Poetry
To write a piece, I sink myself into a deep trance, grasp the images, withdraw and link them together. This process is a back and forth loitering between the conscious and the subconscious mind. These creative moments only come once every decade.
MY PHOTO ALBUM
Somewhere in the presence of silence,
the shutter inhaled a brief two second.
Finger prints once ran along the contour of a reflection,
oily and rich as a dialogue,
one that surpass the line of time, short, yet immense,
one that never could evade from the same fate of being broken circles,
now dried up in concrete, incomplete rings,
lie beside my stare, staring back at me
in innocence.
That saying face,
still held in metamorphosis,
with its brilliance in seizure,
in a continuing dance deep within;
within the woven tangles,
within the maze of possibilities,
managed to break a smile before I closed my eyes,
leaving a thought or two on the arc of
my conscious face.
The character in profile
stretched over the vast wall,
as the ray of the setting sun elevated it
from a distant horizon,
exaggerated in power,.
larger than life,
overcast my future,
left a revelation ‘brinks’ in this tiny drop of a minute.
The droplets of soda slowly went up the straw, still glittered,
as the lips closed leaving
a wrinkle by the end of a dimple,
on a rainy day in the last of deep September.
This city, captured in this blue evening,
by two vertical icicles,
drip their remains onto my worn out shoes,
while the dampness
runs up my untied shoelaces, colds my socks,
then my feet,
to every thread,
to every follicle.
These images never leave,
but emerging, at times,
telling the flares to an only me.
FEB 2012
BOJA BIEDA
With the buoyancy of a spore,
Your airy sincerity touched.
Gone!
So quick, all so sudden.
Before words can be fully sent,
This tenderness has vanished,
With the flow of a fainting breath.
So clam, so quiet.
Still air, lies.
Fading shades of colours dripping from my heart,
Like a thousand phrases painted onto nothingness.
What else is there to carve but the figure,
Permanently immobilized, saying the words,
I love you.
Fall 1987
Your airy sincerity touched.
Gone!
So quick, all so sudden.
Before words can be fully sent,
This tenderness has vanished,
With the flow of a fainting breath.
So clam, so quiet.
Still air, lies.
Fading shades of colours dripping from my heart,
Like a thousand phrases painted onto nothingness.
What else is there to carve but the figure,
Permanently immobilized, saying the words,
I love you.
Fall 1987
12 ETUDES
Pacing on the walls of light in space,
I am not afraid but an scared to say,
Will she be here?
Would she not have?
I know. I know?
Is this for me?
It is mine.
From it can I give a grain of time?
Never is the brilliant part of my clouded mind.
Click, click. Stood, the world. Stroke two.
Is she here yet? She is not.
For soothe, the curtains are drawn to wail and wail again.
Slip to the edge of the rusticated wall. The message is at hand.
Her name is the name. Forgotten, have I?
How? And why? I cry.
Heavy feelings filled my stomach,
I drowsed and drowsed and refrained.
Lowered my pillow, deep in my vein,
Hazy sky of uncertain folds,
Dropped lightly onto my misty green grass,
There, I walked from the cove to the light of the day.
As soon as the uttered sound of triumph met the air,
Then, I collapsed.
My body in my soul, can’t bear.
Yesterday was a thinker,
Today is a mule.
Tomorrow, a father?
Under the shadow of the grass,
All appear like a forever indebted bill.
Will who care for the today of tomorrow?
Will you care, my dear, with sorrow?
Into forever, I went.
Lost my way to home.
Home is where? In my heart!
No, no, I surrender, I retreat.
Till when shall I wait for the moment?
The moment – to give, to take, to give.
Our eyes met.
They meet again.
Just like our personality.
Just like our habits.
But time would not allow.
But nothing could stop us.
They have loved.
Our eyes met.
Could I ever live a full life,
Without the touching of your soul?
When the shiny tiles of my heart began to crack,
And the breath of love leaked and flows.
This is the time when my life belongs to the muse,
Begging not to kill the only heart,
Left for humanity to abuse.
Frozen to the music of the Funeral March,
My love would not reach me. Neither would I .
I am dead.
But when the warmth of the sunlight arch
Touches the coldness of my past,
The music begins.
Depressing sunlight shone on my face,
As if calling me to meet its fate.
Why is the sky so blue still?
Is there a way I haven’t unsealed?
Tell me how to love!
Stares into memories, in bed, I cried,
On my pillow until the sun is high,
Thinking of the shadow of light from yesterday.
At a loss for love,
I dug my silent grave.
For fifty two days, there I lay,
Watching the sunrises and sunsets,
Asking and asking till I am exhausted.
Then I depart, to give the poet
his life.
Fall 1987
I am not afraid but an scared to say,
Will she be here?
Would she not have?
I know. I know?
Is this for me?
It is mine.
From it can I give a grain of time?
Never is the brilliant part of my clouded mind.
Click, click. Stood, the world. Stroke two.
Is she here yet? She is not.
For soothe, the curtains are drawn to wail and wail again.
Slip to the edge of the rusticated wall. The message is at hand.
Her name is the name. Forgotten, have I?
How? And why? I cry.
Heavy feelings filled my stomach,
I drowsed and drowsed and refrained.
Lowered my pillow, deep in my vein,
Hazy sky of uncertain folds,
Dropped lightly onto my misty green grass,
There, I walked from the cove to the light of the day.
As soon as the uttered sound of triumph met the air,
Then, I collapsed.
My body in my soul, can’t bear.
Yesterday was a thinker,
Today is a mule.
Tomorrow, a father?
Under the shadow of the grass,
All appear like a forever indebted bill.
Will who care for the today of tomorrow?
Will you care, my dear, with sorrow?
Into forever, I went.
Lost my way to home.
Home is where? In my heart!
No, no, I surrender, I retreat.
Till when shall I wait for the moment?
The moment – to give, to take, to give.
Our eyes met.
They meet again.
Just like our personality.
Just like our habits.
But time would not allow.
But nothing could stop us.
They have loved.
Our eyes met.
Could I ever live a full life,
Without the touching of your soul?
When the shiny tiles of my heart began to crack,
And the breath of love leaked and flows.
This is the time when my life belongs to the muse,
Begging not to kill the only heart,
Left for humanity to abuse.
Frozen to the music of the Funeral March,
My love would not reach me. Neither would I .
I am dead.
But when the warmth of the sunlight arch
Touches the coldness of my past,
The music begins.
Depressing sunlight shone on my face,
As if calling me to meet its fate.
Why is the sky so blue still?
Is there a way I haven’t unsealed?
Tell me how to love!
Stares into memories, in bed, I cried,
On my pillow until the sun is high,
Thinking of the shadow of light from yesterday.
At a loss for love,
I dug my silent grave.
For fifty two days, there I lay,
Watching the sunrises and sunsets,
Asking and asking till I am exhausted.
Then I depart, to give the poet
his life.
Fall 1987
A VISIT
Long ago
The seventeenth minute within a hollow shelter.
By the Church door
On Glenealy Road.
There!
A leaning cane proceeded.
A mist draped in long heavy wrinkled garment.
Wobbling in.
Yawning incidentally.
And rest on top of the porch.
The people inside sang
In an identical hum
The unison, dominating and bouncing from every end,
The people exhaled their deepest baritone, a note swarmed the air.
This chant of distant echoes spiraled through the doorsteps and hallways, upwards and downwards, circling under the heavy and dusty morning ray, seeking for a reply.
It turned its back and impressed with a grin by the southern railing.
As the wind sets in from all corners and directions,
The squeaking door hinges responded.
Silent! It stood there,
At a loss and all of a sudden.
Recalling the story once unfolded:
The reason behind a kindred purr
And the longing for a whistle blow.
It then headed far and away
And through the hesitant insect wings that wailed high up in the air in clumps.
Avoiding the yellowish aura, the cane proceeded with undivided care.
‘Oh, my poor pounding heart!
It saturates each second…
And lived through the every between pauses…’
The minute hand still limped in circles as it was born for.
Continuing its ceaseless and endless stroll,
The cane began to thump afar.
Fall 2006
The seventeenth minute within a hollow shelter.
By the Church door
On Glenealy Road.
There!
A leaning cane proceeded.
A mist draped in long heavy wrinkled garment.
Wobbling in.
Yawning incidentally.
And rest on top of the porch.
The people inside sang
In an identical hum
The unison, dominating and bouncing from every end,
The people exhaled their deepest baritone, a note swarmed the air.
This chant of distant echoes spiraled through the doorsteps and hallways, upwards and downwards, circling under the heavy and dusty morning ray, seeking for a reply.
It turned its back and impressed with a grin by the southern railing.
As the wind sets in from all corners and directions,
The squeaking door hinges responded.
Silent! It stood there,
At a loss and all of a sudden.
Recalling the story once unfolded:
The reason behind a kindred purr
And the longing for a whistle blow.
It then headed far and away
And through the hesitant insect wings that wailed high up in the air in clumps.
Avoiding the yellowish aura, the cane proceeded with undivided care.
‘Oh, my poor pounding heart!
It saturates each second…
And lived through the every between pauses…’
The minute hand still limped in circles as it was born for.
Continuing its ceaseless and endless stroll,
The cane began to thump afar.
Fall 2006
CUBICLES
A ball flew in and rolled away.
Where is the rainbow at the end of the day?
We live in our separate cubicles.
Day and night, months upon years.
Mormons came and Buddha knocked.
The minds spell forsaken,
And miles their way at large.
Body-filled stiffness, yawns and all,
our eyes pinned to the only clock when all is lost.
Within that constant motion,
Circles completed upon circles,
one by one.
For better days or for a tragic end?
Then she,
enters one day.
and happiness glides,
when art truly flies,
The muse starts to giggle
And time suddenly lies.
Our eyebrows spring and our hearts do wiggle,
Our essence drips to our finger tips.
Playful hearts,
all in gather,
on every level.
Ecstasy filled.
How it sailed us!
It simply came.
Then, she left,
We know not why.
We could only sigh.
A loss once more named! June 2011
Where is the rainbow at the end of the day?
We live in our separate cubicles.
Day and night, months upon years.
Mormons came and Buddha knocked.
The minds spell forsaken,
And miles their way at large.
Body-filled stiffness, yawns and all,
our eyes pinned to the only clock when all is lost.
Within that constant motion,
Circles completed upon circles,
one by one.
For better days or for a tragic end?
Then she,
enters one day.
and happiness glides,
when art truly flies,
The muse starts to giggle
And time suddenly lies.
Our eyebrows spring and our hearts do wiggle,
Our essence drips to our finger tips.
Playful hearts,
all in gather,
on every level.
Ecstasy filled.
How it sailed us!
It simply came.
Then, she left,
We know not why.
We could only sigh.
A loss once more named! June 2011
A poem in Chinese created in 1995