2007
Part 1 Yearning in the night
In a moment of thought, lying on the couch, in weighty monotony,
I flick the TV control, but I think nothing here to interest me;
if it went off air for good, I wouldn’t care...
I have spent four plus hours on editing, yet
the exhaustion does not come; why tonight could I not
keep away from the path of the bottle?
It was 11 30 when I opened a can; I lay on the sofa,
completely awake, unable to think of the sleep as an option.
I cannot sleep without it.
That is a lie, for I can, but it kicks in near alarm clock time,
throwing me a wretched condition,
with neither enough sleep, nor enough pleasure before it.
Ah, I yawn, for the first time tonight, or...check the time;
It is now, on a windless and humid night, 01 07 in the morning;
if I go to lie down, I will worsen the condition.
The alcohol is beginning to kick in, although the typing,
whilst mini error-inclined, is surprisingly clear of
gratuitous mega inaccuracy.
My right ankle worries me; the antibiotics to trim
the swollen area are not seeming to be efficient,
maybe tomorrow will see an enhancement.
Come on, kick in, kick me to sleep.
I yawn again, a good sign; maybe sleep will take
me away in next to no time.
I am going to shower before bed; but that is nothing new.
I am aware of being too tired to be angry tonight,
and that is a good hint that I am on my way.
What is happening to the squeaking machine?
Now, it seems back to normal, to let me
continue on my odyssey alone.
Part 2 extrapolating the inner refrain in the air
I used to play it - on disc - an old work, from the old house,
the pipa plucking at the long-lost heartstring to bring
the sun to zenith temperature, the arpeggio notes ring,
there are pictures in a book, of a snow mountain, with desert aridity,
a Chinese flute, xindi, warbles, like a tiring bird into humidity,
the winging flock of ducks fly away in my thought,
the lotus, the thin ripple of the water embrace, quiet, taut,
I imbibe an unusual tea - it looks like a date, or pebble, but
in hot water, a flower opening - from a glass of slender-stem cut;
a shower, in gesticulating soap, the erosion of the sweat churn,
hanging out the dhobi at foolish mid-morning time; I return
in green crab, starfish against the aquamarine of the ocean gyro,
in a cool, pale shirt, buoyed up in recent time by a leaking biro;
the erhu is biting at the rein to escape the grass plateaux,
galloping away, eating the wind with the bow and arrow;
the guzheng enjoyment to explore, in modest wooden polish pace,
the emotion of the many strings of the slowing, fading race;
through the window,
the air can barely whisper a challenge to the tree.
