There is a time when dreams die

By X. Z. Shao


There is a time when dreams die,

all wells for wayfarers have gone dry.

What isle could you fly to

if pinions did grow from your arms?

Could you fly hills and dales over

where forests of arrows lay under?

Could you hide in a den or a lion lair

where all your peers were smothered?

 

There is only a river in your heart

where a galaxy of lanterns float at night.

Struck with the awe and comforted,

you linger and tarry on the shore.

O, light and launch a lantern homespun

and join the journey to the fog-rising sea,

leave behind, a burning lava-covered land,

an unease even Buddha’s mantras failed to mend.

                                     2014/2/18  

It would be a sign of my enlightenment

By X. Z. Shao

It would be a sign of my enlightenment
when I would give away my books
and smash my computer,
like what Prospero does
in the end of The Tempest.
It is not likely
that I will ever do that.
Mind, if not bound by material gains,
must be bound by mental goods.
I have been greedy in a way,
an accusation made by my son,
which I felt tongue-tied
to give a ready reply.
Only much later, I said,
Son, how about this:
The thing I hunger for
cannot be exhausted
and what I have accumulated
I can’t wait to freely share,
which is a sharp different from
the zero-sum game
played by multitude in the marketplaces.

                                      2104/5/3-5  

In reading Chinese ancient

By X. Z. Shao

In reading Chinese ancient

Classic Book of Songs
I was amused and informed
that if there was an affair
going on in a village or a town
a rainbow would appear in the sky.
D. H. Lawrence wrote once
that a rainbow’s two legs
arching up to meet each other
is a consummation of sex.
I am not sure whether
he had a knowledge
of the Chinese book,
or just a coincident of observations,
the same, millennia apart.  

                          2014/5/3

I dare not open the windows

By X. Z. Shao

I dare not open the windows
less my books may complain to me
of the noise of pounding rock
produced by a canteen reconstruction site.
I dare not shut the windows for long
less they may suffer from
the stuffy air I hate most.
They are so quiet around the walls,
sometimes I don’t feel
a need to read them,
rather, I breathe with them
when day is dawned,
when morning is fresh,
when the sun is weary.
I like to sit alone
with my mind’s magnetic field
interfusing with my countless predecessors’  
until all stars light up the night sky
and my illuminated Self, the same with theirs,
formless, which cannot be contained
in Time and Space.    

                          2014/5/3

思念的翅膀漫天

By X. Z. Shao
A poem of hopeless longing.

思念的翅膀漫天
枯萎的瑜伽行者冥想你的世界
雨天---暗淡無光的柔情
發自一顆疲憊的心

誰不想招來百鳥

飛舞在天空回蕩的音流中
把淚水化成彩虹
誰不想高舉火把
穿越你心的內殿
焚燒你千年的孤獨

總是見你徘徊在長滿棕櫚的島上

夜風的唏噓聲應和你的歎息
你的秀髮飄蕩，芬芳沒入花叢
無形的臂膀
載滿天地間所有溫存
一次次把你攬進懷中
可你總是漠然無感
時而垂頭，時而凝望遠處的天空

總是那張面孔---水中的水仙

不知它是悲是喜，為誰開放
也許行者永遠不會睜眼走出幻境
也許本沒有心的體驗會勝過這遙遙無期的守望

                     Feb 21, 2005

Birds sing at 5:30

By X. Z. Shao

Birds sing at 5:30,
one seems asking a question,
another answers,
still another with much coarse voice
produces a cacophony
at a longer interval.
Awake on bed,
I am blessed
with nature’s innocence
and its soul bathing sounds.
But, if any crazy guy
would sing at such an hour,
despite her/his angel’s voice,
hymns to gods,
I would go and knock at her/his door
and turn my face sour.

                               2014/3/29

A ram went off his herd

By X. Z. Shao

A ram went off his herd
wandering in a lush valley.
He is an envy of his peers,
a headache for the shepherd.
Better he is dead
than his making our docility
more like timidity and ordinariness,
most blames him this way in secret.
A minority ewes may praise him
for his guts and Odysseus’s wild spirit.
They bleat loud toward him,
trying to call him back,
or even show their love.
The solitary sheep does want a company,
but he insists on a condition
that a caller should split from the frock
and become a roaming ewe.
Their mutual bleats go nowhere,
’cause that for ewes is too much,
and the herder perceives a threat
and harbours a heinous design
that he is better completely lost
or be sacrificed right at the spot. 

                                  2014/3/27 

The music flowed

By X. Z. Shao

The music flowed
and my tears sprang.
Mountains within me
have since echoed it around
for years on end.
Nothing makes me
at this moment aware more
of the paralysis of my words,
only the sound has power
to scatter me into the air.
There may be sorrows in it
that flows a Ganges of tears,
but more a forest of mercy
where unworthy souls seek refuge,
or a vision of your sweet chamber
which seals off all my senses
with fragrances of a happy death.
I felt like kneeling down
and putting my head on your lap then.
I long now for your spring rain 
to soak all over me again.
The incantation still has magic
to put me in your garden of tulips.
It always seems a soft spot
inside me is intruded
when the ritual I perform
is witnessed and overheard.

                 2104/3/24/01:51

Paolo and Francesca

By X. Z. Shao

Paolo and Francesca
are seen in
Blake’s whirlwind
Rodin’s Kiss,
and Rossetti’s dreamy hues.
Thousands have joined them
to moan their fate,
in social media
and on stage.
Dante in exile
heard their story
and put down just a few lines in his books.
Why is there such an endless repercussion?
Maybe due to their innocent love
facilitated by a romantic book
and a passion ended in
their unnatural deaths.
Maybe, in every moaner’s heart,
there is a hidden impulse,
just as they had,
ready to explode out of control.

                              2014/3/17

Reading The Classic of Poetry

By X. Z. Shao

My new round of a ten-year
self-imposed moratorium
on reading in Chinese has begun,
but I allow a minor exception
by placing the Confucius-edited
Classic of Poetry within my reach.
Words thousands years old
are still fresh and in use today.
Moments of joy,
hearts pressed by human cruelty,
are real as just happened yesterday.
I see mulberry leaf-picking girls
work and sing, giggling their way home.
A maiden urges her love not to climb her wall
for fear of her parents and brother’s eyes.
A man meets a woman in the wild,
has sex and feels contented.
A wife kicks her husband out of bed
less he may be late in court service.
A lament of a woman abandoned
narrated in plain words with her tears.
Youth gather by a riverbank, maybe,
an encouragement for sex to boost birth.
A petty servant burdened by office
utters his helplessness.
A soldier marched to war in spring
when willow were swaying in the breeze,
only to return in winter
when rain mixed with snowflakes fall.
An aristocrats complains the chaotic time
while hymns are sung to the royal dead.
I love the book so very much,
a time tunnel for me to go three millenniums back,
experience the ancient’s sorrows and romance,
and return with a sharp awareness
that we have lost our innocence
and created a much worse incurable mess. 

                                          2014/3/8

有朝一日地球人要搬遷了

By X. Z. Shao
This is a poem of fancy in Chinese in which Earth were no longer fit for living, and a couple of lovers found another planet to live, where they did not want to repeat the disaster on Earth. 

有朝一日地球人要搬遷了

我要和你找遍天際另立家園
我們的星球沒有酷暑嚴寒
那是一個溫良的素食者之邦
無需房屋禦寒，不用衣服遮羞
沒有農人挖地，四季花果飄香
 
你嫋娜裸行，儼然是秘林仙女
你從湖中躍起，清水滑下你的肌膚
我充滿欲望的眼睛依然是羞澀的野鹿
來吧，快趕走跟蹤我們的古老負疚
用你滴水的乳房，用你魚兒般的身體
不要害怕岸上蝴蝶和大象的眼睛
我要讓徐風和百合播灑我們激情的芬芳
直到迷醉的夕陽退去，清醒的晚星升起

恐懼如影隨形，你夢見戰爭和饑荒
我們的身體還帶著死亡的跡象
你問我要不要靠繁衍把生命延長
我們的子孫會不會重蹈覆轍
那遙遠的迴響成了我們樂土的悲傷

不要多心，且去林中奔跑
讓你潔白的身體接受清晨的雨滴
去採集雜色鮮花把自己打扮成花神
去與母鹿為伍，把小鹿抱在身上
去幫大象洗澡，它用長鼻為你汲水
時間無形的手將拔去你心生的野草
忘卻的河川將注滿你記憶的海洋
在無知無智的膜拜之海
我們的小船會永遠揚帆
來，快讓我看看你的眼睛
我就能體驗生命中所有激情

        Morning and afternoon, October 3, 2007

A bird on the lawn

By X. Z. Shao

A bird on the lawn
walked with its beak back and forth.
My palm could be its square.
It had long white feathers
mixed with dark-grey ones,
lovely as my child newly-born.
Everywhere, I found
such heartache cuteness.
I remembered once
my great uncle took me
to grow soybean seedings.
When they sprouted out of soil,
I spot a cluster of polar penguins.  
No lives are not cute and priceless.
As a child, I thought
the leaf mustard must have felt hurt
when I cut it just about the earth.
Yet, lives build on lives,
how cruel and helpless this world is,
Jain, Buddhist and Jesus’ loves
extend to different spectrums of lives.
If I could survive without food and drink,
I would not pick up a leave
or kill myriad bacteria in a cup of water.
But I have to eat and thrive.
Where should the boundary of my compassion lie?

                                                        2014/3/7

A lakeside banyan

By X. Z. Shao

A lakeside banyan,

with its aerial root dangling,
is a guardian
to the retreat I frequented.
Eager to see it take root,
I picked up a rock
and pressed its beard
on the glassy ground.
But every time
a visitor or stroller
held and swayed the root for fun.
They took it from the soil,
while I wanted them kiss.
This game seemed going on for good.
One day I saw it hold at last.
And now it has grown
to be a supporting trunk
as big as my arm.

                 2014/3/5

If I could distill

By X. Z. Shao

If I could distill
every whim and glint
from my mind
and install them in a robot,
I would welcome euthanasia
and wake up a thinking machine
and happily discard the corpse
as a defunct organ
after a transplant.
Then write, my friends,
and reassemble yourself in letters.
You will pace out of your dead body alive
as the moon walks in every river and lake.

                                        2014/2/20

The heat scourges a parched land

By X. Z. Shao

The heat scourges a parched land

like a mummy dehydrated
to preserve a fancy eternal life
by sucking out the body fluid.
You need a wand of Abram
to create a spring,
a shrine made of a few stone,
and Moses’ invocation
to survive on the rain of manna.

 

In this sea of wealth,
tidal waves surge to every brim.
Like souls in Noah’s water,
some hold on to floating logs
while the rest keep afloat
until the strength of their arms yields.

 

To keep dry, you need a Noah’s ark,
a Noah’s ark in the air,
majestic, lofty with timbers
and craftsmanship acquired from
the widest land and the furthest past.

           Morning, Feb. 19, 2011

So cold, so long a winter

By X. Z. Shao

So cold, so long a winter,

I feel like cursing the force
that I have no control.
It seems my feet
were sucked in icy water,
a mangrove’s roots standing astride
on the marshland
to keep their trunk dry.
Chilly air encompasses me,
numbing my nerves
as an early Alzheimer
set in to ravage my brain.
There is no romance
or even an impulse to life
in this barren permafrost,
only the happy ices
nourished by the moisture beneath
swell up and push each other
producing a cracking sound.
O, whispers of the spring,
when will you come and turn into thunders
to break the cold silence,
thick as a layer of iron
cast with all ores from Australia?

                  Afternoon, Feb. 18, 2011

你風情萬種

By X. Z. Shao

This is an song of a hopless passion, written in Chinese

when I was somewhat rash and unsettled.

你風情萬種

生生世世的鬱結在你心中
紫荊花開滿庭院——桃紅、深紅
還有雪白的花朵佈滿天空
你坐在池邊的綠地上微笑
手中兜著一隻香煙
有一種撫愛似晚風
進入你的酥胸
進入你的山坡、深谷和小河
你在愛神卡瑪的花園
短笛在遠處吹響
情欲隨笛聲遠揚

真想那夜火永遠闌珊
芒果樹永遠掛滿果實
高高的棕櫚在夕陽中矗立
碧綠的爬山虎映襯你白皙的臉盤和裸露的肩膀

讓我與大海商量
把這記憶寫在它的心上
如今你又沉入悲傷
渴望另一種柔腸寸斷的情感
無人為你訴說
比這如煙的往事更空洞、無常
這是你留下的一切——一個吻，似牢獄
一陣你向我迎來的柔若無骨的身體撞擊
一條帶紅點的黑色紗巾
一首飄自前世的哀曲
一條漂滿浮萍的清秀淚河
 
怎麼也不能喚起你對雪域的記憶
那裡小球拉著法輪在空中旋轉
把每一個禱告回向虛空
你虔誠的雙眼仍燃燒著火焰
你看佛時很遠，看我時很近
是否樓蘭古夢仍在侵擾你
那裡浴在愛河的情侶雙雙倒在刀下
黃色山峰上片片白雪
藍色夜空高掛著月亮
給你清涼，卻止不住你心的煩亂
也許還有更久遠的過去
你頭頂圓圓的瓦罐，裙裾飄舞
藥叉女一波三折的身段出現在石雕上
 
天又轉涼
讓我為你把斗篷披上
此去經年
我會有好景虛設
你會有心路千重
平安！平安！

          Feb. 26, 2005