[archived poems by yuan: 2020-2©]

 2020, 12, 19, [Saturday]

 

Reinterpretations of Dreams

 

Constructed from the residues of yesterday

Says Freud, the dream is a detachment of

The soul from the fetters of matter. More exactly

Perhaps, it’s an enactment of the inner self

In an exotic movie, a compromise between

The conscious & the unconscious

A surreal life led by an immigrant from

An other universe, or a superexistence

Maintained with a parallel world

 

A dreamless life is only half-lived. Just as  

Day-dreaming is the scratching of a desire

On the itchy heart, so night-dreaming is

The harvesting of all the plants growing

Wildly in an open field. Simply, dream is but  

Another form taken by the meaning per se

 

 

Man’s Last Position

 

Against all the hardships of life is held

In the very depth of his heart, where

Hides a vivid portrayal of some woman

 

 

Body Defects

 

1/

Born with a weakest vision, my left eye

Functions as a decoration, which I have

Reserved for insight into every spot

Of my inner being as my right eye gets

Abused & worn out day in day out

By what can be seen in the outer world  

 

2/

Given an innate hole in my heart muscle

(The bullet wound from my previous life?)

I have enough inner space to hold all

The unwanted feelings against ischemia

 

3/

With two vertebrae fused together in my neck

I cannot turn around easily for a shoulder check

So I just keep driving all the way forward

Despite jams, among accidents, to my own end

 

4/

My spine tube only half the normal diameter

Less is created and circulated as I manipulate

The balance between body & mind to prevent

Disc herniation or to avoid unbearable suffering

 

 

Unrequited Love

 

You are the tall mountain across the valley

That ever remains as silent as the sky

Except the echo of my own calls & songs

 

 

Among Three: a Neotheosophical Poem

 

Thesis                          antithesis                     synthesis

Here                            there                            no/some-where

Now                            past                              future

This                             that                              an other

I/ego                            you/id                          they/superego

Earth/purgatory           hell/inferno                  sky/heaven

Kameloka                    rupaloka                      arupaloka

East/up/front/right       west/down/back/left   middle                                    

Confucianism              Christianity                                                     Islam?

Good                           truth                                                                beauty?

Dao                             numbers          

 

 

 

Three Lifetimes

 

Both before birth

& after death, we

All have plenty of time

To deal with darkness, but

In this present moment we

Have only a limited fraction of a minute

To live in light. Why then

Not set every second tight

Against to-night?

 

 

By Extension

 

I hate daytime when it belongs to

The vast majority & opens like

A wholesale marketplace of

Masks, & when there is no poet

Complains a 12-year-old Chinese boy

 

Likewise, you would avoid

Going to heaven since the door is too

 

Narrow for the indefinite width of the human

Mind, the queue is too long for patience, &

The space is too small for the crowds

While there is simply no parallel reality

 

 

Horse in the Rain

 

Standing still on a huge rock

The pale horse holds its head high

As if it had been running at full speed

On a wild range, looking up afar

To the most distant mountain

 

Its eyes glittering as raindrops

Keep falling from heaven

Straightly down to hell, &

Water-carving its paleness

Into a demonic statue of history

 

 

At Some Future Moment

 

At some future moment, demons start to revolt

With ghosts from under the ground

Struggling fiercely to possess fleshly bodies

 

Trees begin to grow downward, birds suddenly

Drop dead as if obeying a universal order

Sentiments sweating out of skin, tattooed or not

 

At a future moment, every movement of man &

Machine is halted in blood as all sound & fury

Became depressed, words evaporated

 

Nets or links broken, thoughts dried, waters

Boiling into darkness, mountains covered with

Faggots, snakes flying amuck in foiled flocks

 

At some future moment, each mind resonates

With a skyquake as all buildings collapse

In a tsunami filled with viruses & monsters

 

 

Transview

 

Darkness-dwellling, gnawing their way

Into our house and stealing food, but

These are all human descriptions of us

For ourselves, we are just trying to survive

By looking something to eat.

 

In their version

Of the story, the serpent is the evil devil  

Seducing Eve to bite the apple, though it was

Actually doing nothing but to inspire a fellow

Creature to defy the tyrannical rule of God

 

 

 

Living vs Lived

 

All the time, we have been living well

With free will until now we start  

To be lived by algorithm

      Within the

Information cocoon, for the internet

With chips, among robots, yes

We are all being lived until then to be

Outlived by humanborgs, by godlings  

 

 

On the Stage: After Shakespeare

 

Yesterday, yesterday, and yester-

Day has gone with the west wind

One after another to the fading &

Formless pages of history; each

 

Present moment is blatantly spot-

Lightning the deformed soul

Down, down the heavy curtain!

Death is a zombie starkly zooming

 

In the back ground of every heart:

We each believe our selves to be

The hero on our own stage

Though we turn out no more than

 

An extra happening to appear

By mistake in a stranger’s comedy 

 

 

While Packaging for My Last Trip

 

To the parallel cosmos, I have thrown

Away all my clothes, masks, e.gadgets

Shoes, souvenirs, even the case itself

For there will be no need for money

Or credit card. The only thing I will need

Is nothing but my own awareness

Of selfhood, of the outer, of the inner

Of ….

Of

 

Except perhaps a smile suffice?

 

2020, 11, 17 [Tuesday]

 

Who I Am: a Biocomic-Philosophical Poem  

 

Looking up to

The darkish infinity of

The outer space, I see

How a star has been growing

Only to die, in (holographic) parallel

With a cell within my body

 

& come to know my protobeing

& the cosmos as one

& the same: just as I is

 

The cosmos, so

The cosmos am I

 

 

Decoding Autumn

 

To be the most favoured season

For anyone with a little artistry

Itching within their marrow:

 

It is the show time for trees

As they become

Most spotlighted

By blooming fully

Towards a bluer & higher sky

 

Even more fully than spring

Or summer flowers

 

Yes, autumn trees are most

Congenial to the soul of a painter

As they mark each

Fine hour in a different nuance  

Of colour & shape, with each of

Their leaves battling

Fiercely & brilliantly

Against the rhythms of death

 

 

Sandglass

 

Once all your days are put into this half-hearted

Sandglass, you can never hope

To recollect them &

Refill the glass as they are flowing out

& spreading themselves randomly &

Invisibly around

On the floor of history

 

 

Cardioid Reviewed: for Qi Hong

 

R = A (1- Sin Θ)

You don’t get it? me either

 

But no matter what

Romance always equals Affection

(Times one minus

Self-In-Need

[From a plain angle])

 

Just as they often say

Rumour = important x ambiguous

 

 

Tuner: for Qi Hong

 

While still in Mayuhe on the other

Side of this world, you somehow gave me

An air-tuner, supposedly to help me

Learn erhu, the violin with only two strings

As a re-educated youth during the Cultural

Revolution, which you somehow asked me

To return to you before I took my long journey

Towards the West

     (Like the monkey king?)

 

Now almost half a century

Later, I forget how to play the instrument

But I can still sing my youthful song of

Love in perfect tune with your chuckles

Like a kite whose string remains in

Your hand however far or high

I have been flying

 

 

Changes since the Outbreak of Covid-19

 

Whether in use or as waste

There are now much more

 

Masks than condoms, more

Sepa-rates than u-nions, more

Time than space, more

Virtual travellers than

Real traffics, more

Meditations than

Megaparties, more

Democracy than

Freedom, and of course,

More human

Hostilities than

Animal amicabilities

 

Having managed to lock

Every other animal tightly

In a cage, we are now

Finally caged by an unseen virus

 

 

 

Simply, Why Poetry Is Dying

 

For all the more published chapbooks

Than writing subjects (& even more

Poetry authors than poetry readers)

Poetry is dying (not into history, but)

Against placement as they compete

With story tellers for each cash prize

 

Or escape to a taller ivory tower, where

They get too high with too big a dose

Of C2, where they collect most familiar

Words to create no sense, nonsense

Sursense or subsense out of hypersense

& lead every possible sense

Right into the senseless Wasteland

 

 

Red Moon Promised: A Haunting Vision 

 

   Perhaps in a dream or delirium, but

He did clearly see an enlarged furry beetle

Green-backed, yellow-bellied, flat-bodied

Long neck reaching up like a cobra

Head looking the same as his first class- &

Sex-mate named Red Moon from

A shanghai university, as she kept

Shouting at him high above her voice

Definitely in complaint or protest

But he just cannot hear a single sound

Like a wounded gull lost in darkness

Listening hard to a whale screaming to sky  

 

 

Their Nights

 

Beyond her insomnia, a familiar

Face was looming in their study

 

Have nothing better to do, he reasoned

Sipping from a tall glass

 

    While a lost dog was stalking around

The house, sniffing at a meowing shadow

 

& pissing every once in a while

To mark its inner dog-matic territory

 

Whose dog? Was it really a dog? How

Come she felt it sneaking like a cat

 

Its tongue was so long

Long enough to reach her own heart

 

Or the heart of his glass, even longer

Than to keep away the devilish virus

 

 

 

Twilighting  

 

You picked a fallen leaf

Coloured like a rainbow

 

Something that spotlights the slightest

Nuance in colour if not in shape

 

Perhaps change is the nuance or vice versa

A progressive filing of living rhythms

 

Against death. I love the way the season

Is withdrawing into the past

 

You once confessed

 

To see how the present is passing is

Concurrently                   to see how

 

The future is arriving

Both in the same moment

 

Being & becoming a spectrum of colours

  On each & the same autumn leaf

 

 

 

Mamihlapinatapai: for Qi Hong

 

     Totally free

We have rented out each other

To equally total strangers

In this damned & doomed life

 

    But for the next one

We have deadly been engaged

Ready to live happily ever after

A life of matrimonial ecstasy

      From our mutual limerence

 

 

Razliubit

 

Just hold all your life in your heart

Like a mug

 

& all the pleasant

Pain will residue in-

To the bottom, while all

The painful pleasures keep

Dancing on the barm like seraphim

 

Or otherwise, if you are hungry

 

 

 

Estrangement, Giving

 

Being myself differs from being a man

A glare sound never echoes beyond the mountain

 

I have kept shedding blood since I was a teenager

Just to give or not to give birth (to a father

 

Though I can do so without a boy’s contribution)

 

There are countless attempts to penetrate my heart

& body if lust is not a loss or legacy of love

 

The femininity in my brain has a tenderer structure

& texture as I often fumble for the hidden key

 

To your patriarchy, to your potency in darkness

In darkness, my Lord, I defy Adam’s manhood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020, 10, 20 [Tuesday]

 

Last Letter

 

Today he finally received the letter

From his long lost first love, actually

Written half a century ago, on a sheet

Of rice paper scented with the smell

 

Of a forgotten season; her floral hand-

Writing ran like cardiography, the ink

Tasting of tears still reflective of the

Moonlight shining beyond the fields

 

Folded as a heart-shaped bird, wings

Feathered thickly with a country girl’s

Passion still warm with her youthful

Breath. Now stuffed full with memories

 

It’s framed within the timelines of his

Pasts as if caged tightly in an unrhymed

Stanza, high above the space of this digital

World, like a deplorably delated dinosaur

 

 

Self-Portraying

 

As a toddler, you began to scrabble wherever

Your little hands could reach. Later on, you

Sketched a bird-like picture in your youth

Until you became a grown up when you work

Every day on each detail, adding a few fine

Lines here, or throwing a drop of paint there

 

The portrait does not

Really look like you, though it’s an authentic

Manifestation of your true self. Once you

Finish it, your children will hang it high on

A whitewashed wall, where there would be

A spider working hard to catch a fly or ant

Beyond the web, or above your signature

 

 

 

Who Sees Which?

 

          We watch stars only at night

But they observe us attentively even

On broad daylight just as Plato might wish

 

While you are looking for the star to match

Your spiritron in the summer sky, there is

An illuminating soul trying to locate you now

 

 

 

 

Journeying  

 

The journey starting

At an old African tree

& ending somewhere

At the settlement on Mars

 

Is as long as full of pitfalls

& hardships as enjoyable

& even beautiful

As the one starting

 

At one mind & ending

At another, or starting

& ending at the one

& same heart, is it not?

 

 

Tips for Becoming a Great World Citizen in the e.Age

 

1. Don’t argue with any numbers, but just follow the google algorithm;
2. Abide by American interest rather than international law;
3. Whatever game Uncle Sam is up to play, join the team led by him;
4. Always shore up the green back, white face and purple heart;
5. Remember: information is always might, whereas power is always right;
6. Only Yankees can set fires, while you are never allowed to light a candle;
7. Subject all your speech acts to AmEnglish syntax, including your local slangs;
8. Be accommodating to any investments from Wall Street;
9. It is imperative to baptise your souls in the currents of freedom & democracy;
10. Never try to come close to the super boss like soviets, japs or chinamen…

 

 

Dialectics about Hell & Heaven

 

Depending who you really are

Not what you have actually done

While pursuing your next dream

Be it American or Chinese:

 

If you are a tourist of some kind

Hell is as accommodating as heaven

But if you are a permanent resident

Heaven can be as torturing as hell

 

 

Getting Along: A Bilingualcultural Poem

 

In Chinese, 朋友，恋人，& 爱人 are all

12-stroked characters, just as their counter-

Parts friend, couple & spouse are 6-lettered

Words in the imperial vocabulary of English

 

Though they are all underlined with human

 

Love and loyalty, the former entails twice

As much input or effort of the heart

As the latter to maintain a disparately

Similar humane relationship as a speech act

 

 

Like Onion

 

No innerself really changes

In time or space, except

 

The masks becoming worn out

& peeling off one after another

 

 

Nice to See You

 

Means nothing before you are

Greeted for a second time

 

Hours, days, months, or even years

Later on a hummingbird-like spot

 

 

Teenaging in the Country

 

The sun shines brightly on everyone

Running around during the daytime

 

But the moon always follows me alone

When I sneak with wind into darkness

 

 

Not for Sale

 

He had never managed to find a book publisher, but

Right before his demise, he had all his manuscripts

Piled on a boulder beside a flowering pine tree

On a hilltop, knowing the mist would edit them into

 

A complete volume, a gust of wind would turn to

The page of his best, a flock of migratory birds would

Recite it aloud against rising sun as their chanting

Echoes long along the summer stream until the whole

 

   Mountain range is to remember it by heart

 

 

 

Visa Officer Might Have This to Say

            (On the basis of the 10 top words of 2020 newly selected by Collins Dictionary.)

 

Issued by a country locked down, your passport

Is simply invalid, though it makes everything clear

 

About you as a key worker, about your travel plan

Even about your TicToking activities; perhaps

 

From the furloughed generation of earthlings? You

Came with Megxit, you saw mukbang, & you are waiting

 

For the human species to self-isolate in the cyperspace

Including Laozi, Shakespeare, Einstein, each & every one

 

Socially distanced from Gaxyland, where you wish to

See what is beauty, good, & truth beyond the borders

 

Yet you are totally a mistake in this un-traveling season

Like God, like language, like coronavirus itself

 

 

 

Tunneling Effect

 

    Like a quantum

Let my spiritrons penetrate the high wall

Of your heart, as well as that of another

Parallel universe, not just to see the secrets

There but to be one of them

 

 

Macrospiritualism  

 

As my heart beats with the rhythm of history

My mind expands beyond the borders of

 

The cosmos and my body decomposes into

Dust as tiny as this earth.

 

     What is i if not

The singularity?

 

 

 

Reason

 

Your cat gazes at the limbo, for which

You have been arguing for the past

Week before reaching the conclusion

                            

You kept turning to her to share your

Thinking in delight. She enjoys sniffing

At your premise and syllogism

 

As you stretch your train of thought

Into rationalization. In your bloated presence

She searches your scattered feelings with its

 

Soft whiskers, & starts licking your face. Then

She stalks behind the shadow of your lost

Feel, sneaking into the basement, where you

 

Know she is playing with your calmness

As if trying to leave your mind alone, where

She lies down in free meditation about  

 

How to get as far away

As any other cat distancing herself far

Beyond your heartmosphere

           

2020, 9, 21 [Monday]

 

The Year of Double Twenty

 

Turns out high time for all to stand still, as  

I stay at home every day, trying to find

How to hold my stream of consciousness

 

& a ship floats around beyond the harbor

Anchoring itself among sharks and whales

Swimming against dark blue undercurrents

 

There is also a fully loaded truck parked

By the roadside, like an old thought lost

In a heavy traffic held up long at twilight

 

& airplanes perching amidst the trees. There is

An unmasked woman in the adjacent house

Siting motionlessly, as if pondering whether

 

To reset her clock, like a lonely traveler

Hesitating which road to take, or God Him-

Self pausing to reset Earth on a new orbit  

 

 

Connotations of the Chinese Character 人/Human

 

Since I am a direct descendant of Homo Erectus, let me

Stand straight as a 人/human , rather than kneel down

 

When two humans walk side by side, why to coerce one

Into obeying the other like a slave fated to 从/follow?

 

Since three humans can live together, do we really need

A leader or ruler on top of us all as a 众/group?

 

Born with all the freedom granted to a human

Why keep me within high walls like a prisoner/囚?

 

 

I vs 我:  Another Bilinguacultural Poem

 

The first person singular pronoun, or this very

Writing subject in English is I , an only-letter

Word, standing straight like a pole, always

Capitalized, but in Chinese, it is written with

Lucky seven strokes as 我 , with at least 108

Variations, all of which can be the object case

At the same time.

     Originally, it’s formed from

The character 找, meaning ‘pursuing’, with one

Stroke added on the top, which may well stand for

Anything you would like to have, such as money

Power, fame, sex, food, or nothing if you prove

Yourself to be a Buddhist practitioner inside out

 

 

The Unspeakable Spoken Out: for Qi Hong

 

         After a deep deep breath

Out of the back back yard

Of my heart, I blow each &

Every filament of thought of you

(Not unlike Li Shangyin’s silk worm)

Stained with my spiritrons high

& higher up into the mid-

Summer wind       

                         In which to dance

The wildest dance, to the freest tune of

The blue sky, as it sweeps over an

Entire forest without leaving

     A single fragment of shadow

 

 

Who knows it will reach you in the heart of

Your world, embracing you fully in the most

Tender moment of night, caressing your whole

Being inside out with its finest numerous

Fingers. All invisible, all un-hearable

 

 

Retiring

 

During my long swim across the straight

My body has totally exhausted, bruises all

Over, rotten from head to toe, ready to

Dissolve among cutting waves of night, but  

 

My soul has survived as it finally comes

Ashore, naked like a lost migrating bird

Pecking at its own shadow on the beach, not

Knowing how

To fly with a pair of featherless wings

 

 

Standing Still for Survival

 

Long long before long ago, Earth

Was originally set within a koru

 

Unfurling at every antlike moment

Directly towards the sun, until

Now it is too overloaded

With evil spirits & viruses

 

To continue revolution as it

    Tries to return to itself

 

 

Yuan’s Funeral

 

At this end: his funeral is simply unneeded

Since he had no friend, nor did any women

Really love him (except his mother?), his

Children will in no time forget his features

Just as his few readers his poetry. Definitely  

He came, he aged, & he vanished, always in

Silence, with obscurity, along oblivion. Yet

 

At the other end: his soul is receiving

A warmest welcome as the party celebrates

His gracious escape from body-earth to

Join all the high-minded or upper-spirited

Among shadowless lights & mindful music

His protobeing sits high up there, talking &

Laughing with immortal nobles in Gaxyland

 

 

Englese: A Sonnet in Found Chinglish Sayings

You really know English? Know is know, noknow is noknow.

Every student should good good study, day day up.

You have seed. I will give you some color to see see.

You and me, we two who and who?

They are no three no four people.

You ask me, me ask who?      

It is always people mountain people see there.

 

If you want money, I have no; if you want life, I have one!

Doing things should not horse horse tiger tiger!

Dragon born dragon, chicken born chicken, mouse'son can make hole!

I give you face you don't wanna face, you lose your face, I turn my face

You should open the door see mountain.

He has one leg with somebody, and she also has one leg with somebody.

Please take care of pubic sanitation!

 

 

Tips/Idiosyncracies: A Metasonnet

 

      Experience is the best riches for any writing subject

Bow to no masters and avoid any mfa seminars

Focus on language, thought, feeling & leave stories to others

Take up your pen only when inspired enough to do

Just scribble down whatever bursts out of your heart

Use the –ing form for the title to capture the moment

Change the line to keep up with the beat of your inner heart

Make an ‘eye’ in each poem & shorten it to less than 25 lines

Keep revising or rewriting in the process of precipitation

Try to write variations on the same title or subject matter

Make blanket-submissions like a programmed robot

Ignore any editorial ignorance, rejections or rudeness

            That’s how poems can be authored, even really good ones

            That’s how I have become a poetry author, even a good one

 

 

Chinese

 

Is just one of the many settlements in English

 

Much smaller than Latin, French, Yiddish, even Algonquian

     But what it encodes, like the worshipping of power

 

    Guanxi, mianzi, the lack of interest in equality, freedom, or

The rule of law, social justice, religion, as well as the upholding

Of the secular & the very fleshly, keeps gaining popularity

 

  Among all speakers of the language, touching every

Soul, polluting each context like Californian forest fire. True

 

     The Chinese characters, with their elusive intonations

Can never occupy the smallest island, but they are posing

The greatest threat because the vivid ideograms

    Have a ready appeal to the human body & mind

 

As they both keep falling, & falling further

 

2020, 8, 22 [Saturday]

 

Within, With & In

 

              Like one layer after another of

An onion that can be peeled from outside

There’s always one story after another hidden

Within the story, one dream after another

Within the dream, one truth after another

Within the truth, & one universe after another

Within the universe, each as sharp to the eye

                                         Just as to the mind

 

 

 

Feathering

           

         Many a soul is feathered

With hope to fly from an enclosed space

Darkened to light at the very moment

When twilight engulfs all shapes

Wrapped thickly by uncertainties     

 

But my body is winged with words

Among which my soul will never get lost

Even in an inner butterfly effect

     As I flap my wings against darkness

 

 

Long

 

Some say the only human construction on earth

Visible from the moon is the Long Wall, while

     Others claim art is long, but longer

Than the borderline of the cosmos & even

More so than time or space per se is the radius

     Of a thought held at the tongue tip

 

 

Close to Me

 

Is surely my soulmate, but even

Closer is my own spirit, & the

 

Very closest is my other self

Living in a parallel gaxyland

 

 

 

Encountering  

 

When two humans crash into each other

They fall deeply in either love or hatred

 

When two freight trains clash head on

They are both derailed in destructions

 

When two clouds (or civilisations)

Collide, they become assimilated (?)

 

 

 

Traffic Lights

 

As human civilisation keeps driving forward

We often forget to stop at the red light, or

Just proceed with caution at yellow

 

But now we are all made to stand still, as if

Feeling at loss about what to do when

     A black light is blinking among viruses

 

 

Same wording: English Spelling vs Chinese Syntax

 

钱是没有问题Money is having no problem

 

问题是没有钱Problem is having no money

 

有钱是没问题 Having money is no problem

 

没有钱是问题Having no money is problem

 

问题是钱没有Problem is having no money

 

钱没有是问题 Having no money is problem

 

 

 

Were I Not One of Homo Sapiens

 

    I would prefer to be a tree

Standing alone yet firmly all my life

Enjoying plenty of sunshine, flirting             

With each bird dropping by, remaining

Straight, uplifting & in deep meditation

As numerous animals come and go with

Summer storms or ice ages, since I can live

A far longer life, almost immortal

   With a much higher heart

 

Or I might as well have been a wolf, lower-

Bodied & lower-minded, but never

Telling lies, eating my fellow wolfs alive

Trying to ruin the whole earth, or

  Dreaming about tomorrow

 

Alas, I am a bat-like mammal, spreading

      Viruses viciously while flying blindly

 

 

Insomnia Imaginings  

 

1/

Diving, diving through the darkness of tonight

I am trying to reach tomorrow on the other side

 

2/   

 

A breeze has just blown itself away

Tracelessly, but from the distant copse

I hear the summer leaves gurgling

 

(Like my little sweetheart) & gurgling

 

Over the sound waves, my inner boat

Sails forward as if driven by the wind

To the shore beyond the horizon of hope

 

3/  

 

Walking around the heart of twilight

I found myself like a long lost key

Without knowing which door

To open for the night

 

4/

 

Caged within the grove, the song

Of an unknown bird flaps its wings

Hard against freedom, its feathers

Drifting around in midair, like a light

Bomb exploded above the treetops

 

Falling down on this line of poetry

Where music notes keep dancing

    At the heart of komorebi

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow, Church

 

At the heart of my second hometown

Stands a private church I’ve built for myself

Where I frequent not just to say my prayers

But to sing my psalms, make confessions &

Try to convert my secular being preoccupied

With fears, regrets, sorrows, jealousies

Worries, despondence, shame and hatred, all

Into a hyper being full of Buddhist wisdom.

 

  While half

Of me lives down here within this mission of

Poetry, the other half keeps diving through

Darkness to morrow, the other side of night

 

 

 

 

The Only Future Concern

 

When I am gone with a cloud

Shall I leave my soul behind?

 

If so,

Who is to take care of it?

 

 

On Death

 

Death is not a penalty on your physical body

Rather, it is a reward to your spiritual being

 

Death is not the end of all your pasts

But the start towards your other future

 

Death is a stone thrown into the pond of your

World, where it serves to raise its water level

 

Death is an admittance to a party full of joy

Which will never disperse in the light spot

 

Death is the most enjoyable moment of truth

When you can get all the answers confirmed

 

Death is the account with the highest rate 

Where you redeem all your investments

 

Death offers you the best chance to live again

While others may have died once and for all

 

 

So What?

 

So, I am not young or strong

Let alone handsome or sexy. So what?

 

But still I got a human body

With every human right

 

So, I do not have a car or home

Let alone fame or power. So what?

 

But still I have plenty of sunlight

Besides a true human heart

 

So, I have never had any close friends

Let alone a woman’s true love. So what?

            But still I’ve had all my mother’s care

Which I can doubly return to the world  

 

                           

 

 

2020,7,10 [friday]

 

The Third Ear

 

With this gaxy ear, one can clearly hear

The gurgling passion circulating wildly

Within your veins, the whims bubbling

On the bog of her consciousness, the heart

Beat of a new black hole, the whispers

From tri-colored tulips in a secret garden

The melody of a muted peak among Rocky

Mountains, the rhythms of fresh sprouts

Shooting from the spring soil, the laughter of

A distant streamlet from glaciers, the calls of

A blue whale jumping out of the heart of

The Pacific, the songs of the autumn sunlight

Glimmering at a cloud’s edge, the chore of

A whole universe parallel to our own, yes

 

Indeed, in the depth of darkness, among

Fragmented silences, from pink noises

Simply beyond human hearing, I can hear

Any & all such sounds, only if I want to

 

 

The Biggest Happiest Surprise

 

   In life is no other than tomorrow

As is preordained with myriad possibilities, including

Such as an unexpected piece of good news from a certain

Source, or a certain piece of good news from

An unexpected source or, rather, the very likelihood

Of the next few moments when you feel happy about this:

As long as you manage to get up again, there’ll surely

Be one good peace of news after another waiting for you

 

 

No Road Is Straight

 

      Otherwise, human history would not

Have been so full of turns, nor would

 

The human heart have been so twisted

More important, the earth would never

 

Have been so tied like the Gordian knot

(To be cut with Alexandre’s sword again?)

 

 

Small

 

What a naked eye can see

  Can be so small –

A speck of dust wrapped with

Human wantonness and ignorance

Refusing to vanish, but hung close

To mid-air at this antlike moment

(Like the earth in the cosmos)

No creatures would

Notice it, except some perception

Entangling with it afar

In an infinitesimal corner of

The human mind, each being

  A planet in its own right

 

 

Between Time & Space

 

As time progresses infinitely

In space, & space expands

Infinitely in time, anything

Everything is becoming possible

As a particle of infinity while new

Newer & newest universes are

Being born one after another

Like hope, like thought

Like tomorrow, each of such 

Finity contributing to infinity  

 

 

Learning

 

All my life I have been learning

Just one thing:

To smile to death

 

From my first cry to my last smile

Any other lesson is but a selective

Course on emotional management

 

 

Again, Looking Forward

 

I am biting time in darkness

I am biting darkness in time, silently

 

Counting the stars high above the double-

Glazed skylight of my mind, waiting

For the day to break again with just another

Happy surprise popping up on the small screen

Such as a greeting from my lost first love

An acceptance email from a magazine editor

A report about the vaccine against the virus

A green color twinkling across American markets

A quiet morning on the Indian-Pakistan

Frontline, all among other little exciting

Possibilities while

 

Darkness is biting me in time, &

                        Time biting me in darkness, silently

 

 

 

The Fish Framed within the Photo

 

Keeps wondering whether

To return to the heart of

The Pacific, or to swim

To the streamlet flowing

In the viewer’s mind

 

Via the tears from

A smiling or crying face

 

 

What’s Fundamentally Wrong

 

With our race?

So mean, so brutal, so destructive

To one another

To all other species

Even to our selves & gods alike

As if we does not seem to deserve

This privileged home-planet, where

 

(Individually, they can be civilised, yet

Collectively, they are all most evil beasts)

 

Let me launch my soul like a spiritron rocket

Into the deepest depth of the cosmos

To find an answer, be it ever so far-fetched

 

 

Quest in Question

 

Every soul is in search of something. So 

What are you pursuing in particular?

A first-rate education, a good job, a dream house

A short cut to success, a prosperous career

A special map, a gold mine, an effective recipe 

A magic gadget, a super talent, a passport

A secret, a key, a harbor, a connection, a savior

A nest for your heart, a soulmate, an ideal or

 

The truth, the elixir, the cure, the Way

The Dao, the meaning of life (if any at all)

The peace of mind, the human rights or

 

Freedom, equality, dignity, longevity

Health, wealth, fame, friendship, love

Sex, power, honor, knowledge, wisdom

Good, beauty, Heaven, God or happiness per se...?

 

While this list may go on forever amongst all

Such desirable things, tangible or otherwise

I have nothing to look for, except another breath

Of air to inhale, in this very antlike moment, all

The love from this universe, then to exhale

All my gratitude out of my inner being

 

 

Inner Climate

 

Even if winter never retreats from here

There’s still as much spring beauty

Summer good & autumn

Truth as I would love to enjoy

  In the backyard of my heart; or

 

If there is only spring all the time

If it is always winter here, these

Two climate conditions are equally

Boring (& impossible) - the richness of

Life comes from the four seasons changing

Constantly & alternatively throughout the year.

 

 

Politics of Pronouns

 

Even if you is her

Only if I are you

As if they is he

If it am I

 

If only we were us

If

 

 

Personal Poetry Points (july10, 10:40-45 am)

 

Instead of tea, coffee, wine, or even water sometimes, I drink poetry only.

 

I can go well without anything, including clothing or sheltering, but not without poetry.

 

I’d rather remain an unknown author of great poetry than become a great author of unknown poetry.

 

If my poetry were to win a wide appreciative readership posthumously as in the case of John Keats or Emily Dickinson, I would, just as I could, readily die a happy death now.