Poetry

Pillowside Whisper

Missing You - A monologue

When you are away:

Looking at your smiling picture,

Listen to your sweet voice in long distance call,

But you are not on my side,

Let me hope to see you soon.

In a night of heavy frog,

I drive home in the misty road,

You are not home waiting for me,

It makes me very discouraged.

On a coldest winter night,

The blizzard blows fiercely,

But I cannot hug you in my arm,

The feeling was freezing.

Missing You!

When I go on my trip:

Taipei’s Tamsui river night view is beautiful,

Countless couple lovers hugging on the riverbank,

But I cannot hug you at the time,

Cause me to feel miserable.

Bangkok five-stars restaurant is impressive,

Thai food is so delicious,

But you are not there with me,

Feeling of loneliness fills up my mind.

Dali five-star hotel is spectacular,

The members of the tour group are in pairs,

Only my shadow under streetlight follows me,

How I hope that shadow is you.

Missing You!

When we are both at home:

On my lunch hour at workplace,

Every time I eat my lunch you prepare,

The delicious taste of the meal,

Remind me of your excellent cooking skill.

The time I stay alone when you work,

I think about how tire you can be,

Wishing you can stay home only,

You do not need to sacrifice for the family.

Seeing our two sons playing at home,

Watching them grow up every day,

It brings us so much happiness,

This is the best gift you have given me.

Missing You!

Under my subconsciousness:

Once I am in my dream,

My consciousness is gradually vanishing,

The only thing I worry is

Can you survive alone without me?

Once you are in my dream,

Your pale appearance makes me feel pity,

I hold your face in my palms, say

Quit your job, do not suffer anymore.

Once you tell me in my dream,

You would leave me forever,

I wake up in scare,

Just to feel good that it is only a dream.

Missing You! Even in my dream.

It does not matter,

Yesterday, today, tomorrow,

Whenever, wherever, forever,

In my mind, in my heart, in my soul,

Missing You!

Give you a red red rose – 1st Anniversary

Give you a red red rose,

Can’t represent all my passion.

Write you a sweet sweet poem,

Can’t express all my affection.

Three hundred sixty-five days,

You work hard, you suffer

All because of me, no present

Can replace my sincerity.

Offer you my true true heart,

Stay with you till eternity.

Picture - 6th Anniversary

In the hospital,

I saw our newborn son.

You hold him carefully,

You touched him gently,

You talk to him sweetly,

Embellished to be a beautiful picture.

When I saw this picture,

My heart melting,

My thought freezing,

My brain bursting,

Nothing in this world can exchange for this.

I want to save this picture

In my memory

Forever!

Picture Poem – 18th Anniversary

Just Like to See You Smile – 24th years anniversary

Just like to see you smile.

No matter how far the distance

No matter how high the price

I will get them for you,

If you are happy.

Just like to see you smile.

Dark clouds will disappear

Sunlight will be more shining

I will be more satisfied,

If you are happy.

Just like to see you smile.

I Have Been Poisoned - 25th Anniversary

I have been poisoned,

Getting worse and worse,

I am addicted,

Sinking deeper and deeper,

But the poison feels good,

The addiction’s so wonderful.

Don’t need to heal,

Don’t want to quit.

My affection for you!

On our 26 Years Anniversary

26 years ago,

I made a wish, Holding your hand,

Walking into our golden age.

Now,

I still persistently

Insist on accompanying you,

On our journey.

However,

Seeing you lean on your aching body,

Always working hard to support our family,

My heart feels like it’s been

Cut by a knife, Burned by fire.

I promise,

For the rest of my life, to

Use my fingers, to massage your pain

Use my hands, to reduce your fatigue,

Use my heart, to sooth you soul.

To Let you smile again!

My Sincerity-30 Year Aniversary

My sincerity, like

A turbulent brook water,

Slowly fills

your heart.

My affection, like

A surging sea tide,

Rapidly enters

your consciousness.

The flying of time, only

Accumulates, more and more

Pillow side whispering.

My whisper, like

An endless free breeze,

Softly mumbles

To make my request

Stay with me

Another thirty years.

Time is an Artist - 31 Year Anniversary

Time is an artist,

Paint layers of white hair on my head,

Carve strips of dark wrinkles on my face,

Create various serious sicknesses on my body.

Time is a magician,

Manufactures numerous troubled hardships in my life,

Fabricates various fantasy illusions in my brain,

Engineers’ fragments of mournful sorrow in my soul.

Time can not

Take away my affection for you.

You are the poetry of my eye,

You are the memory of my dream,

You are the marking of my mind,

You are the entrust of my anima.

My affection, can only be more

Higher, deeper, longer

Missing You

Missing You - 1

A night of heavy fog,

Hovers over the road on my way home.

Misty fog, misty night, misty road,

Only the cold, indifferent car light,

Irradiates the cheerless, silent street.

Remembering one other night,

The same misty fog, misty night, misty road,

But my heart was not lonesome.

Knowing you were waiting for me at home,

To warm my longing heart.

But tonight,

Only the empty bed,

Waits for me to return home.

Mistier fog, mistier night, mistier road,

Colder heart.

On this misty night

Missing you.

Missing You - 2

Your voice is ringing,

Calling me to massage your body pain.

I hurry out of bed,

Only to realize you’re still In Taiwan.

Annoying morning light,

Sneaks in from the window,

Lighting the whole bedroom,

And steals my sweet dream of missing you.

The two cockatoos in the living room,

Start their morning squawking,

They seem to be laughing at me,

“Too passionate! Too Passionate!”

Another morning of

Missing you.

To My Children

Soccer Game

I finished my work late in the evening,

A nice shower is what my tired body needed,

And relax my mind with a few poems to read,

To hopefully have a good night's sleep.

My two sons wanted me to join their playing,

A soccer game with them, I took heed,

I could not resist to do the deed,

But it was nice to see their innocent laughing.

I helped my youngest son win a goal,

He thought it was his own ability,

He pushed me to team with his brother,

I played with them till the game folded.

Watching them laughing with all their heart cheerfully.

My tiredness was gone as a father.

Bicycle Riding

My son of ten years old,

Is learning to ride a bicycle in our backyard,

The first day I held the bike,

Guiding him, running with him,

I pant and he smiles.

I let him ride by himself,

The bike falls, he is in pain,

The knee is bleeding, I hold him up,

Padding his back to encourage him,

But my mind is hurting.

One week later after work,

He runs toward me and proclaims that he can ride,

He pulls me to the backyard then rides

The bike perfectly.

He laughs with joy,

My heart blooms.

Father's Day Gift

When my youngest son was seven,

He drew a picture for me.

“Happy Father Day,” he wrote.

One man and two boys

Stood in the picture

With three piles of small oval particles in it.

Those were watermelon seeds,

I used to crack open to share with them.

My love was in his mind,

Tears were in my eyes.

The precious gift is lost,

The message stays forever with me.

Self-encouragement

Apple and Water

1972, with a student visa, I came to America,
The immigration official warned me
not to work to make money
to subsidize my tuition.

I didn’t have too much pocket money,
To survive, I had to count every penny.
I tried to save as much as I could,
Besides my tuition, I was very stingy.

I lived with three friends from Thailand,
We shared an $80 per month run-down apartment,
No bathroom, we bathed only in a big sink,
No bedroom, we slept only on the floor.

My friends all went out to work,
Leaving me alone in the apartment.
A 40-cent bag of apples and water
were my daily meals for the day.

A 40-cent piece of pizza was a luxury.
Some nights, leftover Chinese food
My friend brought back from their work,
Became a heavenly treat for me.

I sustained living like that for two months
Till my savings ran out,
To survive, I had to find a job,
Working as a busboy at night, and attending school during the day.

I had struggled in my country at a young age,
I have experienced many setbacks in life.
I won’t be discouraged, I promised myself
My blood can bleed, my tears won’t fall.

A Chinese proverb says,
That heaven will drill your body and mind
Before letting you meet any success.
I would accept these circumstances as a challenge.

Confession of a Sea Rower

A rower on a boat,
Slowly rowing forward in the sea.
An endless sea,
Against an endless horizon.
The rower holds tight to the oar,
Never giving up or being discouraged,
Forging ahead slowly.

The wind gets stronger,
The waves get higher,
The boat overturns.
Again and again,
The rower gets back in the boat,
Holds tight to the wooden oar,
Unyielding and indomitable,
Forging ahead slowly.

He doesn’t know how far the land is,
He doesn’t know the danger of the coming storm,
He just knows,
Paddling the oar endlessly,
Someday,
He will reach the shore.

Confession of a Sea Rower

A rower on a boat,
Slowly rowing forward in the sea.
An endless sea,
Against an endless horizon.
The rower holds tight to the oar,
Never giving up or being discouraged,
Forging ahead slowly.

The wind gets stronger,
The waves get higher,
The boat overturns.
Again and again,
The rower gets back in the boat,
Holds tight to the wooden oar,
Unyielding and indomitable,
Forging ahead slowly.

He doesn’t know how far the land is,
He doesn’t know the danger of the coming storm,
He just knows,
Paddling the oar endlessly,
Someday,
He will reach the shore.

Old Classmates

Old classmates in distinctive places,
Each encounters different fates.
Rich ones with abundance to spare,
I alone freeze in northern lands.

Old Classmates

Half a century has passed,
I went back to Maesai, A
Golden Triangle town in northern Thailand,
To attain a grade school classmates’ reunion.

We came from different places,
We had faced different fates,
Some were rich with abundant waste,
Some had been already dead.

I alone came from North America,
Still trying to adapt to the freezing land,
Being able to participate in this reunion,
Caused a lot of emotion in my head.

Our meeting will be less and less,
It’s worth it for a drink to celebrate.

Four years ago, I went back to the town – Maesai - where I grew up to attend my grade school classmate’s reunion. The fact that we are all close to our seventies. Some classmates had passed away. And I have lived far away from them. The chances of meeting each other will be less and less. It causes me to feel emotional and want to cherish our meeting. I wrote down a poem with the Chinese Tang dynasty seven words quatrains style of poem. In this revision, I try to use a freestyle to include more of my feelings. I also believe that it includes more of the facts in this poem.

Home Sick

White snow fluttering,

Cold wind blowing,

A scene from the north land.

A lonely wild goose,

Strives hard to fly south,

Is it flying to my homeland?

My Homeland,

Birds still singing,

Flower still blooming.

My heart, like the goose,

Flies toward the south,

Back to my homeland.

Home Sick – Iambic Pentameter

The wind is blowing, leaves are falling down,

The snow flutters, the air is cooling now,

The atmosphere far north is freezing cold.

The lonely wild goose flies in the sky,

It tries to fly toward the south, its home,

The bird aims for the same homeland as mine.

My own homeland is in the south, I sense

The birds are singing, flowers blooming wide,

The people still gesture warmly to me.

My homeward longing heart is trying to

like geese, to fly toward the south, always

It’s flying back to home, where I belong.

Home Sick – Pantoum

The leaves fall, the snow flutters,

The lonely wild goose flies in the sky,

The atmosphere far north is freezing cold,

The goose tries to fly toward the south, its home.

The lonely wild goose flies in the sky,

My heart is flying like a bird,

The goose tries to fly toward the south, its home,

My heart wants to fly toward the south, my homeland.

My heart is flying like a bird,

Aiming at the tropical south,

My heart wants to fly toward the south, my homeland.

To comfort my homesickness.

Aiming at the tropical south,

Where birds still sing, flowers still bloom,

To comfort my homesickness,

Where people still gesture warmly to me.

The lonely wild goose flies in the sky,

The leaves fall, the snow flutters.

Comment: I try to use a new form to write the poem.