Sagami Bay

Above the surf’s mute crash
these teardrops of light
roll down the shrouded dome of night.
The black bay mirrors their sandy schemes
to where high and low are merged beyond
in a distant sea of dreams.

You raise your head above the waves
of heat, come into focus,
and speak.
But your voice fades in this dream’s daydream:
I imagine sculptures,
crafted by the hot dry wind that prowls these desert canyons,
turning life to dust, driving flecks of sand from gnarled bones,

until sound returns
morning light floods my eyes,
and rib and ears again turn to stone.

~Paul Corrigan (Hong Kong)

The photograph of Sagami Bay at the top of this page is from an exhibit of photographs by Sato Jun Ichi called Water’s edge. Describing his photographs, Sato writes: “the line of the ‘water’s edge’ separates the land from water, but it is not a fixed form. It is endlessly complex and fractalistic”. The photograph appeared in AsianVoices with the writer’s permission.

Easter Island

Hundreds of Stone Giants
Located on a mysterious island
If you want to know its story
Imagination is necessary

~Kwok Sze-Nga, Leung Chi-yin, Wong Yi-Ling and Yeung Ying-tsim of Shung Tak Secondary School (Hong Kong)

This poem was written as part of the Cloth Puzzle poem writing activity organised by university students on behalf of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival).

Shenzen

People’s eyes are voracious and small
Men wear suits wherever and whenever
Children sit on the road in their beggar identity
Little bellies of young ladies walk down the streets
With cyprian smiles
Debauchery is the form of their life?
Money is me that can buy a smile
I can see and smell the air?
Grey in light and orange in night and smelling of petrol

~Kama Tsoi (Hong Kong)

Harbourside II

The souls of the Hong Kong dead, of sad families
of the lost who left for the golden west,
they throng in once-upon-a-time Western Market
in vanished godowns, on old quays buried by new streets
and yearn still for the slap of oily waves
and sit calmly here in salt sea air
of haunts unseen, unheeded by the new.

Some remember the Russian ship carrying Chekov,
a doctor wanting to see it all,
the progress, the trade,
a museum and new roads,
a railway up to the peak.

In the miracle woked by the English far from tidy suburbs
and by Chinese fleeing chaos, repeated rape of the motherland,
to build something new in so few generations,
some remember the hearding of beaten prisoners
of the arrogant taking of woman to be used
and the goading of men chained through the hands for spitting.

Ghosts throng and thrash in the nets of memory,
trawled again and again.
Ghosts are thrown back into the waves of the dying sea
of the living who ride the here and now.

Those who grow rich will build houses,
with gardens and moon gates
where ghosts will dance when the stars hide behind clouds
where ghosts will walk on a line a ferryman throws ashore.

(despite the farce of empire’s end
the greed filled transition of power
and smug new-rich and self satisfied foreigners
from an adolescent world)

while city and habour and islands
gleam in the bright tide-race of thought.

~Andrew Parkin (Hong Kong)

This poem is from the collection entitled Hong Kong Poems and appeared on the AsianVoices site with permission from the publisher (Ronsdale Press)

Night/City

Hong Kong residents waiting for the fireworks on the eve of the handover (photo by longzijun)

The way ahead is dark,
clouded with our fear, with our love.
Voices,
unable to express their feelings.
Hands,
reaching out to touch the night,
struggling, to feel the warmth.
Eyes,
closing, yearning,
to see beauty,
in the night of the city
for eternity.

Wishing they were laughing.
Wishing they were crying.
They dance themselves into oblivion,
to the beat of each raindrop.

That night, they dream a fairy tale.
And it goes like this:

seeds of love
between the arranged marriage
of two strange hearts bloom over night.
Happily ever after they live.

Waking up the next morning, beside
the unfamiliar sound of breathing,
they embrace with new desire
what they love and know best:

~Nicole Bai (USA)

“This poem expresses some of my feelings about the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China (or my feelings during ‘the last night’ and those inspired by Anthony Wong’s rendition of the song, ‘Last Night’).”

a child named hong kong

Stand up, Child,
Your Mum and Dad divorced.
The man you relied upon,
Now has shut his doors;
The woman you once feared,
Now supposed to be adored.

Your existence a disgrace,
The bitter fruit of rape;
From Mum Dad took you away,
No doubt he’s the one she hates.

You thrive and shine,
You’re Mum and Dad’s pride.
Dad says it’s the way you’re brought up,
Mum says her genes can’t hide.

You do things in Dad’s way,
Mum cries that way’s no good
Though many thought that you’d grown-up,
You’re Mum’s child still, it’s understood.

~Zita Yu (Hong Kong)

After the Handover

To the British, it was a handover,
a gracious act to remake history.
To the Chinese, a century and half over,
it is hui gui, two words for return.
The resentful call it a takeover -
China buying stocks and property.
Others rename it a changeover,
hoping for better, not for worse.

However felt, the ceremony’s over,
without diplomatic incidents
or terrorist attacks as rumoured,
no riots, street fires or blood shed,
but dragons dancing at East Tamar,
concerts playing in the Coliseum,
legend floats in music round the harbour,
fireworks, lasers a rain-hung sky to light

the end of British administration,
the birth of Special Administration,
transition above imagination.

Perhaps
the questions would now stop -
but they have not.

They used to say -
Why do you stay?
Why didn’t you go
like others I know?

Now they’re asking -
So what’s happening?
How does it feel -
two systems for real?

Here is an answer -
would it but last.

Whatever the time,
wherever the place,
whoever governs,
I’m not afraid.

This is my city.
This is my home.
God is still here.
I’m not alone.

I own so little
in any case.
What’s there to fear
for me to stay?

So little to give.
So much to live.
A job or two
I ought to do.

~Agnes Lam (Hong Kong)

we all get wet in the rain

To the South of the red,
On a verdant bed,
Lies a city of ivory towers.
Where dragon and ghost,
Rule hillside and coast,
And heeded are magical powers.

To the South of the red,
The traveller is led,
By sirens of fortune and fame.
But first you must give,
The life that you live,
And surrender to them your name.

To the South of the red,
I’ve heard it said,
That wealth is the outright winner.
From the corporate sage,
To the man in the cage,
One of these the outright sinner.

To the South of the red,
Division is bred,
As a result of capital gain.
At the end of the day,
Parity would say,
We all get wet in the rain.

~Alan Elder (Hong Kong, Scotland)

Golden Temple

Riding high on the limpid waves
Rising high on the shimmering presence
Blue waters of white marbled chequers
For the eternal hymns of wayward heart
The golden domes invoking a saffron path.

Novices of thoughts and sunshine abiding
The golden swarms of vibratory atoms
The hush of pilgrims on the circular pitch
Tearing apart structures of egoed ditch.

Give vent to destinations of beauty & liberty
The concerns of soul now past its restrictions
Illuminate a glance bereft of the inner tumult
Saluting the Guru’s presence in a silent rebirth.

~Durlabh Singh (England)

Eating in the Street

Fish, turn into balls
become fishballs, are sold
for five dollars for five
uncooked, small;
cooked, they are GIANTS
people like GIANTS
people drool, hawker’s bag? Full.

Squid, with eight legs
only have four when sold
for five dollars for four
legs. Mind you, eat
the legs first or
sauce splatters your face
people drool, hawker’s bag? Full.

Waffles, too many squares
with peanut butter when sold
for five dollars for half
Caution! Hot!
With the power to cook your tongue
people drool, Hawker’s bag? Full.

Siu Mai, a dim sum
pigs become fish when sold
for five dollars for five
or six, wearing fine yellow jackets
with soya sauce and too hot.
people drool, hawker’s bag? Full.

Students, teachers, workers,
policemen, housewives, firemen
bowing together, 90 degrees
specks on uniform
people like eating in the street
stomach full, doctor’s bag? Full

~Clara Cheuk (Hong Kong)

A Cup if Coffee, Please

Bubble, bubble,
floated the cinnamon.
bathing Mocha looked up
into the cloudy sky.

Strange, strange,
I’ve no choice where to live,
Just picked up by the strange
human-shaped house.

Sigh, sigh,
without even a hello,
the house poured me
into it’s dining room.

~Nora Chung (Hong Kong)

Haiku

Fresh hot snacks on sale,
the smell of roasted chestnuts
has summoned my heart

~Lee Sze-nga (Hong Kong)

Kranji Fruit

Black balls in clusters,
hear His call in the jungle
tips of harvest due

~Kucinta Setia (Singapore)

Ode to Gold Kiwifruit

New kiwis cannot fly
 Are tendrils that climb on high
  One step at a time
   Moving on is nature’s right
    God’s tears flow up to the roots
     Nourish bodes to make way, hoot
      One step at a time
       Babes that are guiltless
        As cherry blossoms tide.

          Open is prepared shyly for the travel route
           Up another step at a time
            Once it fruits, it lives
             Oh! The ingenious families
              Find, gather, experiment
               Combine, combining
                Qing Yuan, Huang Yan, Long Quan, Jia varieties
               Break through the tests of gold
              By divinity, the goodness of gold kiwi.

            Those desired rare yuanbao of Chine
           Are shaped onto bodes of new kiwis
          So they are made to be
         The heroic tears of God’s promise
        Envision carefully as they are made to be
       Kiwifruits do express feelings.

     Welcome bygone days for little kids
    I peel the new kiwifruit for office tea
   Treasures shine from within;
    Seeds congregate with a flame
     Surrounding the core is
      To begin from humility
       As the gold kiwi shows it is.

~Kucinta Setia (Singapore)

Canteen

Cats and dogs love your vicinity
Animosity replaced with amiability
Near your time to start a day so easy
The speed of shredding, washing, cooking
Eggs crushed to pieces on the saucer
easy serving nori is sushi with nectar
Near the cock crows, canteen opens for meeting.

~Kucinta Setia (Singapore)

déjeuner

On the patio where rose and honeysuckle scents
Float from the trellis to the gingham tablecloth,
A man in beige slacks sits and watches summer sprouts
Arc dazzingly above the pale banoffee pie,
Whose crust was corrugated no less with skill than love,
Like a votive offering, between the tetra-pak spouts
Of orange juice and milk, before the grapes of sloth
That drape the sharon fruit. Nearby, the cookbook lies
Upon the other placemat, its restless feathers stirring,
The winter of its contents pages whitely blurring,
Dissolving in an infant Pauillac, whose aroma
Promises sweetness, then ushers in the quiet trauma
Of a sour attack, a siege of tannins, and a tense,
Lithe body, flawed in wanting grace, not excellence.

~Toh Hsien-min (Singapore)

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.

Return to WriteAsia Homepage

Senses

                      1.

I paint with an inner
eye, gentle strokes
of fluid triangles.

Water colour writings are born, go through
the milestones, learn to
learn, then one day
live enough to be
hung on the wall.

                      2.

Musical poems
hypnotize the ear,
shape stanzas
into notes.

~by Jill Chan (New Zealand)

By Your Grace

You send delicate shivers
to my toes. You have tripped
my tongue, made me mute.

So I sharpen my pencil
Put it to my nose
and smell the old wood.
Feel its smoothness.
Press my nails into the firm
soft body, leave a newly
cut mark. I turn it slowly,
count its sides.

~by Jill Chan (New Zealand)

A poet who is drowning himself in his own poem

He is a poet.
The writer of his own love.
as he paints the mood.
candles. blown out.
windows. closed
doors. locked
life. detached

He is a rock
he starts to write
no love, no warmth
just another rock on the road
with only wind and rain
leaving him alone

Never once does he notice
the beautiful sun
the gentle breeze
but gives his all to his sorrow

He is a cactus
he continues
no rain, no being,
just another cactus in the desert
with the burning sun
carrying him away

Never once does he notice
the whistle of wind
the rhythm of sand
and the oasis
just a few steps away

He is inside
as he ends the story
a lost Shepherd
trying to find his way
to the house of the lord

Never once does he let himself notice
the map
the key
and the light
he is in the house of his lord already

~Vivian Chiang (Hong Kong)

Like Children Randomly Play

Who’s to say
          how long this masque would take
          before I can peel it off;
          if it does what it says;
                    like
how do I say
          in a convincing manner
          with the swings oscillating slower—
          this plane will be depraved by
                    children
because you said
          we do not need rhymes anymore
          and we should only
          understand what we want,
                    randomly.
Do not say
          a thing but tell
          your mind—the poet
          is the bard who, would you say,
                    plays.
Like Children
Randomly Play
Perchance,
By chance.

~by Nicole Leong (Singapore, Britain)

verses and images unbound

the box laid there
for years
inside

the poet’s dream
laid still
quiet but

for occasional
drops of tears
echoed

in confusing anger
the images laid
still

tied in strings
of poverty, despair
the verses

quiet
wrapped in truth
laid still

what
are images
locked in tight embraces

struggling
to be free
but verses

a poet’s dream
a kiss
a flame.

~Jose Alibone A. Naboya (Singapore)

A Poem for the Senses

I TASTE the bleeding poison ink
And SEE the secret words revealed,
So HEAR the songs before they sink
And FEEL the balming rhyme distilled,
TO SMELL success in poetry
Release your SOUL, and set it free.

~Mohammad Said bin Rahim (Singapore)

Where there is space, there can always be a poem

Where there is space for a thought
There can always be a moment to ponder.

Where there is space for a sigh
There can always be time to wonder.

Why are we always looking for reasons
When chaos readily replaces disorder?

And if there is space for emotion
There will always be lightning, rain, and thunder.

For in this heart, there is always space
For a poem – for you – this poem has its place.

~Mohammad Said bin Rahim (Singapore)

Upon Looking at Picasso’s Weeping Woman

Your cries fragment my soul
Your weeping grips a silent hold
My hands they sweat as I
Paint your oily tears inside my eye.

Gushing feelings fill this void
A broken emptiness, a bloodless rush I can’t avoid
The pale, shy crying your face beholds
Unashamed, the shame of tears he moulds.

Picasso, how came you saw my pain?
Black, blue, yellow, orange, and black again
Brought forth the rainbow in the rain
My rainbows more oft they go than come, again and again.

~Mohammad Said bin Rahim (Singapore)

My Art

It’s my world, how beautiful!
The mysterious sky diffusing varied hues of blue.
The lazy moon flowing upon the ocean.
Dazzling stars singing above the singing hazel field.
Enchanting flowers blossoming on the snowy mountain.

On the bare plane,
I start sketching my wonderland.
My brush is my magic wand;
my spells turn
inspirations to imagineries,
death to life.

To each picture a dedicated meaning I bestow.
In twisted combinations of time, place and mood,
spiritualised and signifying,
Together they compose my autobiography.

I rule my world,
desperation conquers me
when my territory is deserted.
Oh my empire,
you shall never fade.
you live in me,
as I live in you.

~Jess Yim Ka-mei (Hong Kong)

La Mancha

Bereft of the poetry of his soul
The knight took refuge in the house of death
Into darkness he went with his mind crushed
Wandering lust gone and with his own trust.

The enchanter gone
And disenchantment entered
And the land of La Mancha
Slowly turned to dust & cinders.

Talisman of allurements or of feasts
Chimeras of windmills or of fabulous beasts
Golden liquors and the shining decanters
Tales of poets sorcerers and of wizards
Adieu to stillness and the romance
Tryst and other typographical stance.

His merry madness had to go
And sanguine sanity had to be constructed
Don Quixote had to be demolished
And Alfonso had to be resurrected.

Alas! there is no poetry left now
In the lands of the Al Toboso
And no veils of Dulcinea now accrues
Across the knight of the mournful rue

~Durlabh Singh (England)

The Moon

The moon
Oh catch the moon
Put a noose in its nose
Bring it back to harness
The icy wilderness of the noon
Sprinkle it with flowered dew.

Catch it before it runs
To penumbra of sun hide itself
Oh run and run to recover
From suffocation of grief & bart
Stiffen its dust with tears
Or the ceremonial flood
Of the tidings of the present
The anti poetic
Peregrine of the sedged cart
The olibanum of crushed heart.

The moon
Oh catch the moon
Catch it till it runs
To the hilliard mansions
The septic pun
Where the master of hounds sleep
With his metallic face
Turned to the wall
Where under the greenish shadows
Shines the dool
The moon
Oh catch the moon
Catch it before it runs
To the penumbra of the sun.

~Durlabh Singh (England)

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.

Return to WriteAsia Homepage

Grieving Cherry Blossom

Although I’m hurting I care,
Yet still—I’m hollow.
I can’t stand on my legs
I feel weak.
The way she looked and the way she became
Makes me cry silent tears.
My eyes are dry but my heart carries a load.
The past, the present and tomorrow’s hurt.
The sorrow is great
Being all around me,
Above me, beneath me and within me.

My tears are my fashion statement,
When I walk and sit, talk and think.
They are the gems of my eyes
And the stabbing pain of my grief.
I try to reach that zone of comfort and lasting survival.
The way my family used to be was a life I can imagine.
The way we’ve become, invisible.
The way we should’ve been, unknowing.

Sharing tears in the morning but soundless at night.
That is where we dream our anguishes beyond;
Far from the reaches of our own hands.
Never speaking a word or flinching.
Laying in bed still, dreaming, inclining to a greater misery.
The earth proclaimed the day
And the sky partook in our wailing.
Neglecting what I heard and what I saw.
There are no exact words that can tell.
The feelings are full and the words are silent.
Tick! Tock! Tick! Tock!
Time runs and brings along someone.
Wrinkling the skin and weakening the knee.

The lady that died in that hospital bed, died full of strong will.
Time and earth proclaimed.
But her spirit soared higher than the fascination of the pretty pink flowers
                    of a cherry blossom tree on a clear Spring day.

~Ma. Elyza Caliolio (The Philippines, USA)

Behind the Glass

Your hair is too neat, lips too pale.
Your smile still clings to your face.
Your hands gently folded on your bosom.
You are a flawless doll, unreachable behind the glass.
You are too young to sleep alone in the dark.
You left too fast without a good-bye.
You reached your destiny too early.
You are at one with eternity.

My hair is moist, lips shivering.
My sorrow still strikes my heart.
My fingers quiver in my freezing fist.
I am a tranquil puppet, noticeable in the glass.
I am too old to live with only my anguish.
I was disillusioned too slowly with my survival.
I remembered your departure too late.
I am at one with the earth.

Who’s the face on the glass with those tears still wet?
Who’s the face behind the glass with those charms still enchanting?
Who is still puzzled by the coming days alone?
Who no longer feels the pain and grief?
Whose body is in earth?
Whose heart is in earth?

Dry tears, silent screams, numbed mourning, lost memory,
All are locked behind the glass,
From now till then.

~by Carrie Chan (Hong Kong)

Falling

Falling into a dark, fathomless cave
sightless and freezing, screams
echo a thousand times as if there were
a thousand of me.

Failing to feel with numb fingers
helpless for none was there, waiting
to reach out with a grip that would
save me.

Forgetting the preceding future, remaining
motionless and calm, accepting
the incarnation of mortality, I relinquish
the present form of me.

Foreseeing without anticipation, in the aftermath of
doubtless disaster, sleeping
to dream the inconceivable
I die.

~by Vivian Chiang (Hong Kong)

A Child’s Sandal

In the early morning,
walking to the bus,
I see a yellow sandal
hanging on the end
of a branch of a tree
in the green ravine,
a size so small it has to be
for a child of two or three.

How did it get there?
Someone picked it up
from a rubbish dump?
Too cute to leave behind?
Was the mother carrying
so much she did not know
the child had dropped
a sandal? Or was it thrown
through a window from a home
in the block nearby? If so, why?
Were there adults quarrelling,
a child crying at the door?
Did the man have a mistress
and the wife wish to kill
herself? Was it just
the sandal that was flung?

Where is the child now?
Does it have shoes to wear
somewhere?

~by Agnes Lam (Hong Kong)

The poem was written at Victoria Road on 3 November 1998 in the wake of news of a woman who threw her children from a building before jumping down herself.

Absolute Silence

I fasten my keiko-gi and mae-himo,
tied in a bow at the back.
Hearbeats pass through
my panoply…
A shiny shadow reflected on
the still grey ground…
Red petals fall,
no sound…
A hard cold thing merges with
soft warm thing.

~by Kevin Ling Kin-man (Hong Kong)

Ghost Writing

It is with the deepest sorrow that I am writing to you.

A call received,
A favour asked,
Ghost writing.

“Did you read the paper today?
So you know what happened?
The robbery.
That was at one of ours.

We need a condolence letter.
Can you fax it within the hour?”

I remember the first time I learned about death—human death, anyways, God knows we went through pets pretty fast in those days—a couple of dogs, a cat, a bird, the maritime disaster in the fish tank—but with people . . . well let’s put it this way: when you’re flushing a dead fish down the toilet you don’t normally think ‘there but for the grace of God go I’. But with a person. “You may have noticed someone isn’t here today. I’m afraid I have to announce that Scott was killed in a car crash on Saturday.” I’d just been talking to him the Friday before—probably the only conversation we had ever really had. We were just walking together after school, carrying our adidas bags, talking about nothing in particular. He stopped for the bus. I kept on walking. What if we hadn’t talked or if we had talked a little longer, just another few seconds? Wouldn’t that have been enough to throw his whole life (and death) off schedule?

It is with the deepest sorrow that I am writing to you to express my condolences to you and your loved ones

His wife will arrive in the afternoon to claim the body.
Leaving four children in Pakistan
To await her return.

The beginning is always the easiest part
Of a letter,
Of a life.
But after that there are choices,
Chances.

I can’t type another word.
What is there to say to a woman I don’t know
About a man I never knew
And never will?

So I look to the right.
Stuck on the office wall
A JPEG image, printed out
300 dpi.
Each pixel a single square of solid colour.
the squares together form
A pattern
An image

Of two children.
A wild girl with stickers of blue and gold stars covering her eyes
Holding her little brother,
His hair coiling down to his shoulders in a mane of ringlets

It is with the deepest sorrow that I am writing to you to express my condolences to you and your loved ones on the tragic death in the line of duty

Duty.
What was he thinking
With the shotgun raised
His finger at the trigger?
Why did he hesitate?

I phone home
The starry-eyed girl is at kindergarten
The curly-haired boy answers
Babbling syllables

His voice
Soundwaves
Transduced,
Electrons coursing down a wire,
Then digitized.
A stream of numbers,
Each a one or a zero,
But the numbers together forming
a pattern
I listen for a while
To the flow of his voice.

It is with the deepest sorrow that I am writing to you to express my condolences to you and your loved ones on the tragic death in the line of duty of your husband, Zafar Iqbal Khan.

What will become of this letter?
Will it be torn up?
Will it lie untouched at the bottom of a box,
Will it be kept pristine in an envelope in a folder in a drawer
To be brought out when the moment is right
The folds on the page becoming sharper each time
As the words rewrite themselves.

A letter to a widow.
Nothing to it.
Nothing that hasn’t already been done a million times before.

Last week
I heard that Brian died.
He had been married to a friend
She lost her husband one last time
While her son regained a father.
A riddle it’s best not to ponder.
I didn’t know what to say
Other than “I’m sorry to hear”

I didn’t know him well.
Saw him sometimes in the gym
Working out.
He looked fit.

But survival of the fittest deals in averages.
Grief deals in specifics,
Each death leaving its own empty spaces.

Is there comfort in knowing his wife and children will cope
Simply because
They must?

It is with the deepest sorrow that I am writing to you to express my condolences to you and your loved ones on the tragic death in the line of duty of your husband, Zafar Iqbal Khan. His selfless bravery, his immense respect for life and his desire to protect the innocent are an inspiration to all of us. Our prayers go out to you and your children.

Then there was that time about a year later—the summer between Grades 11 and 12. Sheer stupidity. I was cycling. To get my mind off something, not just any something, but finding out my girlfriend at the time had been with another guy. So I’m going down Walkey and I turn onto Heron and just go cruising though the stop sign without thinking once let alone twice and right into the path of a Blueline taxi. Black Lincoln Continental. I don’t know whether I saw it first or heard it—the squealing tires. I went up over the hood, my back shattering the windscreen. As I’m flying through the air, all I can think is “oh shit”, not very poetic I know, but probably pretty common last words all the same. I blacked out for a moment, but came to and saw the sky falling away beneath my feet, giving me enough time to break my fall with an arm. If I had opened my eyes a second later. . .?

All it takes is that second
For an accident
For a skull to be smashed
For a heart to cease beating
For a trigger to be pulled

A good man has gone
But his ghost remains.
Somewhere in the pixels that form the starry-eyed girl
Somewhere in the electrons that pulse down the wire from the curly-haired boy.
Somewhere in the code of all things.

Our prayers go out to you and your children. We pray that his soul is at peace and that his courage will be rewarded in heaven as it will be remembered here on earth. We pray that as his children grow up, they will always carry with them the knowledge that their father was a great man who revered life. And we pray that they will inherit his bravery and his dignity.

It is with the deepest sorrow that I am writing to you
It is with the deepest sorrow that I am writing to you

~by Stephen Richards (Hong Kong, Canada)

This poem is about real events (‘Ghost writing’ is when you write on behalf of a person who is then assumed to be the author).

Bardo

May not the
Element of space
Rise against me
In acrid acrimony.

From the north
Arrives green goddess
Ghanta of serpent head
Garlanded with skulls
And in her hand
Holding metallic bells
Sounds in surges
Deafening eared knell.

Let me remember
Infinite compassions
The past deeds
For all the things
Great and small
For all the creeds.

For the white dove
For the yellow bear
For fields of worms
For earth borne cares.

Let not the
Element of sun
Arise against me
In wandering thirst
Or burning symptoms.

Yogins arise westward
Bringing seeds of wisdom
With wavering of garlands
Four coloured lights
And the scents
Moulded from purified elements.

All prevailing circles
Let not the element
Of the earth
Arise against me.
In splintered segments.

~by Durlabh Singh (England)

Bardo means ‘between two’. According to Tibetan Bhuddhist beliefs, the bardo is an intermediate stage between death and rebirth. But the bardo can also refer to intermediate stages between consciousness and dreams.

Artist on Show

He’s clinically alive, the doctor said.
I press in closer, touch the panelled glass,
Watch his glassy eyes stare, hard face set.
It comes to me, while seeing him in bed,
Shut in his ward, he needed no palette,
No dyes, no clay to make a showpiece vase.

His blood bag bobs. Some sudden pull of arm
Perhaps? A draught replies.
He does not budge.
The chart of progress hung upon the wall,
Almost toplit, retains a certain charm,
While doctors’ pickled papers revealing all
Except a fading wish and living grudge

Extol to all their interest in him.
A crumpled bedsheet stiff with him still mocks
His skilful hand and thoughtful mind on show,
Bereft of craft: atrophied, not thin-limbed,
Departed, not alive. And as I go,
I chuck a coin into his trust-fund box.

~by Toh Hsien Min (Singapore)

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.

Return to WriteAsia Homepage

Embracing Love

Time froze at the back of his mind
A stage of displaying a moment of truth
Memories of blissful pictures
got sorted out into an exhibition of expression

They both watched together as the drama proceeded
“How much is salt worth?” He asked.
“Never as much as a person embracing love, turning salt into light,
putting light into the life of others.”

He and she both together played a role
A moment of perfect symphony
Colour of Blindness
Appeared in the background,
Seated side by side with the harmonic conversation
of two naked bodies.

Salt, heated up uncontrollable desire
transforming passion into light
Shine the valley of
experimental future.

Embracing love
The lava plateau
forms a petal of silvery unity
radiated with distinctive uniqueness.

Love was, love is and love will be.
Salt turned into the light
that you and I desire.

~by Vivian Chiang (Hong Kong)

Love

Baptise me with your love
Offer me a new life
Reborn, rejoice and resurrect

Knowing the other’s thoughts
We share the same breath
We take the same step
We suffer the same pain.

Love is but a dream,
they said.
Yet what more can I yearn for?

Love is but blindness,
they said.
Then I wish I never see again, as
your love is my lifelong refuge.

Though I wish so much that I was in love!
seeing your mere existence
would put an end to imagination.
But I dream, I dream
I dream and I dream.

~by Vivian Chiang (Hong Kong)

Untitled

Her heart cut by a thousand knives
he keeps stabbing her in the back
dried blood like a parched riverbed.
She utters the love song
they once sang together
purple lips shiver
yet only silence
is restored.

Tears runs from the dark grey plateau
he tells the truth a hundred and one times
her eyes open wide as a pool of black honey
She blinds herself
happily seeing the reflection of lies
in the mirror of her heart.

Pain strangling her soul
he spreads salt over her wounds
to endless, soundless screams.
She smiles and thinks of the day
when their love was still strong
yet the image
starts fading fast.

Dreams shatter
sycamore dies
blood from Cupid’s eyes.
Her spirit transcends
into the mist of
immortality

~by Vivian Chiang (Hong Kong)

My Friend

Hello my friend
You cut my arms
when we shook hands
You took my legs
when we went out
I said I loved you
You divided me into half
and examined my bruised heart
You said you loved me then
stabbed me in the back with
a sugar-made smile

Oh my friend
The bloody eyes you freed
opened or closed
Their dropping tears
dressed me in red
Why couldn’t you see
The never-ending rain that overwhelmed
my dark red skeleton but
you only eyed me with
your greedy tongue and
sharp teeth

~by Nora Chung (Hong Kong)

Countless Letters, Countless Words

Countless letters, countless words
Be with me quietly
While the sun is fading away.

Faraway rosy clouds, faraway stars
Will they sing a lullaby
Let you sleep as sweet as a baby?

Countless yearnings, countless dreams
I want to tell you
Through the lonely nights.

Faraway breezes, faraway rain
Will they send you all my wishes
When my heart sings?

Who said
we must say goodbye, someday
once we met?
Who said
that’s the way life is?

I’m still waiting
waiting for you to return
When will I see you again?

~by Shiron Lai (Hong Kong)

Illusions

I can never see you clearly
But only feel you, the airy you
with my sore soul
from the shimmering moonlight on the lake.
For there’s always a layer of foggy air
in between, you and me.
I’m too weak
just too weak to break through.
Never, never could I do.
So, silently, in my own world,
a private movie theatre
I write our stories, silently.
A ramble in drizzles is enough
or sometimes a conversation please.
Dare not ask for more
for more means luxurious
I know
the more beautiful the illusions are
the more pain I feel.
Will you forgive me
if I steal your name
            steal your shadow
            to weave a life-long love affair
of you and me, secretly
without you saying yes.
That’s all I can take from you
            not your love
            not your soul
            not even your smell
You make my heart ache.

~by Shiron Lai (Hong Kong)

The Wall

The wall is crying
                                    crying
                                                crying
Tears drop along it’s face
like a river.
Vapour floods, everywhere
Dew sucks all surface
stuffs every pore.
So stifling
The breath of muggy days
is as damp and sticky
as blood
too dense to bleed, too heavy,
it sends out
the odour of death
fishy and sickish.
Our love
being bred in this rainy season
is so wet and musty
can’t light a flame
can’t make a bubble
All still, then we drown.

~by Shiron Lai (Hong Kong)

The Unpruding of Eliot

how do I get past the phase of ‘getting to know’?
how do I show I’m more than my Mango clothes?
how can I get him to show himself intellectual?
how do I know, how do I know?

is it me you’re looking at?
or this flowery skirt of knee-calf length?
is it my scent or the cognac?
this is as good as it gets.

so I’m hurt enough,
and fate is misled by my signals.
therefore I shall not look,
for to look is to want,
to want the want to die.
however I will watch,
watch the dancers unfold
the treasurous breaking day
in the disfigured street.
but human kind
cannot bear very much reality.

[Rhapsod`F]
oh, I love u too.
n I guess that’s all.
neither more nor less, not here nor
there; just a thought that’s all,
that will not swirl into a ‘Him’ anymore.

[RedLily]
I’ll have him screw me among the sheets of paper stained by his geniuty

[Rhapsod`F]
instill his seeds of bleakness n unin-
telligible light of enlightenment into our bodies.

[RedLily]
it’s just the whole idea of screwin a genius writer.

[Rhapsod`F]
might he go mad screwing me,
just like he lets flow of his genius feats?
do I dare, do I dare?

[RedLily]
do I dare screw him on the paper strewn table?

[Eliot]
Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.

[Rhapsod`F]
screwed on the paper strewn table,
time before and time after.

~by Nicole Leong (Singapore and England

Silence

No sound No sound
at all between two people.
The soft roaming of the bus engine
and the quacking of people around
seem no business of ours.
I can feel the warmth of his body,
though no warmth from his heart.
Scenes from the window
are moving backward.
Silence prolongs the span, I wonder
why the bus is moving so slow
and the journey seems never-ending.

No sound No sound
at all between us.The peaceful
atmosphere brings two hearts together.
No eloquence is needed for
complete understanding.
Eyes touch, smiles meet
No words spoken yet true communication.
The roaring of the engine does not bother us.
We, hands together,
Live in a world of our own.

~by Katie Luk Wai-yu (USA)

Love’s Language

Love is a language
Hard to understand.
It has a complicated syntax
And conflicting demands.

When you listen closely
Do you hear a single voice
Or jumble of a jumble of conflicting messages and noise?

            Ahh!
                                                                                   The human heart!
                                                What a poorly designed machine!
                        It doesn’t function correctly all the all the time
                                                          Or come with guarantees.

~by Tim Newfields (USA and Japan)

Untitled

At the beginning of
our new found time
in a moment of intense stillness
in the hills of winter
where a little snow has fallen
you laugh and pick up some ice.

You hold it melting in your hand.
I open your fingers,
gleam of clear water on your skin.

We understand all in that moment.
Everything that follows
is a moving away from that time, that place;

so we persist in our dreams
and quiet memory of ourselves together,
insist on those few seconds
when we understood all
and a little ice melted
in the warm fingers of love.

(17 August 1993)

~by Andrew Parkin (Hong Kong)

Hitchhiking

It is like I was hitchhiking. So I waved and got picked up in a car going somewhere. I did not care where I was going as long as I had a companion. But after a short ride, just when I was getting comfortable, he dropped me off in the middle of nowhere and said he did not want anyone in the car. I did not do anything wrong. Yes, it was his car but it is common decency to drop people off somewhere neat. Before he left, he even gave me some advice. He said, with a lot of brain , “If you can’t find your way out, it is your problem. Can’t help you; I really don’t want to take anyone.”

~by Joanna Sio (Hong Kong)

Hot Chili Peppers

We are just standing
Side by side but without touching
In a spicy kitchen
Staring, silently, at the bubbling of the hot sauce with chili pepper
Green and red and green and red and red
Warm, dreamy and half hypnotized
I try to connect with you through telepathy
Via the hesitating smoke that surrounds us
You turn to me and smile
And I smile back
I know you know it is not the food that makes me happy

~by Joanna Sio (Hong Kong)

Brutal Decision

How come your hands so rough and so experienced decide
To touch my precious unexposed body
And soul mercilessly
Choking my life away and peeling off
My skin
Exposing
My flesh bleeding to the cold, corrosive world.

~by Joanna Sio (Hong Kong)

Wet Days

I wake up to wet days
alone, with barely a memory of you;
and nothing warms,
nothing in me stirs without you.

my bed is cold as concrete
and dreary as the skies;
passing clouds sweep away
the feel of your hands in mine.

~by Nine Suba (The Philippines)

Dressing

Halfway into your blueshirt,
You whisk dreamless conversations we never had
into self-inflicted wounds of words,
rayon textured, spun dry and hung
midway between the sky and my periwrinkles.
I watch intently, hooknosed and sharp-beaked,
planing at every crease my iron forgot,
planning the day’s grocery list from your frowns,
and, still, mussing your hair, I left—
A fleeting shadow across mine and your picture
hung across a cross of drapery you called feminine.

Tie-knot slips. And you are back to square one,
redressing intimacies that should stranger us;
the act—a hungered top-heavy bereavement,
from absentminded ice-cubed trays, empty
to accusing toilet seats, left standing indignant.
Eyeing you, I ease your slippered foot,
hardcased in pigskin leather, evening brushed
leavened with rising morning expectations
and now, dropped cruelly.

You do a quick half-step, missing tabletops,
missing my upturned lips, you blow into them:
a soft acquiesce, imprinting airwise, love.
                        I will pull the door’s handle and let you go.

~by Tan Tiong-cheng (Singapore)

Cookies ‘n Cream

I’ve been indulging myself

I wonder how you’re doing
So far away from me
I wonder if you think of me sometimes
The same way I think of you

Every time I pick up my pen
Wanting to write you something special
I end up eating your favorite ice-cream
As if you were here with me

The cafe that we used to hang around in
Has turned into a bookstore
It has the books that you enjoy reading
And the music that you like

I sometimes wonder
If you’re still the way you were
But then, even if I know
I still won’t know if I was ever on your mind

So many times I’ve picked up my pen
Wanting to write you how I feel
And end up eating your favorite ice-cream
As if you were here with me

~by Sannie Tang (Hong Kong)

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.

Return to WriteAsia Homepage

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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Without Gravity

finger lingers on the window of this giant iron bird
and feels the coldness of mother nature
loneliness passes from finger to soul
i try to grab for something
like gravity—so i can fear no more
reflections overlapped on the window pane
i can hardly recognize myself

trembling, i search for help
for loneliness has engulfed me
eyes meet—yet coldness i find
two ponds of water without ripples—looking straight forward
monuments do i find in this giant iron bird
in the wide gaps between strangers
the reading light overhead is a pool of moonlight
shining down on my planet without gravity

~by Katie Luk Wai-yu (Hong Kong, USA)

Knitting (for Dino)

Alighting westward
in the grey dawn
you gained seven hours, like seven
stitches cast on: unnoticing, passed through
time zones and customs checks
grit-eyed and dreaming, with a freight of gifts.

Returning eastward, wrenched
against the sun,
after five days
your brother’s wedding
family meeting, parting -
filled to the brim
with special dishes, drinking, love and tears
and then squeezed tight, so tight -

undone tasks
wait for you at the airport
a hangover of carelessly invited
unwanted grumbling guests.
Seven hours slip off
the flashing needles, as the wool pulls taut -
one plain, one purl, knit two, knit three together -
clicking your frantic knitting against time
where gaps like this, dropped stitches
let in the daylight.
This is a pattern only you could make.

You once lent me
one of these sweaters of your own design.
Over my shoulders, sleeves
casually tied in front, it kept me warm
through a harsh winter.

~Pauline Burton (Hong Kong)

Laughter

We took out the masts one by one
and then the booms, rudders,
and daggerboards away

Rigging a topper was not an easy task,
but by helping one another,
we tasted happiness

We leaned out when the boat heeled up,
and eased up the main sheet when the wind roared.
We fell into the water suddenly,
and laughed crazily
while we were climbing back into the cockpit.

~Eunice Chu (Hong Kong)

Taxi Ride

Comfort never had so many meanings.
The quilted soft PVC pads provide a mended cell,
for the loose screws and shortdecks,
when they are the ones ranting how crazy
we are, because we are not them, we whisper
quietly in shameful pride.
we did as our mothers told
we studied!

And so the cinderella convoy never appears;
one minute before…always that one minute after.
Tips seldom produce the shorter route:
everyday’s fairprice rises with metered grace.

But pandan cools the air.
Reminding, perhaps of sweet riceballs Amah slaved over,
perhaps that flaky cake Gold-Tooth Uncle used to bring
or maybe it was rumpy Third Aunt, bracelets tangling?
A leathery face stares back through the rearview mirror:
his yellowed eyes are not laughing.
And so we sit, mousy, set to inherit the earth,
staring desperately offscreen; hoping our lives
do not crash at this taxied-intersection.

~by Tan Tiong-cheng (Singapore)

To the lady in the MRT cabin

          to the lady in the MRT cabin
          on the way to Tanjong Pagar

on my first glance
          your eyes were hooked
                    on a Fyodor Dostoyevsky book.

on my second glance
          our eyes met
                    and froze for just a little while.

then in a flash
          for some twisted reasons
                    our eyes looked in opposite directions.

and when again I looked
          you were already gone
                    and I was confused
                              but for just a little while.

life is like a glance
          we see beauty we feel joy
                    but for just a little while.

then in a flash
          for some twisted reasons
                    confused, we look
                              in different directions.

~Jose Alibone A. Naboya (Singapore)

Model of Rail Transportation: An Ode to MRT

Shovels built tracks of sweat and dew
Lines trundle by, like two snakes hissing
Hands now tied, controlled and cruised
Below, above soil, triumph is hooting
Passengers queue, enter and alight
Chinese, Malay, Tamil and English
Pregnancy cares and elderly woes
Babie’s cries and lovers under light
Hebrew, Eurasian, Sikh or Singlish
Poems and Confucious greet, listen:

A rats’ race begins on the grounds
Into the cabin, grace, peace flows
Neither chewing gum dumps nor smoky rounds
Say “Halo!” to those controls
Tracks touch each otther across the youthful sun
The model of Real Transition
Cares for the woman with an unknown blush
A cup of kopi before each screeching run
The Models of Real Transformation
Link for the marsh and link for a march.

Ask what is the root of the first ride thought
Not the oriental train from Johor or Ipoh
Not the slow train from Beijing to Hohhot
Friends all over built up tracks now in Entrepot
To fall in love with rails stirs memories countless
As I’ve learn’t to lead forever above ponds
Progress and happiness is love of a nation
To learn from mistakes like Confucious years countless
A bullet train from Changi to Jurong
Salute to the Model of Rail Transportation.

~by Kucinta Setia (Singapore)

MTR

Look into the crowded compartment
dozens of unfamilar gazes
in the evening, at ten.

March into the cabinet with heavy footsteps
I yawn and yawn, feeling lucky
being able to survive another day.

Standing there holding the steel bar
thinking about nothing else
but the warm yet cold bed.

A peculiar, yet uncertain
weird circular movement
near my upper thigh.

Turn back.
an old man, seventy,
with his right eye closed,
his left hand raised a little.

Puzzled, I was slow to respond
I warn him
in a relatively low voice.
He nods.
The door opens.
He walks out.

I feel nauseous as
the same episode rewinds and plays repeatedly
I finally realise my stupidity.

Feeling disgusted and awkward
uncontrollable thoughts
continuously replay inside my mind

I shiver.
The odd touch remains.
Furious at this senseless outrage
yet powerless to defend.

Hear the fading voice in the announcement,
my neighbourhood in front of the window.
I sigh.
The door opens.
I walk out
and disappear into
the crowd.

~by Vivian Chiang (Hong Kong)

Guilliam Apollinaire Motors Along The Avenue de St. Mandé

To celebrate the modern dawn
poet and motor car perform an air,
the antique motor of Appollinaire:
O guantlets, goggles, klaxon horn!

I crave rude couplings of history and myth
in morning sunlight of the Paris June.

I note with scarcely opened eyes
our centuries’ glossed finishes
of old fiacres, steaming dung, new-fangled motor cars,
drugged girls who sell their flesh to faceless men.

Past and present swarm with future years
along a poet’s avenue of open wounds
offered like mouths to speak our fears.

Appollinaire sings of old and new, of dusk and whores,
of Tre-panned head, of death the no-man’s land,
of shell-shocked relics from impending wars.

St. Mandé’s courtyards shade their jazz-age loves
where now the needles or discarded condoms lie
and martyrs of the resistance rest among the doves.

Look! Now a paper dart from a nineteen-nineties hand
in morning sunlight dips toward old buttoned leatherware,
comes gliding in to land,
and rides that rattling motor of Appollinaire.

~by Andrew Parkin (Hong Kong)

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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Monotony

Pitter-patter rain, again
I hear him drizzle, I fizzle out, out
This learning? Droning, moaning
I feel a scream, a shout, within, without.
Silence is no monotony,
Unlike this instructional agony.
A boring worm lives better, better
And when it rains; is wetter, wetter
This rain, this pain, this pitter-patter
I Wish this tutor was a bit, ‘errr…better.

~Mohammad Said bin Rahim (Singapore)

A Limerick

I sit in here thinking and thinking
And dreaming that I am out drinking
In lecture room three
He’s torturing me
My heart, it is sinking and shrinking

~Kitty Yip (Hong Kong)

Haiku

A dreaming student.
I sit in front of the screen,
with nothing to say.

~Parkin Woo (Hong Kong)

English is…

English is a thief; it steals my life.
English can make my tongue twist into a knot.
English is a hard rock; we must break through it.

English is a symphony, so marvellous.
English is an art.
English is a slice of bread I eat every day.

English is a hunter; it kills many students.
English is very, very troublesome.
English is A for apple, B for boy and C for cat.

English is trying your best.
English is a never-ending game.
English is a bowl of herbal tea.

English is a very big cake; we must eat it bit by bit.
English is tests and quizzes.
English is money, people should have some.

~Gigi Wong (Hong Kong)

school_rules.exe

C:\absence

Bad command or file name

C:\bad_behaviour

Bad command or file name

C:\comic_books

Bad command or file name

C:\duty_off

Bad command or file name

C:\earless

Bad command or file name

C:\fail

Bad command or file name

C:\graffiti

Bad command or file name

C:\holiday_hunger

Bad command or file name

C:\incomplete_homework

Bad command or file name

C:\jealousy

Bad command or file name

C:\knocking_about

Bad command or file name

C:\late

Bad command or file name

C:\misbehaviour

Bad command or file name

C:\noise_maker

Bad command or file name

C:\obscene_materials

Bad command or file name

C:\prejudice

Bad command or file name

C:\quitter

Bad command or file name

C:\revenge

Bad command or file name

C:\sleep

Bad command or file name

C:\trouble_maker

Bad command or file name

C:\unconsciousness

Bad command or file name

C:\vanity

Bad command or file name

C:\waste_of_material

Bad command or file name

C:\”x”on_answersheet

Bad command or file name

C:\yawning_in_class

Bad command or file name

C:\zero_mark

Bad command or file name

~Kitty Chong (Hong Kong)

Just Come to Our Class

If you want to go to a noisy room,
If you want to meet lazy students,
Just come to our class,
And enjoy the booms.

There’s our monitor, who’s standing on his chair,
And our monitress, who’s carefully brushing her hair.
There are students always sleeping,
And there are students always running,

So come to our class.
Don’t worry, for there’s no one unhappy

~Ming Sin-yee, Pang Nga-lee and Law Wing-wah (Class 1E)

If you want to meet friendly students,
If you want to drink with us,
Just come down to our class
And bring along some cups.

It’s the funniest class
In the whole of our school.
There are girls playing,
And boys singing.

There’s Sam, who’s always fighting,
And Paul, who’s always eating.
There’s Alan, who thinks he is flying,
And Ben, who plays with ink.

So come to our class.
You’ll just want to scream,
For there’s never a dull moment.
Won’t you join our team?

~Wong Sam-lap and Chung Tsz-hei (Class 1E)

If you want to meet students
Who are only good at games,
Just come to our class
And wait and ask the names.

It’s the naughtiest class
In the whole of our school
There’s windows always slamming
And students always fighting.

There’s Ha, who’s always laughing,
And Ting, who’s always talking.
There’s Man, who’s always shouting,
And Yin, who’s only looking.

So come to our class.
You don’t need the names.
You’ll hear the loud noise
Telling that it’s us again!

~Cheung Kit-ying (Class 1C)

These poems were written three years earlier in Zita Yu’s English class in Tin Ka Ping Secondary School in Fanling, Hong Kong. Zita has written the following poem about her first day at school:

First Day at School

Will you wait for me here, Grandma?
From the classroom you can get a little chair.
Why are you going away?
You’ve promised to stay!

“Waa Waa Waa” I go
That stops the singing of the other three-year-olds.
In her gentle arms the teacher holds
This panicking little devil.

Her soft, sweet voice,
Her comforting words,
Made this day less painful,
Sets the future teacher a good example.

~Zita Yu (Hong Kong)

The Paper Chase

generation of anger
of all assets, animals
loves and hates ritual
but tamatgotchi the toy
a fragile egg. a feign chick
click, click, feed, feed
feeds and forgets face
the paper chase
divides the soul chaste
nature screams at lecturer.
We get out of pressure
and seek natural pleasure;

parents disapproval
and many barriers
choke our pleasure
explodes
sparkles above
but buckles’ condemnations
water pouring down from the nations
Stop!
Can’t stop exploding
our inner
desires.

In the gogglebox’s censure
power is riddle
on the paper,
we chase correctly
we may chase blindly
the final happiness may be
a           jacket          covers
tamatgochi       and        our
                                   heads
on     a      sheet      of      paper
a piece of paper
that we fear
unrecongnisable
barely standable
after graduation–
X-ers’s xenophobia
becomes a dragon
to eat us up and our future

~Kucinta Setia (Singapore)

Commenting on his poem, Kucinta writes, “Our undergraduates are overwhlemed by the language of success and pressure. We risk losing our sense of future direction by misappropriating interest.”

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.

Return to WriteAsia Homepage