Window View Tanka

sunshine
and a burst of leaves
on maples ...
my life here is better
when seen from this window

Cattails, 3, 2014

Laughter Tanka

laughter
descends on the street
with the darkness . . .
in my damp basement
alone with a house fly

Cattails, 3, 2014

Monarch Tanka

a monarch
trailing another
in the backyard
the warmth of our bodies
flushes against each other

Cattails, 3, 2014

ESL Class Senryu

first ESL class:
half the man
I used to be

Cattails, 3, 2014

(Note: ESL stands for English as a Second Language)

Workshop Senryu

senryu workshop:
dozing to the sound
of my critic

Cattails, 3, 2014

Flitting Bat Senryu

I'm bi-curious...
a bat flitting
over my friend's fence

Cattails, 3, 2014

Rising Tone Senryu

oh, you're a poet ...

her rising tone

in the last syllable

Editor's Choice Senryu, Cattails, 3, 2014

Comment by Senryu Editor, Mike Rehling

Every poet has been there, it happens a lot. If you say you are an accountant, or a gas station attendant there is immediate understanding of your role in our complex society. It just happens, but if you toss out the poet card you can never quite tell how it will be received. The other folks don’t have an easy way to relate to us poets. This one nailed it with the tone of the woman being unmistakable in her confusion as to how to react.

Bubble Gum Senryu

haiku reading
the pop, pop, pop
of bubble gum

Cattails, 3, 2014

Che Guevara T-Shirt Senryu

nudist beach at noon:
on my Che Guevara t-shirt
four breast prints

Cattails, 3, 2014

What's in a Name?, A Tanka Prose

Jean-Martin Aussant, founder of the left-wing sovereigntist Option Nationale party...waking up Friday morning with his children in Edinburgh.
“Scotland is really beautiful, papa!” they remarked.
He corrected them: “We are in the United Kingdom.”
-- “Quebec sovereigntists take lessons from failed Scottish referendum,” Toronto Star

listening to the words
Independence Referendum
that have aged
since my last trip home... half moon
over the Taiwan Strait

Living on Ilha Formosa, we are haunted by a war of names,
fighting for the Republic of China/Taiwan.
We Chinese, we Taiwanese, will never end our civil war --
a bloody bloodless civil bore.

No Kamikazes crashing, no Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. murdered.
To Uncle Sam and Brother Momotaro, we are the good soldiers.
Lacking the ghosts of history, we are haunted by names.

NeverEnding Story, September 24, 2014

Note: In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it "Ilha Formosa," which means “Beautiful Island.”

Journeys, A Haiku Sequence

for the country of my birth

Sintra at dawn
a carriage horse
clip-clop, clip-clops ...

Lisbon heat
taxis rattle and screech
through cobbled lanes

Belem in twilight
her sailor song tinged
with love and regret

Ilha Formosa ...
sailors and I cry out
in a fleeting dream

Cattails, 3, 2014

Note: In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it "Ilha Formosa," which means “Beautiful Island.”

Red Berry Haiku

a red berry
on the tip of her tongue
spring drizzle

Cattails, 3, 2014

Skyline Haiku

towers and cranes
marking the skyline
a red balloon

Cattails, 3, 2014

Alfama Haiku

Alfama stroll
the air drips with laundry
and the smell of fish

Cattails, 3, 2014

Peking Duck Haiku

evening breeze
the taste of Peking Duck
on her fingers

Cattails, 3, 2014

(Note: Peking duck, a dish that has been prepared since the imperial era, is considered a national dish of China)

Tit-for-Tat Tanka

my bony hand
writes tanka by itself
despite
the tit-for-tat
between heart and mind

Gusts, 20, Fall/Winter 2014

Vampires Tanka

on her window
two shadows cuddle
in one embrace ...
like vampires sucking
blood from my memories

Gusts, 20, Fall/Winter 2014

Spring Breeze Tanka

I open windows
(another day no poem
written down,
only blocks of dead words)
and let the spring breeze in

Gusts, 20, Fall/Winter 2014

Old Clock Haiku

winter twilight
the "tick, tock, tick, tock"
of my grandfather's clock

Revision, PoemHunter, Sptember 20 2014

Beginning of the End, A Haiku Sequence

I love you
on the tip of my tongue
spring drizzle

fleeting summer dream
between the spoken
and unspoken

my first taste
of make-up sex
crimson leaves

thundersnow
rumbling in the distance
her parting words

NeverEnding Story, September 19, 2014

Half-Empty Glass Haiku

door slamming
my half-empty glass
holds the moon

Brass Bell, 7, September 2014

Carp Soup Tanka

looking out a window
across Lake Ontario
the aroma
of crucian carp soup
fills the gaps in my heart

VerseWrights, September, 2014

Note: Crucian carp soup is one of China’s favorite dishes

Romani Women Tanka

inside the church
the congregation praying
under Jesus' gaze
two Romani women
in the trash-littered square

VerseWrights, September, 2014

Star-Spangled Banner Tanka

a line of men
on the wall-to-wall carpet
the six-year-old
in a mariachi outfit sings
The Star-Spangled Banner

VerseWrights, September, 2014

Mother's Hand Tanka

thoughts of home
like the touch of Mother's hand
on this cold night
I walk alone toward
the place I settle now

VerseWrights, September, 2014

Day and Night

written on Canadian Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day:
a stray dog and I
avert our eyes

footsteps echo
outside the closed church ...
Thanksgiving night

NeverEnding Story, October 13, 2014

Summer Clouds Tanka

the weathered curtain
patched with summer clouds
I murmurs
would a rose by any other name
smell as sweet in my hometown?

VerseWrights, September, 2014

Visual Snow Haiku

                        s
                        n
                        o
                        w
his word gentile  stuck in my throat
                        o
                        n
                        s
                        n
                        o
                        w

NeverEnding Story, September 14, 2014

Lily Haiku

blood-stained lily...
I lock her secret
in a haiku

VerseWrights, September, 2014

Bend of the River Haiku

winter sunset
at the bend of the river
a man and his shadow

VerseWrights, September, 2014

A Life in Transition and Translation

My Dear Friends:

I was notified that my haiku chapbook, A Life in Transition and Translation, won a Honorable Mention in the fourth Turtle Light Press biennial haiku chapbook competition, 2014. In celebration of the Double Ten Taiwan National Day, here is a free PDF copy of A Life in Transition and Translation for your reading pleasure.

Many thanks for your continued support of my writing.

Chen-ou 

Updated, October 13:

Commentary by the judge, Penny Harter

In this collection we enter the life of being an immigrant, feel the loneliness of being between worlds, and the questions and challenges that arise from that experience. One must learn a new language, a new landscape, and a new culture. The immigrant is at first cast adrift, never really at home, but never really in exile, either.

winter rain
I fall asleep
holding myself

We don’t have to be a stranger in a strange land to feel this degree of loneliness, but being one makes it all the more poignant.

budding lotus
when did I become
who I am

When any of us have experienced a shift from one land to another, whether chosen or forced upon us, this is a question we find ourselves asking more than once. I know I have been asking it often since my husband died and I only moved from north to south Jersey.

first homecoming . . .
the silence lengthened
tree by tree

And when we try to go home, we are changed, so home is changed. The silence, the trees . . . how do we bridge the gap? And what self are we bringing home again?

last cherry petals
drift to the ground
I miss myself

As we are becoming, day by day, our “new” selves, we miss the old, but can’t go back. And that’s the way it is. But we go on! This is a collection that makes us recognize the changes we must make—and, if we are immigrants, the changes are even more profound. 

Yellow Ribbons Haiku

for the spiritual followers of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese revolutionary and founding father of the Republic of China (formally established on January 1, 1912 following the Xinhai Revolution, which itself began with the Wuchang Uprising on October 10, 1911),  who said, "The revolution is not yet successful, the comrades still need to strive for the future." (革命尚未成功，同志仍需努力)

a sea of waving hands

with yellow ribbons

Hong Kong's skyline at dawn

NeverEnding Story, October 8, 2014

Note: Occupy Central Pro-Democracy protestors have adopted the yellow ribbon as their symbol. Below is my another poem about the Occupy Central movement, which was first published on the "National Day" of the People's Republic of China, October 1 :

as if
stars were spread thick
across the Hong Kong sky:
a mobile light vigil
in the Central District 

White Butterfly Haiku

a white butterfly
flying from branch to branch
thoughts of my ex

VerseWrights, September, 2014

Dead Wife's Photo Haiku

his dead wife's photo...
cigarette smell lingers
on his bony hand

VerseWrights, September, 2014

Slap Haiku

the slap
of flesh hitting flesh
distant sirens

VerseWrights, September, 2014

April First Tanka

April first, at dawn ...
the internet has written
my lonely faces
across the cloudless sky
in invisible ink

Bamboo Hut, 4, 2014

Morning Glories Tanka

morning glories
cluster around the well ...
each breath I take
now weighted
with my mortality

Bamboo Hut, 4, 2014

Icicles Tanka

maple trees
dripping in icicles...
we sing along
at the top of our lungs
to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Bamboo Hut, 4, 2014

First Sunrise Tanka

waking alone
to the first sunrise ...
nostalgia
like the walking dead
comes back to haunt me

Bamboo Hut, 4, 2014

Wooden Jesus Tanka

wooden Jesus
twenty meters tall
erected
in the bare cornfields...
father and son with their dog

Bamboo Hut, 4, 2014

Sari-Clad Girl Tanka

on the screen
a sari-clad girl drenched
in spring rain
while calling out Apu ...
grandma's toothless smile

Bamboo Hut, 4, 2014

Mom's Sayings Tanka

she nails
a list of Mom's sayings
to her bedroom door...
watches the fall
of another snowflakes

Bamboo Hut, 4, 2014

Hostage Tanka

torrents of rain
cascading down the street
inside the booth
she holds me hostage
with one glance of her eyes

Bamboo Hut, 4, 2014

We shall overcome someday ...

the flurry of white
between church steeples
in Ferguson
a line of police
clad in battle fatigues

the cops dart in
cleaving the crowd in two --
a black woman
yells in her husky voice
Don't be afraid! Stand your ground

Ferguson at dusk ...
his bony hands in the air
a black man
standing his ground
as police fire tear gas

NeverEnding Story, September 29, 2014

Mobile Light Vigil Tanka

as if
stars were spread thick 
across the Hong Kong sky:
a mobile light vigil
in the Central District

NeverEnding Story, October 1, 2014

The answer is blowin' in the wind

for young students who have activated Hong Kong’s largest-scale civil disobedience campaign ever to defend democracy and fight for universal and equal suffrage

the riot police
tighten in a ring
of shields and masks
around sit-in protesters --
a flurry of doves

a wall of students
linked arm-in-arm ...
Occupy Central
with Love and Peace
swaying in moonlight

NeverEnding Story, September 29, 2014

Note: Hong Kong's main financial district is known as Central.

October Sky Tanka

snowflakes drifting
from the October sky
my shadow and I
stuck in a conversation
that is going nowhere

Bamboo Hut, 4, 2014