Prelapsarian Bloom: One Day One Life, thread on kite, LED light. Photo courtesy of the author.
[untitled]
a day a life, between death and birth,
under the mo...
PHOTO: Florian Wehde/Unsplash
Tasting Karma
Does the doctor prefer eating an apple
before he announces death? The doctor says:
“Just so—sorry.” Or, he prefers studying an ap...
Press Doorbell Please. PHOTO: Eddie Tay
How I Impress Others with My Cantonese
At a dim sum restaurant
you’ll need to ask for la jiu jeong (chili sauce),
la jiu yeow (chili oil), or...
PHOTO: Alice Cheung
Dim Sum Cart
Dim sum house in Mongkok, the crowded, traditional
one with gleaming walls, red flowery carpet,
you squeeze through waiters and eaters, tables and chandelier...
PHOTO: Siriwan Leowratsamee/Unsplash
Lamma Island Tofu-fa
On the broken trail to Mot tat
a field of white ginger lilies
flags us down.
We shrug off our packs.
Huddled amo...
Rainy Afternoon Hong Kong 2018. PHOTO: Joan Pabona
@kuochuqu #historyofthebees
#gardenwall #blah #sowhat
In 19__ I broke an expensive urn.
Since then I have been...
PHOTO: Joel Fulgencio/Unsplash
Hong Kong and the Echo
What do we know but that we face
One another in this place?
– W. B. Yeats, “Man and the Echo”
HK. I loved my mountains, rivers,...
Rohingya students reading The Blossom in the Community Rebuilding Centre education facility in Cox’s Bazaar refugee camp, October 2018. Photo courtesy of Mayyu Ali.
Translator’s no...
Crystal Z Campbell, Friends of Friends (Six Degrees of Separation), 4x6x72 inches, vintage collection of bacteria slides circa 1940s, steel, LED strips, automotive paint, plexiglas, 2013...
PHOTO: Luca Iaconelli/Unsplash
Watching the Moonrise Alone
Watching the moonrise alone
the silent moon is like the person watching
They’re alone together
No one utters a si...
PHOTO: SkitterPhoto/Pexels
considering the Upstairs Lounge Fire
We tipped our sticks to the gravel like the bent
spines of men groveling beneath trunks of smoke
to lure the barbed...
Photo: Casliber/Wikimedia Commons
We have been away from Jam Tree Gully –
now, reapproaching the name not on the gate.
Working the categories, the signs, we fear the raiders?
Fifteen minutes int...
Photo: Domeckopol/Pixabay
6
His under-
wear
white
Armpits
spotless
and collar
neat
From Monday to Monday
he is like that
because the drainpipe
carries off
the rest.
12
Before me
thei...
Photo: Bash Fish/Unsplash
1
At what time must the birds lined up in gardens, trees, and cages sing?
Look to the law.
2
Let’s appoint the village madman. Chief Justice on the Court of Appeals,...
Photo: Michael Olsen/Unsplash
[Carry my metaphor]
Carry my metaphor; I touched the sea
before waves deceived me.
Carry my dream; I saw it all
without opening eyes of salt.
Carry my soul; I met...
Photo: Kordula Vahle/Pixabay
*
Granaries as long
and winding as
the shores from
which we look
at the lit ocean, behind
us the fertile land, rivers
coming to this sea, silt
behind us thousa...
Photo: Foto-Rabe/Pixabay
Guide to Bharatanatyam
Your smile, shredded into silver shards
across panes of mirrors lining studio walls.
Tuck your sari, tight. Open your eyes, wide.
You...
Photo: Claus Grünstäudl/Unsplash
Maybe it will be like the end of a yearwhen you find yourself alone in a deserted roomlike a statue at the end of a public garden pathfaced with bare autumn after the...
In the Presence of the Simurg, by Ashur Etwebi
How Can You Recognize a Blue Morning?
How can you recognize a blue morning?The sea to his right, the desert to his left.
What voices does the m...
Photo: Ria Alfana/Unsplash
A Conversation from Far, Far Away *
No linedear friendconnects here, where I am,with where you are.Isn’t it strange that I’m talking to you?
The question you handed meh...
A garden surrounds the memorial to Celia Sánchez in Cuba. Photo: Clara Sanchiz/Flickr
But there we were a small contingentwaiting for Her.A nun showed up first,of course,this being hundreds of years...
Pampas grass on the Han River. Photo: dnlspnk/Flickr
Wild Geese
At the northern edge of the Han RiverI saw field-cannons marchdown the snowdrifts of the valley.
Wild geese flew low.I woke to see mys...
Photo: Momoko Morita/Pixabay
The Earth Shall Remain
I’m surethe earth shall remain,if not elsewhere,it shall remain in my bones;as a wood louse lives in the trunk of a tree,as a weevil lives in a see...
Photo: Lizzie/Unsplash
Nag-aagaw-dilim
Filipino idiom meaning twilight (literally, snatching darkness)
Hold the flashlight and I’ll raise my hands, make these shapes for yo...