by Ma Yongbo

The man fixing the attic form a oblique angle with the sky
The whole afternoon, his colony has expanded a little
Crimson slope roof is waving behind him
This attic, consecrate a giant one–eyed shrine
One boundary define both the house and sky
Limited capacity, it is conversation between
Limitation and the limitless, memos of the house
Inherited dust, wood cloth hangers
You can only weep and nap inside
Retreat temporally from OCD in life
Toys of childhood cracking,
Pale flower pot, bright, empty sleeves
He is trying again and again the shadow
Listen again and again to a rain or snow that has long stopped
Gazing at the stiff tree gathering water under its feet
He can’t bear living here, he can’t endure
Himself in the old photo album escaping through the roof
As the most proportional design of
human imagination and body, the attic
Try all might to stick its head from the dark waves
in the evening, the man fixing the attic stop working, smoking
His still shadow enlarged, expanding towards the horizon

by Genny Lim

Waiting
for Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Jack Hirschman

I am waiting for the war of the worlds to be over
and for the proclaimed virtues of Capitalism to
expand eligibility to all tiers beyond the ten percent
I am waiting for this pandemic of violence to surrender hatred
to death and for the first cherry blossoms of spring to amass its
beauty
and banish the sinister hands that chopped off its beloved
branches
I am waiting for Ferlinghetti and the rest of my white brother and
sister beats, Ginsberg, Corso and Kerouac, Whalen, Kaufman
Di Prima and Hirschman to howl in unison from wherever streets
they happen to be inhabiting in the six realms or North Beach
where poets spring out of cafes like Dungeness crabs from dark
nets
at the bay waters of Bohemia where I was born next door to the
old
Intersection of the Arts on Union six blocks from City Lights
where
I spent childhood days reading Zen and learning insurrection
from
poetry that rescued me from the banality of conformity and
nationalism
I am waiting to be inspired by the living and not the dead but
the dead seem more alive than the living these days
I am waiting for the eight immortals like Lu Dongbin and Cao
Guojiu
to awaken me from the stupor of quarantine so that I may search
the elixir of truth at whatever cost
I am waiting for the day when the sun will burn the consciences
of ordinary minds and ignite the flame of love in their hearts as
the ultimate act of patriotism
I am waiting for Chinatown to rise from its shadow of shattered
windows and rusted woks to savor my first bowl of jo wonton
mein
like a phoenix rising out of the comic strip pages of Old Master Q
and Lou Fu Zhi to set the world right and stomp on the corpse of
ignorance with my dragon thunderbolt and lasso of fire
I am waiting for the day I stop being invisible
and start being seen for who I am
I am waiting for all the gung–gungs, pau–paus, brothers and sisters
to stop being murdered and attacked by random xenophobia but
I can’t find the strength because a breaking heart makes no sound
I am waiting to catch my breath because English words keep
slipping
and spitting racial epithets behind my back in broad daylight as if
I couldn’t hear, as if the dust blowing from
the brutal wheels of life could crush time

by Genny Lim

Death never saw itself coming
Only the eerie silence just before
Heaven blew up and the
olive trees burst into flames
At that interminable moment
All the exits from Gaza were sealed
And the key to your home became a
souvenir in the mausoleum of your dreams
When the roof of darkness caved in
The Sea of Galilee turned red and
there was nowhere to go
Time was a thief your memory froze
Little did you know the terror in your heart
had been there all along from birth
like a little mouse trapped in a cage
Little did we Americans know that
the distance from here to Gaza
was an illusion and that the border
between Palestine and Israel did not
truly exist, ever, except in fiction
History is occupied territory and
whoever lives to tell it is the victor
There are no more lions, only hunters
with power over life and death
What’s left?
Only stories of the Flower of Jericho?
Only the place where Jesus fasted
for forty days and forty nights?
You’ve nothing but stories to
fill the empty Temple Mount
Your hunger echoes in the
desecrated ground and through
the tunnels of insurgent prayers
Never to be satisfied until the river returns
to the sea and the Right of Return is reality
You will know that moment when life returns
with the infallibility of spring
because your spirit will soar
on the chords of the wind and
Life will know itself becoming!

by Genny Lim

War is madness
You ask yourself
What lies beyond the power of a bomb?
Beyond the artillery of words?
Beyond the firing squad of the “Liberator?”
Who hands you a map in exchange for your land?
What is Empire but the slaughterhouse of dreams?
A hungry ghost that feeds on itself?
The President yells, ‘Rise!’
Beating his chest in the display of chief gorilla
And everyone rises!
He raises the flag of victory over the wounded
And corpses of innocents, as if their blood were
The Biblical parting of the Red Sea
War doesn’t forgive, nor does it accept
The law of cause and effect
Above the conquest of nature
As if killing were godly
And fighting, the endgame for peace
War is death
It’s mangled limbs, smoldering roofs, iron walls
Turned to rubble and ash
It’s a black cloud of meaningless suffering
Under which both, victor and loser
Cling, as parasite to host
Consuming humanity