Reading Baudelaire

By X. Z. Shao

 

Reading Baudelaire

even in English,
I feel like walking on
a street of perfumes,
neon lights of all sorts
beaming to my eyes.

Like a destitute rural child

with a candy in his hand,
he doesn’t want to finish it fast.
I never jump over a page,
or count how many pages left.
When I put it away,
I save it for the time I need it most.

Out of dumping ground

of filths from human hearts,
he was an artist making collages
of masterpieces out of his picks.
Don’t think he is one of you
brewing toxic drinks.
Don’t think he smears you
by exposing a corner of your heart
crawling with worms.

It is sweet to listen to

songs sung with a dreamy face,
but I prefer to be rocked and torn
by a tumultuous voice
uttered with a face dead serious.
Sometimes it is cold and lifeless
as if you were with a love one
with a terminal disease.
Sometimes you have the Beauty of Ice
beckoning you to your total destruction.

Going over the carefully-chosen words

laden with shared symbols,
and the cadence of mesmerizing lines,
you feel the giant woman, the cat,
the hair, the stone, the moon, the swan…
are all transformed into stars
in the blue night sky over Paris.
The beauty of despair may be yours,
but never Baudelaire’s,
his, a heart of reverie,
a shining star of eternal smile. 

           2015/5/16

Two Short Poems (No connection)

By X. Z. Shao

 

A snare,

A snare,
your heart is a hare,
wherever it ends up in,
there is a snare.
Or it’s a deer
enmeshed in a huge net.
When you feel most free,
the net is being gathered.

        2015/5/15

 

 

I am a coward

I am a coward

admiring those who took bullets
and their lives gave out scents
like nectar being poured on Earth.
If my whims had wings,
they would be knives of Justice
flying and cutting.
I wish I had talons of eagles
bringing terrible gifts

to comfort the most mistreated.

I am the unfortunate bard
in Odysseus’s hall in his absence,

but I don’t sing lofty songs,

I sing my own weakness,

I sing in sorrow to dampen the merrymaking,

I sing with hope to ease my hatred,

I sing in expectation of a miracle

that the thorns in my heart

will one day blossom to lull my hurts.
 

            2015/5/15

飄去，飄去

X. Z. Shao

飄去，飄去
陽光震顫，托起船隻
河流蜿蜒，不語

風中撒滿黃葉

情侶嬉戲，時隱時沒
果蝠倒懸在枝上

天湖邊願幡劈啪作響

有人環湖跪拜，神色尊嚴
犛牛成群，木然負重

一個漫遊的女人

訴說著青春和奇遇
笑聲調皮，林中有一個城堡

盞盞燈火，光影浮動

聖殿裏一張巨大的臉孔
高掛在空中，化為彩虹

睡蓮安靜，開在湖上

清晨，船槳嘩啦劃過水面
群山擁抱水中藍天

       Nov.27, Evening, 2006

Hallucination,

By X. Z. Shao

 

Hallucination,
a pond for human fishes,
without it,
we would belly up on a parched land.
We were born for addiction,
to wine, to drug, to sex,
to power and money,
to all sorts of collections,
to arts of all forms,
about all, to gods of all imaginations.
One thing is sure, we cannot survive
facing the grim reality of endless toil.
We need dreams to restore our minds
burdened by daily calculations.
We need to go beyond
the two ends of a tight rope of life.
Cities glittering at night are dreams,
and it’s now clear
rocks and mountains are dreams,
countless balls hanging in the sky are dreams.
All plants, crawling insects
and us, a paragon of all, are dreams
and the human history is
a long dream made of billions of dreams.
For all who are dreaming and addicted,
may you avoid a way of self-infliction,
may you not be overwhelmed by your dreams,
which may transform you to be a monster
shattering and dismantling others’ dreams.
You may make a castle perch on a mountaintop
and decorate it with all your whims,
but do it without shedding any tear and blood,
do it with a sheer power of wonder within yourself.

             2015/5/13

How shameless they are

By X. Z. Shao

How shameless they are

to bother me with all those
blatant intentions for money,
junk emails for products and tricks,
phone calls for market surveys,
advertisement prints
distributed on the streets.
When you have a try-on at a boutique,
you are always made to feel good
by the trained smiles and praises.
Waiters serve you as slaves or servants,
since you have the king in your pocket.
Private transporters dragged you to their vehicle
like picking up bank notes along the road.
A computer hooks me up
or cars and planes take me far and wide,
I have no thanks for those,  
since they were brought out for profits.
The only omnificent deity
which outlives all others
has driven things into the sky.
Good things do get done
as the Invisible Hand turns on.
Electricity lights up my room,
holes were drilled under ground
to get things to dec ladies’ necks,
but no matter how hard Adams Smith tried,
it is impossible for his machine to produce
the scarce commodity of love. 

         Afternoon, Feb. 24, 2011

Buddha says

By X. Z. Shao

Buddha says:
Form is none other than emptiness;
Emptiness is none other than form.
Form is emptiness;
Emptiness is form.

Einstein says:

Mass is none other than energy;
Energy is none other than Mass;
Mass is energy, MC2=E;
Energy is Mass, E=MC2.

Than who am I?

Buddha answers:
You are neither form nor emptiness;
You are the Nirvana beyond words.

Einstein replies:

Energy condenses into mass;
Mass forms planets;
Planets evolve lives on them.
You are the cosmic consciousness trapped in mass,
A tiny part of cosmic dance.

All living organisms reveal the secret of life,

Bacteria, grasses and trees, insects and birds
All have dreams as I have,
When a flower puts up her show,
Is she not the same as a burgeoning woman
Having an erotic dream of procreation?

Am I the energy or the consciousness
Which side is the coin itself, I insist?
To this question, Einstein busies himself
With watering the plants in his garden,
While Buddha sits in silence for all eternity.

             Composed at the small hours in bed, January 15, 2011

Because of your love

By X. Z. Shao

Because of your love,

it seems that I were taller than a mountain,
stouter than a diamond.

Because of your love,

it seems that I were less significant than a speck of dust,
weaker than a bubble.

Love’s ecstasy is a feather in the air.

I am so in tune with everything I encounter,
with a smile like honey in the heart of a flower.

Love’s burden is so heavy,

I am grim-faced as a soldier in the battlefield,
trying to rescue you from the talons of Time?

Your love is such a baby nestling in my arms,

how could I protect it from all encroaching elements
and carry it safely to the hall of eternity?

          Evening, October 17, 2011