Yuan Hongqi, may your spirit, Dad, come
And join us from Pure Land in this poem
(Conceived in and dedecated to Vancouver)
With Liu Yu, my mother, who is paying us
A visit from the other side of the world
Let’s gather together behind these thin lines
Where I and Hengxiang Liao, my old girl
Have prepared a big dinner according to
Our own recipes. Please, sit here with Mom
Above my central metaphor. First, take a sip
Of Luosong Soup, our only family specialty
George Lai and Allen Qing, my two sons
Always love to drink, even Hyunjung Lee
(George’s Korean wife) finds it agreeable --
By the way, the young couple has finally
Decided to buy a condominium in Sunnydale
Now, try some consonance, and this assonance
Fried with Tofu, a course you never heard of
In your lifetime. Look, right beside you is
Julian Han Yuan, your most favored grandson
The pride of our family who’s doing his PhD
In New York, and across the table are Liu Yun
My brother and his current wife Chen Jing
Still working far away in Jingzhou, China
Dad, since you were a vegetarian, a Buddhist
Let’s have internal rhyme instead of wine, let’s
Celebrate our grand family reunion. Cheers!
-12:12PM12December
Do not worry
Do not panic, pal
Right before the milky way collides
With andromeda galaxy
They will surely return here
In time, to collect all the valuables
Of this unique planet, (quite like old Adam)
Such as Shakespeare’s folios
Picasso or Qi Baishi’s paintings
Each Nobel Prize winner’s eggs or sperms
Every American president’s signatures
As well as your great poem or patent
And other worthiest human artifacts
Tangible or otherwise, transporting them
Into another universe, where They will surely
Create and recreate an other intelligent race, raising them
Teaching them how to appreciate Earthlings’ fame and power, where
They will surely be created like Jesuses, Allahs or Buddhas
What I am trying to say, Pal, is just rest assured
-SevenTheses
- The ultimate answers to all miracles and mysteries lie more in the way religions are created than in the religions themselves.
- Humans are not the only intelligent beings in the universe, not even on the earth.
- Our holiest cause is to learn to feel and remain happy without the interference of faith.
- Fashion, fame and wealth are nothing but dirty handkerchiefs of human vanity.
- I am appalled at human stupidity: why do we all have to be deplorable slaves of our own foolish and excessive desires?
- All conflicts originate from the incompatibility between psychological ephemerality and physical constancy.
- Science and technology, like wealth, is actually unnecessary to human civilization in the strict sense of the word: while the former serves as nothing but an ever renewable form of self-entertainment, the latter as sheer luxuries.
-Skyline
-Golden teeth glistening
In the mouth of the city
Silver clouds colliding
At the tongue tip of day
Bite off all darkness
They whisper
And chew the season well.
-Strawberry
Bolder than blood
Fleshier than a whole collection
Of summer spots
You wear your heart inside out
With sun-stained seeds
We wrap your body greedily
With our tongues and minds
-Scenario
A super idea
For a winter story:
No chiseling wind
No frozen faucets
Not even snowstorms
Except fields of plum blossoms
Where gods and goddesses
Stalk behind each other’s shadow
-Oops, that’s not really the season
Let’s continue brainstorming
-Persimmon
Bursting within
Your cracking skins
Is your eager heart
A heart full of
Even more eager tongues
No, I am not eating you
But embracing your heart
Inside out
A sweet, penetrating kiss
-Subtracting: TheArtofSelf-Discovery
Take off all your garments
Peel off all your masks
Remove every tattoo on your skin
Squeeze out both thoughts and feelings
Stay naked inside out just for a while
And you will return to the original state
Of your selfhood, where you can
Touch your inner being, where you can
Observe your own soul, crying there
Like a newborn baby
-Yearning
Invisible dust, mixed with
Myriads of transparent bodies
Of your dead skin cells
Struggles to escape from your room
A rented space, first through the lock hole
Then to a freeway, further then
To a patch of sky, where they will drift
Along the horizon, where they will finally
Find or form a direction
In the far distance
-StillAtNight
In fact, there is a small but long river
I do not know where it originates, but keeps
Flowing with mud and sand
As if from a snow-caped mountain, through
The vast valley within my skin
Every summer, it detours my mind
Until one night, it almost bursts open
The dam of my will
-Humans&Sciences: FreeVerseFoundOnline
Personal Physics: Law of Inertia
An object
Not subject to any net external force
Moves at a constant velocity
And thus will
Continue moving
At its current velocity
Until some force
Causes its speed
Or direction
To change
Artistic Chemistry: Neutralization Reaction
This is
A special case, where
The base used
Is also an alkali:
When an acid
Reacts with
An alkali
It forms
A metal salt
And
Water
Family Math: Commutative Law of Addition/Multiplication]
A sum
Is not changed
At rearrangement
Of its addends
[Just as]
A product
Is not changed at rearrangement
Of its factors
-Goldbach’s Strong Conjecture: Found Verse
Every
Even
Number
Greater
Than
2
Is
The
Sum
Of
2
Primes
-The Origin of Colors
All originating from the sun
They bloom on the earth
Until they fade, one after
Another, into the bottom
Of the human eye
Like autumn leaves
Are you coming from above
Or within?
-Here in Vancouver
You will come down
To the lower mainland
Here’s everything to do, though
It is tempting to go up there
To the Grouse Mountain
Where beyond the few patches
Of spring, winter is still dressed in its best
Like a plump bride
Unlike, by now, beyond the rain zone
Coming down to this valley
Visitors have forgotten snowflakes, falling
Silently on the mountain top
But you still can recall the chill of glacier
Of last ice age
It is comforting up there, to touch
The slick skin of another season
Yet down here, you are free to roam
Snorkeling in the English Bay
Taking a sun-bath on the Kits beach
Rain-dancing in Deer Lake
Or daydreaming on Robson Square
In the heart of a suburban city, where
Summer is flirting with spring, when
Autumn is chasing winter
Like urchins, at the front yard
Of nature
-Fancy-Fengshui:-4-High-Haikus
– If in the center of your heart you build a dream home, you will settle your soul permanently to receive all the positive breath.
South:
Feathered with good fortune
The Red Phoenix spreads yang wide
Over summer fields
North:
Deep in wintry sleep
The Black Tortoise holds cold days
Long in the chang breath
West:
Wild and Disruptive
The White Tiger wrap autumn
All in the sha breath
East:
Soaring high above
The Gold Dragon blows down
The sheng breath of spring
-On-the-Ridge
At the waist of Cypress Mountain
I yelled out my heart and soul
And heard an echo, which did not seem
To be my voice, so I climbed higher
To the hilltop, where I saw
Some clouds floating like sheep
Spread afar on the prairies
Where they were all staring at me
As if I were a ghost, just like them
Drifting around in the sky
So silent, so shapeless
-The Stranger, A Stranger
Is nobody
But another mouth
Another bottomless hole that keeps
Sucking in food
And vomiting words
Is nothing
But another number
Another series of numbers
Is really no body
But just another you
Another me
-The-Scene
What a wonder drama, where
The actors and actresses are both
Audiences, when the audiences are
Either actors or actresses, except perhaps me
And me alone, who is
Neither an actor
Nor an audience
Like Father, like Sun
-Matching: Red-Symbolism
East West
Success Sin
Fortunate Fire
Wedding Evil
Happy Blood
Loyal Guilty
Revolutionary Rose
Honorable Passion
Courageous Love
Southern Anger
Summer Melancholy
Festival Mars
Week: destinies
Monday
-Monday’s child is fair of face
Beginning of endless beginnings
When we start running between
Sun shine and electric light, caring
No more about the moon on moon’s day
Tuesday
-Tuesday’s child is full of grace
Under Tiw’s rule, every law is
Established to stage war upon
The unlucky, who keep setting
Fires to avoid miss fortunes
Wednesday
-Wednesday’s child is full of woe
Right in the middle of laboring
Even god of mercury turns green
As it persists in fasting
Far beyond the hump
Thursday
-Thursday’s child has far to go
God of thunder, man of wonder
We will continue despite hunger
Until we cannot go any farther
Or uphold our spirits together
Friday
-Friday’s child is loving and giving
POETS day, TGIF, Day of Venus
Unlucky for those trying to catch
A few fish in the open sea, but lucky
For whoever is swimming ashore
Saturday
-Saturday’s child works hard for a living
Though confined to their earthy coffins
All vampires are eager to go hunting
Both within the nightmares of mad dogs
And outside the shrinking orbit of Saturn
Sunday
- The child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
East or west
All for a rest
When wanderers doze off in the sky
Meditators wake up to a distant cry
-BOY G. BIV: A-Comparative-Study-of-Rainbow-Hues
-Is it the sun or the eye that makes our world as colorful as it is?
1/ Red: Thinner than blood
But warmer than fire
Brighter than roses
2/ Orange: As smooth as amber
But bolder than a tiger’s stripes
Wilder than withering autumn
3/ Yellow: Lighter than Chinese soil
But more enduring than their skin
More straightforward than the Huang River
4/ Green: As fresh as seasonal breaths
But more bountiful than summer fruits
Slicker than leaves facing towards the sun
5/ Blue: Shallower than the sea
But more compact than a blonde’s pupils
More spacious than the western sky
6/ Indigo: As sensitive as the sixth chakra
But more archaic than a herbal dye
More popular than the American Bunting
7/ Violet: As harmonious as yin and yang balanced
But more fragrant than lilac
Nobler than nobles
-Choppy-Sticky-Chopsticks
Yes, yes, yeah, we are simply too barbaric
To enjoy the delicacy of raw snails or oysters
With steel forks and knives
But we are certainly civilized enough to chop
To stick cats, dogs, snakes, frogs
Ants, rats, pupae, anything that moves
With more than one leg, and we love
To eat pig ears, cow tongues, goat penises
Shark fins, sparrow nests, chicken hearts
Duck feet, and all other living corpses inside out
With our mouths open from ear to ear
Chewing plants as noisily as we like
Sucking noodles and soup like pigs
Yeah, we are what we eat, how we eat
When, where and why we eat
What I say, pal, is this simple fact:
Chopping and sticking makes our fingers more adept
Just as chopsticks make us fitter to survive and succeed
More important, they have turned us from carnivores to herbivores
Though still more primitive than you fork users and knife wavers
-Boundary
The sun builds a bold buffer
Between day and night, yet
Leaves a thin limbo between
See and sky, where I was caught back
Each time I try to fly away
From this ever extending line
-Each-Word-I-Want to Pick
Has a deep pecking dent
Like the ripest apricot
Hanging high on the tree
In the backyard of my home
-Bound: A-Karma-Poem
No, you do not owe me anything
But you have to pay me back
With all your love and labor
For the loan I lent you long ago
In you previous life
-Getting-Lost
God says I am a man
Man says I am a ghost
Though I am neither
but a surly spirit
Trying to locate a human shape
Where I can settle down
Like a baby crow flapping
Its young wings against dusk
Hoping to find a spring twig
To perch for the cold night
-Telephone-Ring: A-Double-Century-Lament
You most imprudent trespasser
On a private lawn, you most
Tyrannical ruler of
The household, each time
You ring, you sound like
An old dying father making
A loud name call
No son or daughter can
Turn a deaf ear to you
Nor can I afford to wait
Just a single moment
Even when I am busy
Sowing seeds in my girl’s most fertile field
Dreaming about winning the biggest jackpot
Making an e.transaction to avoid bankruptcy
Writing the best line for the poem of my life
Or fumbling my way directly to heaven
Yes, you are the most disturbing invention of humankind
Most necessary evil in the heart of my home
-Sexual-Circuit
deeply
plugged
into
each
other
we
begin
to
flash
inside
out
once
we
are
switched
on
-E
born to be a double reed
that can be bent into a long vowel
the most frequently used letter
in english, echoing endlessly in silence
if pulled down, it offers two doors
one leading to Soul via will, the other
to Him via wisdom; if turned up right
it forms a mountain with three peaks
like three holy swords, pointing high
against the sun, the moon, and the sky
Facing always towards the east, it embraces
existence, equality, eternity, emancipation...
-Picking-Blueberries
in the sweltering fields of juicy july
they get so sexually agitated
all their nibbles become bloated
with purple ripeness, eager
to be caressed, eager
to be sucked
-Studying-History
from malt of memoirs
and hops of hope
you tried to make wine
though more often than not
it tastes like vinegar
-The-White-House
is neither really white
nor a true house
but rather, a graffitied
gas station
right beside
the american highway
-Window:-The-Wind's-Eye
not every wall has a window
to let in fresh air, sunlight
to display a patch of sea or sky
but every window has to be opened
on a wall, to block fog, noises
to keep humans connected with the landscape
with the real, even in their wildest dreams
cave people had doors only, and
only we can peep through a window
or escape from it
-Vibrating
Did they feel a momentary trembling movement of the earth
Around 4 o'clock this morning, when they were still
Half asleep, half awake?
Have they ever felt that before?
Or, have you?
I have.
I know for sure it's neither an atrial fibrillation
Nor an earth quake, rather
It's the agitation that is well
On its way, with its seismic waves
Originated deep, deep
In the heart
Of our civilization
-The-Painter
during the day, he paints walls
and windows without paint, at night
he paints pictures or statues without a brush
between day and night
along the borderline between light and shadow
he is traveling all over the world
trying desperately
to find a brush
or some paint
he says he is no painting artist
-H:-For-Hengxiang-Liao
inspired by a fence in hell
you are invented to connect every human
for a tall ladder of hope
that we can stand high
against the blue horizon
like the Babel Tower growing to reach Him
where I can find a home in the fame hall
where I can settle my soul in heaven
-B
boy, boy! Bill begins beating Bob behind Beth's back, because Bob barely believes babies behave badly before boys become barbaric; beyond blue borders, Bill's big bully boss blatantly breaks bounds by betraying blood-bound brotherhood; but Bill's best biographer belies books braving bellicose breeds between balanced boyance. Beach birds besides boulders beget babies below beautiful bridges.
-Urban-Hermit: Fo-Tao-Yuanming
to flee afar from the sound and fury
of the fast lane, you retreat, retreating
into your tiny inner garden, where
you enjoy growing a few mums
behind your fence, though quite worn out
-O
a rope loop propped up with hope
to lasso words running amuck
a mouth reshaped, repositioned
to pronounce the roundest vowel
-U
u is surely a part of you, while
you sound no more than a single letter
u, which is nothing but a copy of a chick
you used to be on the bank of the Nile, where
u can be changed into
v within an european word as in yvan; it's said
you have the makings of a
victor, a us or un representative who begins the
uniform, university, universe.
-S
with a double hook
the sexist, the most charming shape
looking more like a naked woman
in postmodern art
than folded cloth used to cover her body
in Egyptian glyphs
always ready to
seduce
-F
as in fragrant flowers
that keep flirting with sunlight
on a fall afternoon
-P
not really a stoop
but a flag fluttering there
followed by pi rates
Relationship: To the Third Party
no sugar
no milk please
both of us like to drink
the coffee as is
even though it tastes
much bitter
when thicker
in fact, we prefer to grind and make our own
-Tree-and-Forest
if you got a strong sapling
plant it deep, deep
in the backyard of your heart
one day, its leaves and seeds
will travel afar beyond your fence
and generate patches of woods
even a whole forest
somewhere, everywhere
though you can never
budge a single inch
from where
you stand still
-Ambition
his wildest ambition ever in life
is to use his entire lifetime
(say, sixty or eighty nine years)
to add one line of poetry
or even a single word of composition
to the mega canon
co-authored
by God and you
-There-Are-Poems-and-Poems
some poems are composed in heaven
some in hell
most others in the human world
while yours is written
above heaven
below hell
and beyond the human world
-Dream-and-Poetry
There is no poetry without dreams, though few dreams with poetry.
If you keep walking
in your own shadow
you would never
stand and see
how the morning glows
of your central metaphor
will disperse the darkness
piled up
in your dreams of last night
Brotherhood:-For-Liu-Yun
how fortunate I am
to be your brother
(only occasionally visiting you
from the other side of our planet)
rather than your wife: I can never
stand your snorting
not because I would have to
choke myself constantly with insomnia
but because I would be worried to death
about the way you might stop breathing
while we are still dream-chatting
about how we were often deeply trapped
in the frog pond
of our naked boyhoods
-Pain and Gain
Like a brain tumor
this growing dream has caused
you aphasia, and
because of this loss, you will
never lose this dream
even after it's removed
-Echo
does not refer to the Greek punishment
of the obsession with one's own voice
nor is it the repetition of the same word
or the bouncing back and forth of a sound
down through the lower valley, rather
O read, Oread, soon you will hear
it is a muted thunder, an unheard song
that flashes from one corner to another
in the sky of history, where you are
the thunder, where you are the song
-Perspective
is not so much a 3 dimensional arrangement of
lines, colors, shapes, texture, composition
He made to represent the world
in human words
and feelings
as a mind
that attempts
to expose itself
to the light with a position that
you might take here and now to embrace
the sky, the sea, the earth, the plants or animals
-G
Gives us all the glories of
God, Godot, the gorilla
Amidst the gamers, constantly
Reminding us of George
The G-spot,
GPA, or GDP
-R
residing near her summer resort through entire year
Author Jennifer hears Gershwin's rhapsody every hour
before her marriage, for better or for worse
where around spring sprouts
rendering her story concerning her parents
are written from her perspective perhaps
-City-Nightscape
for now, they have all stopped
pretending to be more than chimpanzees
struggling ferociously for power, sex, fame or money
lying seemingly still on each padded shelf
under the roof of hardened darkness
is a bleeding devil
tightly enclosed within a decent
human shape, as if in a vast morgue
high above them is squatting a bloated serpent
with a body of billion eyes all viciously open
to watch for so many tiny dragons
chasing and collecting the deformed soul
trying desperately to escape
form every fleshy casket
-Iris
behind each circular curtain of our eyes
perches a colorful bird from the rainbow
always ready to lead our souls
to fly high, allowing us to see both
the bold glows in the morning sky
and the brilliance of earthly flowers
it is the little devil hidden behind the pupil
that seduces us to look at the world
only in black and white
between light and shadow
-Coastal-Call
with myriads of tongues
reaching out from its heart
the sea keeps kissing the land
as if to suck the entire continent
down into its blue love
where it attempts to cradle
the whole universe into sleep
in its endless lullaby
-Relocating
your soul has grown large, so large
you can move and settle it only in the Pacific
where it can float and drift around, swimming
like a blue whale, or remaining still
at the center of the ocean, where
no migratory birds would come down
to peck at your heart, no ships to attack you
with waves, no submarine volcanoes to agitate
your roots, except some starlight
shooting down softly on your selfhood
like an island, far and beyond
on a summer night
-The-Paradox-about-Leaves
all leaves eventually wither and fall down
not because they are strictly scientific
but because they follow patterns only
-Double-Kissing
I open
my outer mouth
to chew all your tenderness
you close
your inner mouth
to suck every bit of my hardened love
a double kiss
full of painful pleasure
-L
with an open angle
it embraces all legends
about light and lions
-K
like other baskets
you hold anything having a shape
but sand or water
* *
for all your knighthood
you keep quiet before knowledge
but never the king
-N
No, nobody knows this
But you are really no more
Or no less than the old
Egyptian metonymy of
A stream, river, lake, sea or
Even an entire ocean, where
There is always water , where
There are always fish
Rather than a synecdochic Z
Pushed straight upright
On the bank of the Euphrates
-Z
sharp-angled
in opposite directions:
you are not so much like
a weird weapon, a manacle, or
a bolt for fastening the flood
of the Nile in ancient logography
as like a postmodern zebra
zigzagging with zeal
like a zealot trying to pass
through an inflated zero
-M
despite your body
imposing as a massive mountain
you have a mindset
hidden deeply
in the wisdom of a little owl
in the plasticities of
a drop of water
-D
it is
neither a door
nor a delta
it is nothing, anything
but a hand
trying desperately
to open the door to the delta
when every reed bows down deeply
-Q
a chord, made of sunlight
instead of grass
will lead each climber to the peak
though few can find it
on the hillside
beside the question
-J
a small cobra coiled
in a big pyramid's shape
always read to bite
like Japan, like Justice
-C
a Phoenician throw-stick
held high in his right hand
the Egyptian basket
lying far beyond his reach
what was, what is
the Chinese peasant
trying to do
in his story?
-F
forwarded to the future
will be a foiled fairytale
about France, as it tries to
catch a deformed viper
with an ancient hook
-V
with the shape of victory
you are a viper in essence:
each victory is a poisonous snake
-T
the Egyptian loaf
far off the Phoenician mark
is still edible now
-X
only when two straight roads meet
at an intersection, or
only when you cross the road
crossing the border can you
understand why Christ's body is
nailed on the cross, but his soul
rises high above the land
-W
pecking around a lion
only the little chick
knows the word's worth
as it writes the worlds' story
with its feet printed on the ground
rather than on a papyrus
-Mutual-Repel
he hates betrayal
she hates tyranny
by getting a divorce
they departed from each other forever
-Immortality
do not call
to linger in the pasts
do not prepare
to live in the futures
but keep your heart and mind both open
for the cloudy sky, the rain beats, the fresh flower, the spring breeze, the glacier water
and you are living forever in the present
-Prehistorical-Life
before it exploded and expanded
that infinitesimal original volume of space
is nothing but a dense concept
drifting beyond time and space
beyond the human mind
-Prelude-in-B-Flat-Major
you
you are
you are nobody
you are nobody but bits
you are nobody but bits of pasts
you are nobody but bits of others' pasts
you are nobody but bits of other beasts' pasts, or
you are everybody but bits of other beasts' pasts
you are everybody but bits of others' pasts
you are everybody but bits of pasts
you are everybody but bits
you are everybody
you are
you
-Reading
attracts two solitary souls
like two pearls
strung in a worn-out string
rather, like two dewdrops
moving slowly towards each other
on a autumn twig
glazed with the oily dreams
of last night
in an extraterrestrial tree
-1
first formed in the far east
a horizontal line
kept moving westwards
point by point
as it rose gradually
trying to stand up straight
like the axis of the earth
to be identical with the first person singular
with or without a serif at the top
with or without a support at the bottom
until 1 and i became one and the same
presenting itself as a single unity
one that is its own factorial
its own square, its own cube, the identity
For multiplicities, each derived from tai chi or nothingness
First of all there was, there has been
-tc.
we, yuan ii, by the grace
of god, emperor and autocrat of
all english words, king of dreamland
grand duke of assonance and
consonance, author of
allen qing yuan, architect of
george lai yuan, last scribbler of
poetic lines, et cetera et cetera
et cetera et cetera etc
herein proclaim ourselves as no extra ordinary line
but an ellipsis...
-0
meaning empty (for early indians?)
or no entry (to ancient chinese?)
definitely, it is no more, or
no less than a placeholder
between you and me
nothing that can be anything
except the wheel that keeps our civilization rolling
a circle, squeezed to look taller and slenderer
a shape, less round than a hole
but it can suck in a whole world
o that we were not all living within the circle
full of emptiness
-Watercourse
like a much wider river
this small stream also has a dream
to join the same sea
as any other one that is taking short cuts
or another flowing through detours and delays
each drying up along the way
each leaving its bed fully exposed to the scorching sun
to be blown up in a dust bowl
by gusts of west wind
like your feelings, or mine
-All-Others-Looking-Small: For Du-Fu
sitting high up
at the cliff-tip
is not only the gifted eagle
but also a disabled snail
where one finds the entire world
getting deplorably small
the other listens to the wind howling aloud
yet unable to stop
to share the vast view
-Natural-Ironies
raising its sword high
above the horizon
as if to challenge the whole sky
that blade of grass
is trodden under foot, again and again
of humans or their dogs
while the huge oak tree in the valley
has been fenced
with steel and iron
to block anyone trying to trespass
among evening mists
-Rational-Rhapsody
encoded within the tremors
of a humming bird
are the thumping footsteps
of dinosaurs
dropped down to the earth
from the cloudy sky
are the myriads of wet secrets
kept in the heart of the pacific
just as a lost crow flapping
from bough to bough
is a human soul surfing along the sound
waves of earth's melody
-Soiled-Secret
in a barren corner
of his mind
grows a grotesque tree
that has neither leaf
nor skin
so naked inside out
as if to expose itself
to most possible light
both during the day and at night
-Inner-Desertization
like an unknown pristine lake
her heart used to be surrounded
by the wildest
and greenest grasses
always beaming with fish and shrimps
that never stopped swimming
until one day, it began to dry up
with all her worldly whims and wishes
leaving her entire lakebed
full of cracks and crevices
as if in a drought
that will never be
gone with the wind
-2
one line originated from the yellow river
the other from the ganges
keep flowing parallel
until they joined each other
to form an open circle
as if to embrace
all other valleys of civilization
the first magic prime number
like yin and yang combined
to draw every human dichotomy
into double happiness, since all
good things come in pairs
-3
first rotated
then curved
before they were finally connected
the same three old horizontal lines
fenced together for the climax
of the holy, the human, the hopeful
as with the trinity
for the three gems
during wudhu
to stand in as many red words
or forms of matter
since in a race anybody, anything
beyond this smallest prime number
is nobody, nothing. That's why the lines
still remain parallel in roman and chinese civilizations:
one is almost dead, vertically
the other still very much alive, horizontally
-4: Creating
just how a cross,
was joined between north and west
with a square, few know the truth
to grow in a twisted corner
where snow never smelts
winds blow in all other directions
where white shapes the solid, the touchable
inclusive indeed, like a glyph drawing all
the uncertainties to itself
always ready to bury, to create
the very outset of abstractions
the legs of the whole universe
it is believed every tetramer is a sign of
speed, strength, stability
-5
looming among the matrices
of ancient Brahmin Indians
you have come all the way
to present yourself in a bloated shape
of an equally old Chinese steelyard
rather than the Khmer glyph
with an enlarged hook
to weigh anything
even ether, even the soul
while the weight-beam is shortened
to mark our narrow senses
-6
a forgotten European flirtation with a glyph
the Ghubar Arabs borrowed from Indians
all of whom dislike its squigglish tradition
a cherished number emulating the uppercase G
not really related to home, family, responsibility
but easy and smooth, what else on the road?
-7: Spirit/Thought/Conscience
you are always lucky
though you have turned L upside down
otherwise, you would have been executed
by law, by light
-8: Sudden Fortune/Prosperity/Power/Sacrifice
first, a curved 1 from Indians
then, it was twisted until it became an S
ready to seduce, re-presenting itself like a 5
before the Arabs connected
her two closed circles
piling them one above the other
as if to round up
all sudden Chinese fortunes
-9
a question mark without a definite dot
you stand on a single curved leg
to reach the highest level of changes
more like a shrunken dragon
than a swollen lowercased g
to be close to God
among just as many worthies, bows
and circles of hell
as though all in a divine comedy
-Synesthesia
amidst glaring noises
dancing madly
around my cracking shape
i caught a cool euphony
drifting down gracefully
from the smiling sky
fragrant to the salty fingertips
of my soul
-Whale
deep from the heart of the sea
your have been singing, singing aloud
above and below the horizon
your voice reaches afar
far beyond an entire continent
though no human ear hears you
what are you singing about, whale?
-- only another whale might catch a blue note
traveling astray from your saline melody
in another universe
-Modern-Marriage
i reinvented the entire institution
as if it were a new form of
cohabitation between two humans
(yes, the number remains the same
but sexuality has become irrelevant)
like the hanging of one's very selfhood:
first, you tie your own neck with a rope
and take a deep, deeper, deepest breath
to make up your messy mind
then kick off the stool
to dance your best and last with air
until you become calm, speechless
reaching our your tongue
as though for the longest round vowel
staring at the wall, like a stuffed animal
dangling in the void
-Garments
we all wear garments
made up of names, pasts, postures
more or less, day and night
whether on a huge spotlit stage
or in a tiny dark lavatory
even in our wildest dreams
we all have some sensitive parts
to be covered by a human artifact
fashionable or otherwise
except when we take a shower
or enjoy real sex
we all need to wrap up our true selves
with layers of layers of civilization
because we are simply too beastly
if totally naked, even just for a moment
-Badge
digging deep
in the remotest corners within my body
i collect all the minerals
hidden behind my thickened heart
or close to my freak soul
and refine them into a flat alloy
which i can wear
like a red badge of courage
when i charge into the battlefield
perhaps i should have shaped it
into a sword or a dagger?
-Unheard-Thunder
only when the cawing
of the last crow
becomes totally muted
or driven out of all the fences
can we fully embrace the season
where tender is the white wild world
here ever lighter snowflakes
fall into ever heavier hearts
here in ever softer silences
the winter song
either dies out
or blasts up
into a spring thunder
-plain-meal
you were born carnivorous
always ready to gnaw at broken corpses
of a fellow animal
legged, winged, tailed
sometimes you enjoyed
chewing small insects alive
or eating a dove still dripping blood
though you are not really a vampire
but a gourmet as you call yourself
until the other day
an unknown disease turned you
into a herbivore
and taught you how to enjoy
a meatless meal
is this conversion human?
-Water-of-Life
sweat
teardrops
and what flows with blood
through my heart
all taste as salty
as seawater
to the tongue of my poetry
except the dew that glistens with morning glows
or in starlight
-The-House-of-Heart
my house is my heart
where i have invested all my emotions:
when it is plagued with ants and silverfish
i found joy in tricking them out of my premises
when rain leaks from the hallway ceiling
i had great trouble finding the source
when a tenant turned out a drug dealer
i endangered my family's physical existence
when i failed to pay my mortgage
i had to work doubly hard
not to make a living, but to make money only
in fact, my heart is my house
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