Bloodlines: Poems about Family

These poems about family were originally posted on the AsianVoices Website (1997-2006), which featured poetry and fiction by young Asian writers.

Blood of My Own

The hour hand of the clock
strikes three. I find myself
awake, caging thoughts,
catching them on the page

before they fly, as you once would.
Your writings gone
but your blood is my blood.
We meet everyday in these words.

~by Jill Chan (New Zealand)

 

First Day

He knows your eyes
only in clouded reverie.

He awaits your birth
with damp, shaky hands.

Soon he is cradling tomorrow.

Your curly black hair,
aquiline nose,
eyes that colour his.

The mysteries of a smile
on his face.

~by Jill Chan (New Zealand)

 

Mother

Sometimes I had the wish
to put you aside
like an old novel.

Sometimes I had complaints
you never let me
move or choose.

Now that I am free
to choose what I’d like
to read and breathe.

The world is so cold
And all the time I feel
how warm you used to be.

~Isabella Chui Sze-ming (Hong Kong)

 

Manzanar Scorpions

my aunt and uncle arrive
a three-day drive from California
tomato, pepper, strawberry plants
await a new home in Westerville
(that’s in Ohio)

digging in moist springtime soil
their roots reunite with the earth’s
earthworms extracted entertaining
eight-year-old Justin who laughs

we explore with a magnifying lens
turning over rocks to discover other
crawlers, pill bugs, centipedes—

uncle Hitoshi sits at the table
relaxing with a cold can of beer
and stories emerge from a mind
full of memories

my uncle’s family
was one of the first
where ten thousand once lived
half a century ago, called Manzanar
among mountains of the eastern Sierras
barren dry dusty desert

before the people came—
“scorpions were 12 inches long”
no one believed them
they sent photographs
no one believed them
they sent the scorpions
to the Smithsonian Institution
—the largest ever found

“and centipedes at Manzanar
my uncle holds his fingers apart
with a pause for added drama—
“not three inches long, I tell you
three inches wide!”

that night I dreamed of walking
and walking to discover it closed
returning to desert rocks to find
ghostly centipedes and scorpions
crawling magnified in the moonlight
—their poison still stings
like barbed-wire.

~by Wataru Ebihara (USA)

During the Second World War over 100,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were interned. Manzanar, in California, was one of ten internment camps.

 

Mom’s Tummy

The bulging tummy
where I used to sleep is now
a dumpling of flab.

~by Laura Lam (Hong Kong)

 

Another 3am after Work

The restaurant closes at 2am.
Driving home after work,
Father sits by the steering wheel
His stubby, chapped hands slipping off the wheel
As he nods off
His rectangular black-framed glasses
Sliding down his bulbous nose

A 3am chill frosts the car windows
The windshield wipers hum a lullabye of two syllables
My mother sits beside me at the backseat
Her head bobbing up and down as she sleeps
And awakens abruptly,
Her eyebrows furrowed
These faint lines on her forehead do not soften
Even in repose
She sleeps curled into herself
As she has learned to live
Forgotten
Black strands of hair curtain
Her beautiful face,
Undulating with her exhalations
August moonlight flickers across her face,
Caressing, gentle though
Few human hands have been so tender
Listening to my father’s Chinese music tapes playing—
Deng LiJun whispering “Goodbye”

I look out the car window at
The full silver moon
Dipping in and out of the trees, distant
Indifferent.
Coward.

 

           ~by Janet Si-ming Lee (USA)

 

The poem and images are excerpts from a Macromedia Director animation which appears in a multi-media CD entitled Si-Ming: Field of the Heart. Her parents’ difficult immigrant experience inspired this poem.Through a series of animated poetry written in English by Janet and in Chinese by her mother Loretta, Si-Ming: Field of the Heart illustrates a cross-generational, bicultural visual dialogue on the Chinese-American and Chinese immigrant experience in the United States.

 

The answer is in her eyes

She kept her hands delicate, and
Her skin as smooth as silk.
She always looked in the mirror to see whether
Her lips were still red.
She thought, “Long hair is graceful.”
—Her life was hopeful.

Why?
The answer is in her eyes.

Shouted. Sobbed. Bawled.
She was not concerned about
Hands, skin, lips and hair again.

Why?
The answer is in her eyes.

Today she keeps her body healthy, and
Her arms are as strong as a man’s.
She always looks at the small face, and
Sees the little red lips.
She thinks, “His hair will be shiny.”
—her life is hopeful.

~ by Laurence Lee Won-ho (Hong Kong)

 

Your Hands

Your hands
Dance in the office desk
In the first year of your marriage
Dance in the kitchen drawers
in the years that follow

Your hands
Dance in this cupboard at this minute
Dance on that table in the next
Skipping the beauty of every night

Your hands
Dance from here to there
Dance from this minute to the next
ignoring the countless lines you have
forgetting the countless cream you use

It’s you—Mother, your hands
—the treasure of our FAMILY
—the origin of our LOVE

~by Lydia Lee Ying-i

 

Treespine

from birth
my father
straightened my back
with respect
he made sure my
shoulders were
perpendicular to my
spine, chin
bolted strait, eyes
focused
on his eyes, fathers
plant respect in sons
at birth, through
the navel and iron seed is
sown and tied with blood
and tears,
respect dams his tears
of iron thorns, before
sons, fathers
must not cry, must not
arch their spine, fathers
must be
iron trees, his hands
open leaves for feet
of sons

~by Peter Lin (USA)

 

Framing a Future

at birth
mama
drew a frame
and put me in
the center,
as years
went by, I
began to fill
and push

one day
a corner came
lose,
I tried
to nail it shut, but
the wood rotted
and would not
hold my weight

pretty soon
corners went
to splinters,
each time I
mend the frame
my fingers bleed
blue tears

mama tried
to frame
new frames

though I try
wood and nails
soak with blood

since sons
can’t grow
in
wooden boxes

I become
a seed, her tree, wood
planks
for boxes.

~by Peter Lin (USA)

 

My Father

My father is a commander
a gentleman, a respectable policeman.
Military March,
I follow his orders
His cheerless face shines with such bad temper
And the acrid smell of two packs a day.

I am at ease;
I know everything he did
contributed to me

~by Mak Ho-yin (Hong Kong)

 

Flouting Tradition

My son denies he is like me,
his dark mysterious eyes avoid mine.
            He reveals the hatred of my generation
            shrouded behind music, TV and radio.
I want to tell him the truth,
about myself.
            The truth we constantly deny,
            where whispers are subdued.

I deny I am like my father I remember why:
            He was a slave to his parents,
            a prisoner of tradition.
            Defiance smothered with the desire
            to be that perfect, obedient child.
No, not me! I want to break tradition.
            To emancipate myself,
            from that clone of generations long gone.

My son denies he is like me,
            his eyes, barriers preventing communication.
            Nude images of Madonna, Spice Girls and Mariah Carey
            flash through his mind, once the temple of purity.
            He mirrors my aging.

He has flouted tradition.

~ by Carl C. Perito (Hong Kong)

This work is based on a poem by Janice Mirikitani: Breaking Tradition.

 

A Fisherman

My grandfather was a fisherman
No, not in the Christian sense—a fisher of men
But a man with a rod and a reel, a line, bait on the hook
A fisherman

Me,
I hate fishing.
The waiting
The worms
Did you know that a worm has five hearts?
Have I mentioned that I wanted to be cremated?
And then there’s the cleaning.
I’d stay in the bedroom
and try not to hear
the scrick scrick of scaling
the flubbup of guts on the table
How could one not love fishing?

He was a fisherman.
And a word alchemist
Instead of transmuting lead into gold
He changed fiberglass
To fabricgas

It sounded like a mistake,
But we could never be sure

He told us of
His phonographic memory
Had he mispronounced a word
Or could he really remember every thing that he’d heard?

He spoke of radical tires.
At first, we thought ‘radial’
But wouldn’t radical tires better suit
A man with a certificate
In offensive driving
And that we knew to be true.

“Jeez Louise, did’ja see that ol’ geezer stopped in the middle of the intersection readin’ a map.”

He wasn’t a driver.
He was a fisherman. He was a word alchemist. He was a builder
Cottage, boat, dock, deck
If it was made of wood, he could build it
He knew how to handle a hammer and a nail
A saw and a carving knife
a hook and a scaling knife
He knew the skills of sharp things
Hard things
Sharp words
To sever relationships,
Cut away the deadwood of family and friends
Hard words
To hammer down trust to a thin sheet of tolerance

I saw him last year.
My mother drove us up to the nursing home.
She warned us . . . he has this story. If he starts off on it just pretend you’re listening. Don’t bother to interrupt, because he’ll just keep on going until he gets to the part about the doctor laughing. It always starts the same way . . . I never worked in the factory.

Ten minutes later
He starts:
I never worked for the factory you know. Not in the factory. Not for Dupont. They just put that down to keep the books right and proper. Keep the pencil neckers in line. I was a guide—a fishing guide. I knew all the best times and all the best spots so when business fellas come up from the city, I’d take ‘em out. They’d catch their fish, and they’d be happy as clamps. That’s what they paid me for. I was a fisherman. Now this one day, I take these three fellas from Tronna out on the lake. First thing happens is that one of these fellas is casting, and you can tell he doesn’t know a rod from Adam, and what does he do but he casts his hook right into the top of my head. He tugs on it a few times and I shout at him to stop tugging. So he stops. But the hook is stuck in my head see. Right here. You can still see the scar. I pull it out and the other fellas turn all white… guess no one bleeds in Tronna. So one fella says “we better get you to the hospital” but I say no, I’ll be just fine. I hold a rag to my head and stop the bleedin. It hurts like bejeezus, but I have a flask of whiskey and I take a sup from time to time. We were out on the lake all morning. The fellas caught their fish and went back to Tronna. So when I get to the doctor he tries me on once for size and says: ‘looks like I’m gonna have to stitch that up. Better give you something for the pain’. And I just take another sup of whiskey and says, doc, you go right ahead and do whatever you gotta do. I ain’t feeling much of anything right now. And he laughs and he says to me ‘that so, well I wouldn’t mind a little of what you’re havin.’

Laughter—pig snort of vitality—dissolves to a sob
Fades, transforms
And then he finds what he’s been looking for.
He starts again…
I never worked in the factory you know. Not in the factory.
He’s found it again.
Hook-gouged head
Whiskey anesthesia

His phonographic memory is skipping

He died a few days later
His life distilled to single morning
A fishing trip becomes a career
A life
Alchemy
Mutating
Building
Dismantling

But in the end, he was
A fisherman.

I won’t begrudge him this
After all, how many of us
Can read the clouds and the currents
Can understand the shallows and the depths
Can find the perfect spot?

~by Stephen Richards (Hong Kong, Canada)

 

Postmarked

My grandmother died in your letter:

her cleaving voice terrifying farm suppliers
submissive, paying tribute in small tokens
of accompanying fertilizers—a small price.

her tiny voice whispering into my ear
blurred by mosquitoes, luring this Candide soul
to assured illicit sweetness of an iceball.

her tinny voice, all cut and discordant,
tracking grey reunion dinners with her firstborn,
rice-fed when others wolfed meagre tapioca
in another elsetime.

her voice racked in tobacco-coughing
as her fingers clacked tiles, one hand dangling
the secret cigarette we shared, and the other
gesticulating her preference for maleness to her kakis.

so when her steel voice dictated her will and
final testament, it cracked as her favourite balked,
his maleness shrinking even as his mouth loudly professed
that the expected pact of largess
be divided among his sisters.

her voice is in her only piece of labour:
a dusun of pale coconuts to give flesh
a pond full of fish to give tears
a bed of vegetables, bright with brinjals,
to tide through bitter times
an army of chickens to march
when the spirits are low in essence.
“They will have others to provide”
But that is not enough and our countries
Divided.

her voice comes together now, singeing
as and when years of lettered guilt, shame, pain,
yellow and curl
in this cigarette lighter flame.

~by Tan Tiong-cheng (Singapore)

 

Ethical Love

Break into the room in a mess stealthily
Quiet—sh…
Bewitching cologne seeping
I see he dance
Letter in pink I read absorbedly
A kiss with a sign—Rose
Another Mary, another June, in blue and yellow
Is ire from the loving whispers in the letters?
or the love, time and body shape I’ve sacrificed?
Why can I love you but not kiss you?
The paper on the desk is getting wet.

All the pretty young girls know my existence
As I am always on your wall in the surfaced dimension
Young, charming, satisfied, I wear scarlet hug my babe

Tidying up is my job
Long hair on the bed is not unusual
But some straight some curly makes my eyes freeze
Marrying is the only way to please me

Finish the job close the door
Turn a corner and open the door
Lying on my bed atop a floral pattern
Smelling the medicinal oil on the pillow
Starring at the digital picture on the wall
An old woman sitting next to an eminent looking young man
I am proud with sour

~by Kama Tsoi (Hong Kong)

 

My Dear Grandpa

                                  I

My dear Grandpa,
You are the devoted husband of my dear Grandma.
Everyone knows that you two love each other
Like a pair of chopsticks working together.
When one is missing,
the better-half is missed forever and forever.

My dear Grandpa,
You are the respected father of a son and four daughters.
Everyone knows that you love one another
Not a single piece can be replaced,
Lest it will spread hither and whither—
The spread of cancer.

My dear Grandpa,
You are our beloved grandpa of four grandsons and one granddaughter.
You are our Santa Claus
            who bestows us great affection and love
            which will never alter.
You treasure us as oxygen to a patient
            who has been struggling against illness
            and death for more than ten years.

My dear Grandpa,
May I ask you a question which I have hesitated for years?
Indeed, many people have remarked that you are mixed-blooded.
Yet, your dear granddaughter does like
to have an answer personally from you,
but not another…

 

                                  II

Dearest Grandpa,
How are you, dearest Grandpa?
Are you now accustomed to your new house after these few years?
I think you know that I visit you once a while with Grandma.
She weeps at the front gate every time since she cannot enter,
Holding flowers watered by tears.

My dear Grandma seldom wears laughter on her face.
She mentions everything about you in the present tense.
Meanwhile, I can notice
A few drops of tears
Spilling from her wrinkled eyes.

Throughout these years, she dares not sleep on her own.
She dislikes staying at home alone.
She scatters herself around
To every house of your daughters and sons;
She’s doing everything just like before;
However, cheerfulness cannot be found.
Instead, dear Grandma always looks at the dark sky
With her twinkling helpless blank eyes.

I’m still a good granddaughter of Grandma and you.
We together go to church every week to talk to you.
Have you ever received our news
While you’re sleeping in God’s peaceful field?

I’ll later write to you.
… Well, shall I receive a letter in reply?

Adieu.
Love,
Yan

~by Rachel Wong (Hong Kong)

“I always desired to write a poem in memory of my grandpa—daddy of my mother. He died three years ago in October at Queen Elizabeth Hospital because of cancer. He was very weak and weighed less than 90 pounds when he passed away. He was extraordinary—he did not like traditional Chinese music; rather he enjoyed the pop songs of Alan Tam and Anita Mui. “He was able to play ‘Fur Elise’ without a single mistake yet he had never received a single piano lesson. He had no chance to learn English properly but he was able to talk to foreigners. He liked photography and he had just bought a tripod and two cameras before starting another life journey. He liked to call me ‘my daughter’ while I was very small and I usually corrected him! This is my dear Grandpa John.”

 

AsianVoices Archives: These poems were originally posted on the now-defunct AsianVoices website (1997-2007), which featured poetry and fiction by young Asian writers. Copyright belongs to the original authors. If you are the writer and would like to remove, add or edit this work, please contact me at zijun01@gmail.com and I will promptly carry out your request.

 

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