173. Beacon

blares gently in
the black

quiet, night revolves,
mute in the hour;

a flash
a flash

ignites the
drop-sown dashboard

and closer
and closer

draw

the
humming spheres,

buzzing halogen
deafening
when not heard

colour, blurred

impression:
signal

meaning
yet none;

supreme in the
last visitation

as the final
tires
turn
left

172. Meninas

Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez (1656)

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Slanted
sits the
artwork: physical
body hidden
in a
temperature-controlled
vault-laboratory
hybrid thing;
exhumed to the present day,
mounted and dissected,
eyes observing,
dissecting;
essays
hum;
editors scramble furiously on the
Wikipedia
page...

Backing away,
curtain falls
as the
chamberlain
clears the exit

Two girls awkwardly caught
half-sentence in
curtsies, well
one –
the other still
unawares,
el búcaro outstretched
from her imploring
arms, fingers of
one curled in
mid-
persuasion

Despite her mourning
garb
the
guardian chatters
animatedly with the
guard, name
lost to
exclusive seats of
history

mumbling,
bumbling,
buzzing mutely:
as Two imported dwarves
form spectacle, one
obviously teasing the
peeved dog,
the other remarkably
solemn,
questioning.

Nineteen years and one
wife
separate the uncle from his
niece,
her arm tucked
protectively around
his?

The artist
rests: self-
portrait,
photograph?
Paint drops speckle his
boots in
real
time

Time ticks:
ribbons like
captive
wildflower
flare on the
alabaster plains;
ethereal, the
five-year-old
serenely gazes into
eternity

Bent knees
hover expectantly,
silk rustling, mute

Centrepiece, she
stands:
the business
frozen, betraying the
Purpose;
yet faces glisten,
inquiring,
else incoherent
of the
Moment:

The high
green-brown
panels silently
concur,
stolid,
enigmatic,
slumbering with the
weight of
centuries

Emptied,
its physical forbearer since perished,
imagination and
interpretation can only resurrect

Quiet,
the
noon
buzzes…

171. The Opportunist

American Robin at Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park

San Dimas, Southern California

Image Source: Two Birders To Go

Noble:
red head
raised high,

the robin
bounces
steadily, beady
eyes glimmering
with the
spring rain

in such splendour,
lone on the
beaming emerald
do I notice:

Stringy worms
dangling from
its resurfaced
beak;
munching, it is
a mortal like any other;
the rain,
fortuitous

Cantopop sails
in from the adjacent
living room;
eyelids painted and
eyes scrunched in
synchronous exertion:
dolled-up girls
and girly
boys

Things
seem not so
cheap
anymore…

170. Crabmeat

Scuttling over,
puts my hands on her
waist

“Breathe.”

We do so together.

Master and
novice,
experience seeping
through her
pores to
mine.

“Feel the depth of the
breath, it can
colour our
phrases
too.”

Soft flesh,
ancient and novel;
polyester fibres
crinkly and
taupe

As I am
processing,
understanding; we
breathe,
feeling the
depth,
discovering the
beginning

169. The Sidewalk Restaurant

Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐)

Image Source:
http://www.dianshu119.com/index.php?doc-view-881.html

Cheery chatter,
Mandarin,
surrounds like fumes;
we are
no longer
alone

cigarette smoke
deafens

the air conditioner
whirs,
green Tsingtao
bottles
glimmer,
translucent and
half-drunk

The noisy little
toddler
reaches for his
distracted 爸爸’s
tempting beer, reaches
to his lips

caught
(nearly too late), he is
smartly
rebuked

watching, I smile a
little

the 麻婆豆腐
is excellent

168. Cattle through the Peepholes

circles:
blinking eyes
beyond,
eyelashes long and
golden, dusty;
flies
interspersed

still yet
moving,
inches become
miles,
through alchemy
to kilo-
metres

skin beneath
metal,
air beneath
exhaust fumes:
and in the driver’s seat
the unthinking
be-jeaned,
be-plaid-shirted
blue collar
robot

driving,
surviving,

one eye:

glassy,
still, and
searching

167. 天雅古玩城

Tianya Antiques City, Beijing, China

Image source: Sina

A strangest thing indeed:
round dishes on the roof;
the visitors, like ants,
all enter/leave the feast…

Escalators deceptively slow,
quicken
pace
excitedly as the shop-front
store owners
come to life as
visitors step upon their
domain

Smoke

fills the halls;
NO SMOKING sings
not to be seen
here

Teenagers,
arrogant old
women, and
what appear to be
street urchins also
man these
gates;
well-dressed,
well-versed
suited middle-aged
men and women, and the
exotic, distrustful
eyes of the
Uyghur:

Children eat rice
at the lacquer tables
as their parents
haggle
or discover yet another
childhood
acquaintance –

Some halls are filled
with more
idle
smoke
than others…

At the busiest:
count the tiny
diamonds
lining the precious
green jade
leaflets, glistening in
the
caged
light;
semiprecious stones
set in
much-handled
wedding bands –

How can we know
each
detail?
Each fold of
each leaf?

The grandiose:
purple cut agate a
basketball-player
tall;
jade and marble
slates,
cute in with
intricate tree-leaves,
lined with detailed lines and
anatomically impossible
people larger than the
pagodas on the
shining, speckled,
lithe green
mountains

Tea sets of
smooth
clay of
subtly different shades
of roam chocolate
and caramel feel
sandy to the
touch;
gold Bodhisattvas and
Buddhas line
shelves;
antique, or
not

Fragrant medicinal
wood,
cut
into
small
squares,
promise remedies:
Impossibly smoothed wood
create chairs
exquisitely painful
to sit
upon
(no wonder the
Emperors had
such bad
headaches)

People-sized plates
still sprinkle the
building top like
ribbons, red and
gleaming like a
kindergartner’s
First Day present;
gilt, the buttons
noon read, sprinkled
on the silver
elevators…

166. Princesses and Trashcans

Unborn embryos
gestate
in my head…

a poem,
I once
read?

My mother
checked out a
book from the
library:
portraits of women;

in poetry
(I secretly
read it
too)
things 10-year-olds
shouldn’t know:

I was
gripped:
it was horrifyingly
tasty

words.
images.

Was it all a dream?

I.
Witch doctor in
hot
Brazil,
summer heat
twirling the
plastic plug-in
fan

treatises on using
recycled fetuses
as
lotion,
teen mothers &
satin skin:
“semen is the best
moisturizer”…
(I didn’t know what
that word meant
then)

crony old
fingers dance,
translucent skin
framing her flaming
red cuticles
on the turquoise
counter

Bidonville…
“Eu chorei, perdi a paz…”
Portuguese flits through the
metal grille of the
portable radio,
yellow as
banana,
sound tinny and flat
like
botox)

II.
A mother trails the
blood of her miscarried
baby,
red on the
Michigan
snow

Poems on a
poem;
strange how one can
create in a
created universe,
it’s all very
meta,
isn’t it?

Little babies,
trapped in lotion,
loss painted
red on the snow:
these things will
stick within a
kid, or
would they

165. Smokey Beijing

grey in the morning
smog,
streets awaking
bicycles;
cars thread through:
awake,
smoky Beijing!

misty in the veils of
time,
museums stand,
tall and Junoesque;
antiques are real when
awoken,
smokey Beijing;

earthy, cigarettes mutely
fume,
lazy streams glistening ‘twixt
Mandarin;
words entwining,
awakening,
smoky Beijing:

humming, miles away the
tourists,
globe’s collection in bright sun
visors,
parasols out and wide
awake,
smokey Beijing –

from the stolen sands of
time,
progress lays its youthful
tracks,
resting lay the timeless Dragon,
in depths and
at the core,
smokey Beijing.

164. Floaters

silent tumbling strings
translucent and transparent
flee the clear ether

silken treasured song
weaves its tapestry in Sun
glistening in the day

embers of fire red
ignite the quiet white snow
look – a fin appears

curlicuing ‘round
a chlorophyll encounter
circling comets sing

of molten moonbeams
in such dappled harmonies
only spectres swim

163. Source of Spiders

Truffle
tumbleweeds
millimeter-long
tiptoeing
‘long the
windowsill

estrellitas

sentient:
little cilia
pulsate
on the
PVC

Twirling countersubjects
twining and
intertwining,
curling
‘round the
windowsill

162. The Caged Rhinoceros

Robert Wiens: 1987

"Enclosure with Sections of a Horse and Soldier"

Donald Forster Sculpture Park

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Image Source: hanneorla on Flickr

green grass
spiralling,
Spring Sun
echoing:

remnants of an
artwork lay
imprisoned in
lattice.

Jade
head
patina
skin

quiet,
waiting for
resurrection
Day,
silently sleeping
dormant;

Rest, oh
Dinosaur, ancient
and new,
dappled shadows
tattooing agèd
limbs

shadows of
leaves
mutely
caressing
scattered
               beauty

161. 6 Cubicles

I.
Dark amber:
disfigured, wilted
chrysanthemums drift
swirling, smiling,
half drunk
in the
half-drunk tea.
(lips still
stain the
porcelain rim
with DNA)

Deep green:
drops rest,
suspended; silent;
strown across
paths to
a docile
pouring spoon:
[BENZODIAZEPINE HYDROCHLORIDE
the dark
words read
upon the
clear white
label canvas;
plastic bottle
mutely glistening

Cheap silver:
chocolate toonies
dollar store
trinkets and
Monopoly
                 pieces

Red & Blazing:
computer logos
company slogans
chant like
mantras on
the forlorn
desktop,
haunting the
lack of
space, the
unoccupied, empty
ergonomic
                chair –

2.

Photos:
Mommy & Me
stuck
all over on
mottled
construction
paper,
grainy
If you pay attention you can
see the pulpy
wood fibres

There is a Mother’s
Day poem pasted on a
pink teapot,
carefully cut by eager fingers of
a five-and-three-quarters-year-old,
pencil markings denoting where
the stencil once
lay -
still intact:

Mom’s hair is
angry purple,
she’s much too
young, she should still
by sipping margaritas
sleepless Friday nights at
the nightclub,
fratboys still buying her
Tequila,
flattered:
I’m 30 ;)

III.
A Family of Five:
Three Noses similar,
distributed as such;
Eyes squinting at the sun
as Florida divides:

The pack of smiling Mice:
The Mom & Son are not;
Oh, 20 hours long
does not bode well for kids –
The Preteen Hormone Price.

Three graduations framed:
One Kindergarten grad,
One junior high, one High;
the Eldest in “That Phase”:
Much Angst, as God Ordained.

IV.

Polish greets:
ł, sz, ć –

Pierogi, Kielbasa,
soups, Zrazy,
cabbage rolls;
recipes in
jargon,
we trust makes
feast
depicted each
month.

reminders of old
country,
Happier
, less? –

5

CATHY
on a brazen blue
background
didn’t have her
sexy Latin
name
I guess

faux license plate
letters raised and white
cacti mixed with
pink desert
flower

sheets and
trinkets: souvenirs
to make a magpie
jealous,
totally

Coconut Palm
Cashmere Sheen,
mmm…
“for silky smooth skin”
glitter shimmers in the
frosty lilac-
musky – dusky –
mauve-ish –
bouteilles

Pictures from the wedding:
Frog Eyes Husband

slightly chunky for the
white wedding
dress,
green grass,
black tux:
everything was just
SOOO perfect,
OMG
espesh
our
Carib
honeymoon
                  getaway

Ooh
Caribou calendar:
fun facts sprinkle
the months like little
taunts

Did you know?
      Did you know?
            Did you know?

Nature,
science,
seasides, and
Canada

Shut up.

VI.

half-abandoned
plant
experiments
yearn toward the
asphalt:

Burrito Nacho Man
with a grayish
Sombrero, action
figures betraying
bad humour and
bad taste

half-eaten
chip bag
partly stale

Mm, sour cream and
onion
flavor

funny
how the mind turns
criminal
in such
stillness

half-
experiments
yearn
towards: - ?

160. X-Ray Machines

Indonesian visitors view escalators

HK Sai Ying Pun Third Street, near Centre Street (April 2013)

Image Source: Remyumksoa

Sea:
pink, identical –
What is this?
eyes
question

some
bespectacled,
others
bejeweled

All
imperfect from the
fuschia
crop

Crisps,
adverts,
nonchalant
passersby
regard
impassively:

one sees
more
than
the other!

Amazed by this
strange new
world,
difference
divides

and reveals:

159. XP

A child with Xeroderma pigmentosum.

Photography By: Sarah Leen

Image Source: National Geographic

So.
much.
Sun.

beekeeper
alien

Black mesh:
mask
hijab

Swirling laughs,
sliding up and
down

Regarding
all alone,
shoes upon the
gravely
lack of
ground;

GO
Mom
says –

bare arms and
open smiles,
twirling pigtails;

Red:
burning,
metal igniting in the
toxic
leaden
rays

Sparkling in the noontime heat:
rectangle,
mass-produced,
delectable –

another
leaps to the
sand;
pounces, pummels:
siren sounds;
a group occludes,
greens and
blues and
reds too –

158. BUBBLE

For whom?

do the
hollow shelves
wait

the dusky
archives and
yellowed
magazines
beckon –

The
ants still
mill about,
carts rolling,
volumes flitting
back
upon
shelves;

Frictionless
vacuums
where
children
play

algorithms and
formulae
[formulas?] and
conservation of
energy &
mass and
momentum;

acceleration,
inclined planes and
laws of
Newton:

Silence on the floor,
despite the
creaking of
cubicles,
clicking of
lights,
buzzing of
4-year-old
Sony
Vaios…

157. Au Cinéma

Electricity
moments
before the film
begins:

lights dim,
lips meet.

flesh on
flesh,
wet saliva
inter-
mingling:

Anticipation
requited at last;
darkened theatre in a
back-row
pair:

156. Violaceous

Image Source: Red and the Peanut

Chewy,
dark:
grape seeds and
fresh beet juice

acidic and
tart –
crunching letters
between
fruit-stained
teeth;

Words:
dissected,
curve and line
by curve:
cursive,
print,
and cathode-
captured

eternal and
uncharted:
opening as a
tranquil spring
fleur;
the
mysteries
of a
field yet
unpicked:

155. Lingua Ignota

Wings flutter;
flyers in the
door-made
breeze:

lurid,
almost
desperate pleas
for
attention:
shadows remain of
careful, tack-
rent fingers

One, absorbed in
his
book,
does not
see
and yet –

unseeing
of the words
at hand:
eyes covertly
search
the gathering crowd

My then-self:
as exposed
as a half-tacked
flyer upon the
wall,

for a glimpse,
a single
glimpse
of my
beloved

who, despite
my careful
planning,
could not
alter what was
to be:

One poster
upon
another,
plaster on
plaster and
paper on
paper:

154. Salon des Refusés

He sits beside me,
only seat at a
crowded
intersection:

Old –
what a horrid
word;
wrinkled up,
frail, and
gauntly
tall.

Why are you here?
I would like to ask,
not judging
nor rudely,
but genuinely
curious

Abstracts
flicker
flacker,
dancing ‘cross the
pixels,
zebra manuscripts
painted
in cathode rays

Treatment
Medication
Lifestyle factors
Genetic component

headlines

Headlines:
receding,
newspapers clippings saved,
lay study
summaries

And yet isn’t science,
isn’t research
a mystery,
as cryptic as the
things they
study

153. Leftover Love

Case for contacts:
plastic,
green and white;

Green absinthe
-tinged
Listerine;

Toothbrush,
orange;
used weekly
only
once:

souvenirs,
promises:

Pedal for an
oft-used Casio
keyboard,

CDs left for private
consumption;
glistening jewel cases
in the
shining
sun:

memories and
traces left
for another
weekend
away:
a life left
closer,
trinkets gathering,
apparent laziness

in fact

the
utmost
care

152. Mr. Turtle

In my ignorant
youth,
swirling,
beaming –
catch its eye:

almost
shallow,
modern, and
unassuming,
I pause,
frightened by its
shrunken, wretched
face.

Pity, disgust
contort my
face,
I am no longer
smiling, unless
a trace still lingers,
body a step
behind
            -

Glasses,
hat and scarf
shades of
beige and
fudgy
grey

skin wrinkled,
eyes scrutinize,
wary, weary, and
beady:
shocked, I am
entering the washroom,
and – it –
the
elevator.

Familiarity dawns –
English? Philosophy?
He once taught me
Philosophy,
nearly died halfway
through the
course
because of
medication issues;
has a strange attraction
to Nietzsche
and Beethoven –

Half-disgusted with
myself, to be
repulsed by change
and old age and
academic
exhaustion –

I feel ugly,
sad, though, I
admit –
he was never all
that
good-looking:

It was that moment’s
gaze, of
fear and
confusion and –
bewilderment –

at my…
youth?
my warmth?
my candor? –

that gets me,
as if my joy and
energy
are
an insult,
a flaunt,
a – taunt –

Sorry, but I will not
apologize, (I
think) –
but I feel
guilty and afraid.

Please God,
let me never
become so
cynical and
insecure;
Botox takes away
the wrinkles,
but it
cannot erase
the
age.

151. PILOT

Still lay the
body,
blood
sprayed upon the ashen
cheeks,

blue uniform
specked
with
white
          debris.

Laying on the
tilèd
       floor
of what was once
the second
bathroom.

Gentle
          Face,
do I look upon thee with
sadness?

At one time
still upon the
mantelpiece, yet
full of life,
and yet here,
now in life
and full of
stillness –

You rest in
death so
quiet -

I want to say:
“We are reunited
once more;
how I have waited for
this fateful
day –”

Or should I stand in
silence,
full of pity and
reverence,

or Hate:
shouting “Muori
                         dannato!”,
over a body
             “Muori”
I didn’t
             “Muori”
kill?
             “Muori!”

Oh, as still
in death
as in
life,
the same
coldness and
neglect

I think I might
stay a while,
observing this
strange specimen,
at once so
new and so
familiar –

Except it is
not my house the
plane collided
with, not
my bathroom the
Pilot
died peacefully,
my puzzled eyes
beholding
this face
once more

But here in the
dark, star-lit
museum of the
mind,
the body can
rest,

eternal in its stillness;
quiet in its
permanence.

150. Com’è bello!

Unassuming,
silently presuming –
Two arachnids
tranquilly enslumbered:

Victim huntress,
paused the murderesses;
gentle yearning,
mute the Mother doting:

Golden doubles,
resting, still as marble:
Eight-fold digits
still and softly sun-gilt.

Se il destassi?

In the noontime daybeams
Venetian spun,
Gemini lay, Roman.

149. Cityscape

It begins again –
twilight dawns:
cars, like flecks of
light
upon the silken
highway
lanes

All ends,
all begins:
a kiss,
a touch, and a
city –

Peeking through the
tattered
blinds,
week-old socks upon
the
vintage
hardwood –

who would have thought?
bliss in simplicity
and
cityscenes