The Components of Fine Rain

1.

Fleeting spring light, the quiet dark

Corner peeks out its eyes, lips, ears

Fine rain slowly crosses the water

Like writing, voicing, hearing a text

For which the world wakes.

2.

Ferns living atop the roof

Furl the whispers of rain, exhaust

Pipes whimper at the sky, bent mouths

As though the horn were playing a soaking

Black cat. Dark clouds depart, silently

3.

Fine rain wanders the cracks of a brick wall

A blade of grass points the way

The glass window in the wall

Is a message board for the rain

Each word a mark of imagery passing

4.

A city mists in the distance

A traffic lane runs through my heart

Arriving in silence, a pilgrimage

Some feelings sail between my brows, headed

For the bridge of my nose, in unending rain

5.

In fine rain, every word is

An island, several islands form

A verse. The verse floats on the water’s

Surface, words drifting now together, now

Apart, an unstable chapter

6.

South winds caress, the wall

Sweats, the sky rains tears,

The paper words I smudge

Mistakenly erasing my own

Image, leave only a shadow

7.

The book damp, the moss

More ravenous than silverfish

From my feet, hands, face

Executing fine rain’s pouring warrant

Until the dust jacket is dyed with moss

8.

Umbrellas undiscover people, people undiscover fire

The city curfews the sky in the rainy night

We cannot trace the stars, in the dark

We trim our nails, lashes

And freedom for the dolls.

9.

Cherry blossoms and faces fall, peacefully

Draped over the ground, beauty sleeps

Butterflies trail after even a wasteland

Seeking the footprints of mourners in fine rain

The remnants beautiful even in trance

10.

Reality forces me, I can

Dream. Civilization invades, permitting

My desolation. Fine rain pelts

And I can be drenched

My language, too, has come down with bird flu

11.

Tonight’s unfallen, the sky is dark

Fine rain is starlight scattered

Before it goes out, I go to the door

Open my umbrella, read starlight’s

Messages rippling the streets

12.

Disassembled parts still long to return

To life’s architecture, link the wings of birds

Keep the clouds turning, fashion the sky

Into a vast book. When the page turns

The fine rain in the book no longer falls.

Sympathy

1.

two eyes that haven’t written any

letters in a long time, having been dry for a long time

a white shirt turned yellow

reaches out its left sleeve

swings hard at my right cheek

the slap has me fainting in the envelope

don’t know who put on the stamp

tossed it into my eyes

a thousand miles away

a tree finally receives my

tears

2.

two eyes

that haven’t shed leaves

in a long time spread a row of lashes

to shelter a crow

from a thousand miles away

a letter reaches over with its hand

furiously shaking

a tree

finally sheds a plenty of tears

Across the Ocean in My Heart

my hand strokes from my right breast to my left

there’s a pain in my chest

my hand, trying to fly across the ocean in my heart…

a white seagull

gently flicks open a row of buttons on my lapel

swooping into that naked

chest, that unending vastness

those surging torrents of

my flesh

between shore and shore

a seagull glides the air

ahead, opened eyes stare

ahead, dampened wings dive

beyond the silhouette leaving the distant shore

ahead is lost

the right bank my right chest

the left bank my left chest

in between is a wound

blood like an ocean

the seagull flies desperately

it must fly up, only the sky

the sky’s forever emptied

there are no crags to write down its footprints

shores of blood

deliver it ahead

but ahead is lost

I call out over high-frequency radio

there’s a tower over there!

a wound of seven thousand miles

forming an ocean of blood

seagull, try your best to get across

like a white ball of cotton

gently wiping over the wound

yet the wound grows and grows

suddenly, it sees

my heart’s an island in the wound

the habitat of its destination

it flies closer

amidst a chain of orange navigation lights

slowly it lands