Tanka
I curl up
in the blanket
she gave me
the spring moonlight gathers
at the empty side of the bed
staring
at myself in the mirror…
I march
into the summer of '89
reflected on the CNN news
a
close-up
of mother and me...
between us
a surging sea
and nine autumn
the photo of her
wearing a lily-white dress
on that spring day...
it floats on the river
of my winter memories
blue moon
my fortieth New Year's Day
I still fail
to become a phoenix—
a heap of embers
measuring
the weight and length
of loneliness
I count the stars
sparkling in the spring sky
a
summer butterfly
has flown my muse
into nowhere
I start envying
things that have wings
autumn night...
I bait a crescent moon
with my mind
angling
for her flower heart
the
voice
inside my head
drags my feet
down the yellow brick road . . .
crows hover in this winter sky
Haiku Sequence
Eleven Kinds of Winter Loneliness
For Richard Yates
silence
between the moon and me
November snow
December roses—
looking at the photos
of my youth
the snowman
washed in moonlight
foreclosed home
winter raindrops
dotting my attic window
morning coffee stains
solstice…
the blizzard makes Toronto
the size of my room
Christmas morning
waking, I find myself
with just a pillow
the length
of my poems unpublished
year's end
new year
cobwebs in a corner
of the ceiling
the wind whips
the For Sale sign
New Year's dusk
sleepless…
cherry tree branches laced
with snowdrops
winter dream...
stirring embers, Prometheus
glances at me
Haibun
The Secret Code
“We all held our
breath, waiting for the electronic current to pass from one
hemisphere of the cat's brain to the other…" The words
explode out of his mouth.
"Please slow down, I can't keep up with you."
"My friend, you have the brain of a poet; it works too
slowly. In short, we were successful. We heard the brain
pulse loud and clear.”
long way
home…
humming Yellow Submarine
to myself
A Story about Life
He holds the
baby tightly outside a Starbucks window. Inside the cafe,
she leans toward the man in Armani, whispering in his ear.
Two cups of coffee untouched.
her
silence . . .
the bare maple holding
a hazy moon
Loving the Collective, Loving to work
Strolling past
Jianguo Road, Beijing, I see row upon row of workers in red
uniforms doing their company cheer:
Give me a W!
Give me an A! Give me an L! Give me a squiggly!
Give me an M! Give me an A! Give me an R! Give me a
T!...
When working in
state-run department stores, Chinese workers used to look
like stern-faced mandarins, keeping a watchful eye on goods.
They now sing company songs together, persuade all the
passers-by to go into the store, and most importantly,
answer picky customers’ questions with big smiles.
Red Guards, Red Guards…
anything new
under the rising sun
(Note: The title
and the opening line of the haiku come from the lyrics of We
Are Chairman Mao's Red Guards)
Monostiches
white night
I write into the darkness
drunk on
moonbeams poetry melts the ice inside me
the shadow
of poetry crosses the window filled with icicles
love being
pissed into a toilet my sex lying flat in bed
farmhouses
slipping by a CN train zips through the prairie
poetry
shouts take the garbage out when I do home recycling
the bird of
youth comes in dreams singing my eulogy
my hand
trembles under her blouse a train horning afar
plunge into
the river of the moon where Li Po leaped
a
heart-to-heart talk with midnight moon
azure skies
blades of churning water slash each other
Epigrams
Death's
tail wags my Muse's dog
Eros is
the encoffiner of my poetry
My soul
weighs me down
I use
poetry to disembody my soul
(Blank)
space is a bystander
Emptiness peddles goods from door to door
Silence
is a looking raven
The
recluse Speech lives on Times Square
