Y: Yellowish Musings
Gold, lemon, butter, rapeseed flowers:
Pre-positioned, you function to lead
A whole column of evils as in the yellow
Peril, bastards, bellies, dogs, fish, guts
Journalism, heels, even men and pups
After words, you will become as noble
As imperial, as royal, or as Chinese
Yellow. That makes all the difference
Between a noun and an adjective
Between Chinese and English
Looking towards the East
Looking far beyond the horizon
in the ricefield of my soul
and amid green leaves
I see ears and ears, full ears
of golden verse
picking up a pen, I run to
reap the midsummer
of my fatherland, together
with my native folks
and store it in the barn
of my mothertongue
Immigrating
walking around
around the corner of a back lane
I used to carry my yellowish identity
as carefully as if it were a big piece
of glass, through which I could see
others or myself, only if I chose
to do so, but on a hasty afternoon
I tripped down, and
smashed it into hundreds of
small and sharp pieces; since then
my shredded selfhood has become a big
public nuisance, a traffic hazard
as it glistens glaringly under the sun, cutting
tires or human feet, from time to time
as if in a snakeland
Red
seeing the strange belts
like little mouth masks
hung on bamboo poles
I often wondered:
what kind of clothing was that
so funny looking
in front of almost every straw-thatched cottage
but you boys don't bother about that
until one of my aunts told me
on a showering afternoon
it was only until I began dating
with a girl in a major city, so close
to beijing many years later
did I get to know them
to be no other than menstrual rags
(a taboo of female blood?)
although they actually looked
more like shrunken flags
than thick masks
that's all I remembered about my boyhood
my native village, my motherland
[reflecting afar from canada]
far beyond the horizon
in the ricefield of my soul
amid green leaves
reach out ears, full ears
of golden verse
pick up a pen
reap the midsummer
of your fatherland, together
with your native folks
and store it in the barn
of your mothertongue
Parcenary
my destination was preset
you will receive a parcel from China
by express. It turns out
all too expressly, and
the sender was my parents
who had wrapped themselves
inside already
Viewpoint
no, no, no
no more do i want to be
a chinaman, brown-visioned
with all my yellowish
outlooks, yellowish sentiments
nor do I intend to be
a red-skinned big-foot
with my ancestors' vast land
all occupied by foreign devils
nor a rising black star
with evil pale-faced memories
nor a big white boss
with all his politically correct dollars
rather, I prefer to be a tiny rock
sitting still at a hilltop, on the roadside
watching, observing, or even
whistling when there is a wind blowing hard
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