The 52-floor building of 1973

A monolith of the old days, they say
You're the highest in our city
Back in 1973.
A piece of information tested
For General Studies of Primary three.
Fifty-two floors
We knew what that meant,
Got the picture.

Then came more, promised to shine brighter,
Landmarks of a new era:
C--K--- Centre, Bank of--- Tower,
And IFC - a feather on the crown,
Flaunting innocently our wealth and prosperity,
Yet...
Why do they sound so uncertain, so distant?

Is it because of what is silvery, or something glassy?
The same kind  of glint,
Like robots on a team.
Won't even say they're ugly, or an "eye-sore".
You won't call something ugly
When it is faceless,
Or, will you?

So you're bound to be forgotten
as you can't even retain your name.
Jardine House- another mediocrity.
But whenever I pass by the plaza
And see Henry Moore's "Double Ova",
My heart still feels
A queer kind of twitching,
Like something's missing
Forever.

By Tammy

Ode to my professor of the M.A.poetry writing class

*Ode to Mr. John barger, our cretaive writing teacher, who is leaving our city for good

The Stiltwalkers arrived,

Not on cobblestones

But at our lecture room. 

The sounds they made in the autumn air

Rang in my ears

Since then we’ ve been digging,

Digging into the past,

Digging into the well where part of us dwell

As the lump in my throat seeks the right words to be set free.

We sat there listening, reflecting, working with diligence

To have our metaphors sharpened

Until our ideas became visual, visible and images

Tangible.

Negative capability, refined not only our poetry

But also our personality

As we learnt to be a bit more tolerant, bias-free. 

We held our breath in one accord with O Hara

The day when lady died

And saddened by the grief of Susan Wheeler.

The greatest risk for a poet, even for a poet’s apprentice:

Knowing what and when to reveal and what not to

And this tight-rope walking we did together

With our professor.  This is where

Ideas and perspectives exchanged, respected and voiced

Without fear of being belittled or teasted,

And where empathy flown, shown

Through Neruda’s, Brecht’s and Sandberg’s hearts

And Thedore Deppe’s restrained resentment. 

Still remember, how, in the last lesson

We’re hoping for more.

Your classes have opened a door. 

 

La Lampe

Je marche
seulement     sous la nuit
Je vois     les lumières de lampe

Alors
je pense
je juste pense
et pour un instant
     je presque demand à une lampe-

La petite lampe
Savez-vous qui vous a fait
Qui a donné la lumière à vous
Je vois     les lumières de lampe

Dites-moi s'il vous plaît
Je voudrais que quelqu'un pouvoir
vous donner une voix

Je vais vous parler
Tes lumières brillent toujours et toujours

Pouvez-vous croire ça  
Sans vous     je ne voudrais plus sortir
La petite lampe     je t'aime
Je vois     les lumières de lampe

---

You may notice the spacing between the words, some of them are long, some short. I meant to make them so to represent the time of breathing I would take when I read this piece out. For this poem, I drew inspiration from William Blake's "The Tyger." I attempted to complete the whole poem in French because it gave me an impression that the language carried a unique tone, which was closest to the concept I had in mind.

The Web

Two women guarded the door,
Knitting black wool feverishly.
One of them casted me,
A swift and indifferent placidity look.
I was knitted into a web,
An impenetrable and dense web.

I wrote the capital ‘I’ on a board,
Hanged in front of my chest.
Then I took it down,
And put it around someone else’s neck.
Where was I?
Lost in a web.
The string of the web twisted like a black serpent,
Twining my neck.
Yet I realized that,
It was my left hand,
Clutching my neck.

Buildings were melting.

They were grit and gristle turned crystal.
Language, the building block,
Was fluid and greasy.
Buddha preached that,
Form was emptiness,
And emptiness was form.
Time ran backwards,
With the same drama went on.
An invisible web covered the world.
We were weaved together,
Pulled by puppet strings of the web.

‘No one could understand me’,

Wrote a pinched face girl on her webpage,
A close family friend.
Yet before fifteen,
She was plump and full of sunshine.
My cousin,
A skinny boy a year older than me,
In our family nightly chat,
Once asked me,
If I felt lonely as he did sometimes.
He crouched in my bed, as I sat by the bed side.

I mocked them

There was no loneliness,

No knowledge,
Nothing,
But a web,
That caught us,
Who took the toil,
Flipping all our lives in it.

By Amy LIU

Oh, girl

How stupid you look,
Wearing the superman mask like a hat,
Sat stone-like in front of the TV.

 

The frames of the comic strips,

Locked you up.

‘Wake up! The sun is up high, burning your ass!’

Your parents knocked at your door.
You had been awaken for an hour,
Not willing to leave,
Those Pure, crystal, and fragile dreams.

For years in the dark,

You dreamed your world up.
In the night, the stormy night,
You closed your eyes,
Away you’d fly,
And dreamed of paradise.¹

You long for embracing the real storm.

But you lay dead,
Poisoned by your dream up adventures.

Dreamily you took up the scissor,

Cut off the line that bound you and the world.
That was the day you put on your smiling mask,
To whoever you talked to, at any time, any place.

Beautiful dreams, but horrible.

A turtle retreated into its thick hard shell.

You finally grew too large for your shell,

Coming out of the cave,
You need time,
For your eyes to get accustomed to the bright light.

Dreamy colorful visions turn dusty,

But I won’t dumb them.
They were what I once was.
They are the trash that I cherish.

By Amy LIU

Photos of the Week

I open the magazine,

To the page of my favorite-

Photos of the Week.

Colors of all kinds,

Mingled together,
Like an oil painting of a dark sky.

What is it about?

Then I see the name of it
-Colored River,

 The next photo shows a giant tube,

Above a river like a human organ aroused,

Shooting waste water along the river side,
Spurting the lovely colors out.

I turn the page frantically.

This one has a few cows,
And a stretch of lively green prairie,
But, what are those scattered vase holes?
The photo says
-Prairies under Exploitation of Minerals.

Hollow holes,
Like those hidden under pure white skirts,
Are dug with hard iron shovels.
Flesh and blood ooze gently out,
Mixed with the dark warm soil.

By Amy LIU

Prayers

 

I saw my father kneeled down,

In front of the little wooden altar at home.

His forehead touched the board of the altar.

Silently, he prayed as usual.

The scene hit me with wonder and rage.

An evil seed bred in my mind.

‘Why do you believe in something you cannot even prove?’

‘Prayers are the prey of God.’

‘Religion is but a mental placebo’, I said.

‘They are not if you believe in them’, said my mother.

I hated myself,

For drifting further away from my parents.

Down, I fell on my knees,

With my head and palms on the soil.

Free and peace I felt.

My Tibetan students taught me how to pray.

Up I raised and saw a wonderful picture.

Tiny scraps of papers,

Written with sacred text in various colors,

Flew, flickered, and dressed the valley up like a pallet.

‘Om Mani Padme Hum.’

I repeated after them the ancient incarnation,

As we threw the sacred papers in the air.

They lit a small fire with herb,

On a pile of rubble stones,

Stones collected by pilgrims of decades.

Barley wine was poured into the flame that soared up.

A stick stuck in the pile of stones,

And hang banners written with incarnation.

‘Each time the banners flutter,

The incarnation is repeated’, they said.

This time I believe them.

I bought my father a prayer wheel,

A cylindrical on a spindle made from metal.

Each time I twirled the wheel,

I heard the old Tibetans’ muted prayer.

When the last ray of sun retreated in dusk,

They started praying,

In dim cold night on the plateau,

 

They knelled down,

Stretched their hands forward,

Until they laid face,

Hugging the earth fully.

I sat in meditation with the prayer wheel in hand.

I felt no joy but horror.

One day I’d die.

My fear couldn’t subside,

Baffled souls under husks,

Trapped in samsara.

My room turned sombre at twilight.

I went out for my usual evening walk,

Astound at the rosy sky,

I carved it in my mind and soul,

For its transiency.

 

I followed the straight street paths,

Which stretched and twined into a circle.

As I prayed and walked home,

I ended at the place where it had begun.

 

By Amy LIU