Selected Poems from the Past

Selected Poems 
by Lostalley

1.  Noel

 

I woke up

When stars fell on my mosquito net

Fireflies were dancing around the mast of my sailboat

The summer harbor submerged

With songs of seagulls and splashing waves of yesteryear

 

In the shadow of rustling leaves 

I saw you 

Eyes pure, breadth soft, body tender

With a ray of shiny serenity

Like a little Buddha lost in eternity

 

Countless nights passed 

Without a hint of autumn fragrance

Yet I was looking for your footprint, your sigh, your lick 

And your sweetest murmur

That would melt the hardest heart

Till one winter night when you bid me farewell

Without a kiss I grew so familiar with

 

I wept and wept

With no tears and no sorrows

But a heavy memory of those light years

When I was with you day and night

 

Noel, my beloved friend

Only eternity could set us apart

2) A Green Pond

 

A midnight wind blew away

My bathrobe, hat, flower and feather

The marble floor reflected a pinky skyline

I heard someone whispering in Vietnamese

From a distant corner cafe

With the broken windows and a shattered door

 

The rain started to pour down

Ripples massaged the age-old cobble street

A dove was nesting in an unnumbered mailbox

The stain on the wall melted to transform into

A girl with an ice cream cone under

A summer umbrella

 

I contemplated

As all the empty bottles in the medicine cabinet

Gathered to gaze

If tomorrow would be as treacherous as centuries ago

From the nest under the roof would emerge

A night walker

Swimming in a green pond

 

3) To A Bird

An Anonymous bird
Flew Away
The blue sky
Turned blue grey

 

I sowed some seeds that need no watering

And piled a few cobbles as nest

With a whistle

I went away

 

At night

Looking at the sky

I asked myself

Shall I come back next spring

Or just keep the memory awake

 

 

4) Silence

 

You

Looked at the sea

Than at me

 

Slowly

An ocean away

I saw an effeminate figure

Running through a crowded market

Into a nameless cemetery

Murmuring to an oval portrait

Engraved on the granite tomb

That I once saw in a dust dream

 

 

5)  Spring

 

Spring arrives

Suddenly I feel

Sky and skyscrapers are softly collapsing

LIke sugar cubes in steamy coffee

 

Maybe unfamiliar with new toys created

By those egregious girls

I want to fly a kite

But the square’s sky is covered

With high-voltage power lines

I sit down in front of a convenience store

Crying like a naive tramp

 

I yearn to go home

To experiment a thousand yawns

To explain a thousand philosophies

Alone

 

 

6) An Unknown Night

 

Try to scream for at least once in life

Neither for victory

Nor for surrender

Just for tonight

When a trembling hand fondles a dreamy cat

 

Staring at the night sky

All I can see is a docile donkey

Swirling around a perpetual grinding mill

 

To eliminate the pride of ascending

Flies and eagles deserve equal death

 

Ancient swards lose like a hero

Modern pistols win like a coward

 

In the morning

I saw a whale
That committed suicide last night

Humans circled around 

On the beach I keep visiting
Since when

I forgot 

 

 

7) Air and I

 

Truth

Falsehood

Life 

Murder

 

What dangles in the air

 

Tombs are grassy

Thoughts are mossy

Smashing handcuffs is for casting bracelets

Punctual clocks tell no time

 

Sweep stars with a broomstick

Thunders and storms serve as a thorough cleaning

With oxtail soup

Voluptuous nurses wash those impotent machos

At sight of it

I start to hand a diaper 

Higher than a national flag

 

Bars, night classes, police stations

Are filled up tonight

I am walking along the defenseless trench

Intelligence is my revolver

 

 

8) San Francisco

 

Through a frameless window

Grey seagulls whistle at purple flower petals

An empty cafe blows kisses at the shadow of 

Night dogs and bikes

 

Houses chained steadfast without street names

Slide into the bay with moaning and laughing

From perpetually semi-drunk occupants

 

Zigzagging is the trademark of a straight city

Love is a nice facade of inexplicable hate

 

I let go of a feather picked up at noon

In a small park near Chinatown

Full of old people contemplating their infinite future

I tie my scarf onto a cable car filled with strangers

And smile at a fruit stand surrounded by

LV bags and cheap flip-floppers

 

A waiter languishes in afternoon sun

Staring at a fleeting fog like Aristotle

Many curtained windows make me wonder

Can emancipations and ejaculations erupt simultaneously

 

The fading aroma from an anonymous shore

Strokes my skin like uncertain velvet

Without a word

I see a worn raincoat abandoned

On an unpainted bench

Waiting for a soaked heart

 

 

9) A Path

 

This morning

I saw two paths leading to an infinite forest

A bridge of rainbow would emerge through

Such a chilly mist

So was my heart yearning acutely

 

Nothing in the end

Except two fallen and broken petals

From a dead opium poppy

 

I remember how beautiful it was then

That is why I am so painful now

 

10) Love 

 

I am the dirty lava from an extinct volcano

 

I am the unmelted polar ice from a sunken boat

 

I am the beaten warrior of a glorious battle

 

I am the unbroken dream of an unrealistic world