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