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Chen-ou Liu, CA
 

 

 

 

Haiku

 

your hand
touches mine ...
rainy clouds

 

 

wet grass
the smell of summer
in our coupled body

 

 

Valentine's Day
he lies in bed staring
at the ceiling

 

 

when thinking of her...
a June frog half-opens
its thick eyelids

 

 

Mr. Good Enough
or Mr. Right? she ponders...
Valentine's gift

 

 

my fingers
finally discover her folds
spring dawn

 

 

hydrangea—
when thinking of her
flower heart

 

 

the azure sky
in your eyes—
smell of blueberries

 

 

steam rising
from a hotpot for one
Valentine's Eve

 

 

Valentine's Day he makes love to the bottle

 

 

Tanka

 

bathed
in a cascade
of moonbeams
I think of her ways—
tender yet daring

 

 

you cry out
we've traveled on parallel paths
wait for me
where the earth touches the sky
I plead

 

 

surfing
the waves of memories
I listen intently
to the ebb and flow
of your whispers

 

 

three thousand
miles apart
divide everything—
we see the opposite sides
of the same full moon

 

 

your face
photographed
by my mind's eye
remains a delight to me
though 30 years have passed by

 

 

I wish
I could land on you
in the guise
of a ghost
like Swayze did to Moore

 

 

gazing
through my naked eyes
at your wrinkled face
you are the same woman
I married before the altar

 

 

my heart
heated red
in secret passion
for she casts her glances
unashamedly

 

 

the autumn moon
hangs over my window
rippling the lake
of my mind --
her smiling face

 

 

I spring
into the air
trying to grasp
the white tail
of your departing plane

 

 

Tanka Sequence

 

Bloody Valentine's Eve

 

drawn to
the smell of the dark night
I go out
and lie down naked...
inch by inch enveloped in its scent

as night deepens
I hunger for the blood
of the lonely
disguised as Cupid
I shoot arrows into their hearts

 

 

Cherita*

 

bathed in moonlight

I wash in
each scent you left behind

baptized in them
I become born-again
a poet speaking in tongues

 

 

faint mist, gloomy clouds

sorrow surrounds the day
who can take a poem

beyond the Pacific
a calligraphy of geese
flies against the sky

 

*A narrative short verse form derived from the haiku and tanka traditions

"Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale. A Cherita consists of a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse. It can either be written solo or with up to three partners.

The Cherita tells a story. It was created by ai li on the 22 June 1997 in memory of her grandparents who were raconteurs extraordinaire. It was also inspired by Larry Kimmel's sensitive recognition of a shorter form contained within the opening three-verse stanza of ai li's LUNENGA, which had been created on the 27 May 1997."

Still: home of short verse. Copyright © ai li 2002 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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