, warmth and spiritual intercourse
&
Joined rather than separated by the Pandemic
We live deep in the heart of feel, where we
forget to
Ask: “Which dynasty is it now outside of our
garden?”
Physical Contact: for
Via weixin, I can see & hear you vividly
every day, or
Even every minute on a particular day, but I
can
Never touch your fair, soft, rich & smooth
skin, smell
Your unperfumed femininity, & taste your
Sun-painted mouth in the shape of a big split
cherry
So, at my repeated requests, you snail-mailed
me
A hand-written letter enveloped with a lock of
your
Undyed hair. Whenever it gets too cold, I can
feel
The warmth of your handwriting, digesting your
Tenderness behind the Chinese characters,
smelling
Your hair like fresh grass growing after a
spring rain
Or
from your very thought
Sense of Smell: for
I was
not born in the year of the dog, but somehow
My nose is sharper than a bloodhound’s, as it
allows
Me to find my quest whether it is hidden in the
depth
Of your heart or beyond the horizon
Yes, if you
Still have some love left behind in the
backyard of
Your heart, I can find it once I get a smell at
your
Smiles,
however far it is from my comfort zone
Tender Is Your Name: for
I
call, I chew, and I cherish your name
Each time my heart pumps blood with it
Throughout my body. This is the melody
Of the symphony of my daily activities
As my love runs bubbling along my inner
Stream
But with my lips closed tight
Not a single sound could be heard. Each
Day, I call out your name a hundred times
Though no other humans can hear me, as all its
Echoes are absorbed into my own heart
Soulmating or Lovemaking: for
My soul is a migratory bird
That keeps flying towards the warmer realm
Within the spiritual space, like my penis
Always trying to return to its nest
On a beautiful bough, where it can settle
In the depth of your tenderness for the night
But where can our bodies perch when
We become too tired to continue flying?
Revelation: Floral Beauty: for
Every flower is tender, charming &
Beautiful, because it blooms right
From its heart
Like the smile a human
Baby gives from the depth of
Its innocence, like my love for you
Unfurling
From my innermost being
Poetry and Faraway: for
Life is
not only about gains and pains
But poetry and the faraway it contains
Living in
The opposite sides of this world, with
All the time differences between us, you
Are my poetry and the faraway, just as I
Am
yours
Black Mum: for
All bees love
flowers, but butterflies
Are even more
obsessed with them
Just as suggested by the
title of ci
(The most popular subgenre
of poetry
That peaked during the Song
dynasty)
Or illustrated by the
classic love story
About Liang Shanbo &
Zhu Yingtai
Who became a
butterfly & a flower
After their
tragic death, instead of
Being discovered
only as dead bodies
As in the case
of Romeo & Juliet
Given the way your lips are more or less
Like the two wings of a
butterfly, while
Her labia
resembles the bud of a black mum
Blooming from
the depth of her Chinese heart
Are you going to
enact the Liang-Zhu romance
Or to recite aloud a
well-known ci from Song?
U & I: for
Witho_t _ , there is only I in
the dream about
Spring as about winter; however
With u, I can enjoy as much abundance
In autumn as in summer
Birdie vs Nestie: for
In the vulgar speech act of
Your native Songzi dialect
Your penis is called ‘birdie’
While her vagina ‘nestie’
After flying around all your life
From the east to the west
Like a lost flamingo, where can
You find a nestie for your birdie?
& where can you settle your soul?
Soul Mating: for
There must be some mystic
Connection between soul &
Sexuality;
Otherwise, how
Come your soul finds its home
The moment your penis settles
Down permanently in a vagina
Like a bird returning to its nest?
Spiritual Derailment: for
To
give it a good name before
Hanging it, we call platonic love
“Spiritual derailment” in con-
Temporary Chinese romantic
Discourse
To
follow the rules
You are ready to accept my kiss via
Weixin, absorb my ejaculations in
A wet dream about you, and make
Love with me every night on our
Web-bed, but you keep refusing
To take the red envelop I sent you
Online, which is no more than
A numeric version of “I love you”
In cash. You say spiritual derailment
Is okay, but no physical contacting
Outside of the cyber space
Because this is the practice of
e.adultery, isn’t it?
Know Thyself: for
To know yourself is to be enlightened
To know others is to be socialized
Knowing others is smart
Knowing yourself is wise
To know yourself is not only the mission
Of your life, but also the greatest pleasure
To know your parents, lovers, rivals or
Enemies, friends, partners and associates
Is to know yourself
Knowing your environments, your hobbies
Your belongings, your clothes and favorite
Songs, dishes and books is knowing yourself
