Selected Haibun: What remains?

She left me twice in those six months. First, to end three years of mental fencing. Second, when she took her life.

alone
at the edge ...
river mist

Contemporary Haibun Online, 13:1, April 2017

Selected Haibun: Hard Labor

Sunlight slants through the window in bars of gold, collecting in a pool around my feet. Shrouded in her own darkness, my muse moans and screams. At her side, I keep yelling, "Push baby, push..." The final few words have clung to the walls of her womb for hours.

last remnants

of afternoon light...

half-finished poem

Cattails, April 2017

Selected Haibun: The (Mostly) True Story of My School Days

It was the first day of school, and I waited by the community gate, keeping an eye out  for any sign of the school bus’ arrival. My mother held my hand so tightly that I felt  as if I were chained to a lamppost.

“Mom, what time is it? When will the school bus come? Will Uncle Bus Driver forget to  pick me up? Mother, did you tell the school …,” my mother interrupted my rambling and  looked me in the eye, saying, “Son, you need to be patient. Just wait for the bus. I  contacted the school a month ago and made sure that they would pick you up once school  starts. Don’t you want to spend more time with me now?”

“Yes, I want to be with you. But, Mom, I just don’t want to miss my first day of  school. Hsing-hsing always tells me that there is a lot of fun stuff in the school. I  like to play ...,” “Honk! Honk!” Upon hearing the arrival of the school bus, I was so  eager and ready to shake off the grip of my mother’s hand and rush inside.

a box of crayons

in the pool of sunlight

a circle of kids

When I got back home that afternoon, I could barely stop talking about my day. My  mother kept nodding her head with a smile as I regaled her with my stories.

The next morning, my mother woke me and said, “It’s time for school.” I looked at her  in a cheerful mood and asked, “Mother, does it happen again?” Pausing for a moment with  tears welling up in the edges of her eyes, my mother replied, “Yes, you’ll have another  happy day in school.”

Haibun Today, 10:3, September 2016

Selected Haibun: Collateral Damage

for Susan Sontag

white poppy

pinned to her son's first suit

Remembrance Day

Inside the top drawer of her husband's wooden desk, there is an old photo album. It starts with pictures of toy trucks, toy soldiers, toy tanks, and other delights of boys from the neighborhood playing in the sunlight. It ends with the picture of a new military cemetery with a row of white crosses in winter mist.

Note: First introduced by British pacifists in 1926, the white poppy is used as a symbol of peace and worn as an alternative to (or complement to) the red poppy for Remembrance Day.

Kokako, 24, April 2016

Selected Haibun: Years of Silence

a new moon --

mother's letter heavy

with voices from the past

In the bottom drawer of the desk, there is my childhood photo with tanned brown edges. I am five or six years old, clinging to mother's left leg. She leans towards the front door with two suitcases in hand. I don't remember who took the photo. I don't want to remember.

Cattails, May 2016

Selected Haibun: Unarticulated

for Nadia

"We talked a lot, but he seldom listened: then I would get angry."  A faint smell of whiskey on her breath.

She continues to talk openly about her life. The sun's rays come through the cafe window on the side of her face. I notice a tiny bruise below her left eye.

"During the last months of our life together, we whipped each other; We thought we were talking --  but, we whipped each other on our mouths; one word, one crack of the whip after the other."

She pauses for a moment, then says in a matter-of-fact tone, "Now, I like old men, but they sometimes talk a little too much."

in the middle

of an awkward silence ...

robinsong

Cattails, January 2016

Selected Haibun: I know that the Earthquake is old news but...

That afternoon I was rocked into a deep sleep. In my dream I saw Mother holding me tightly and tearfully whispering a lullaby, "My child! ... Fear not, and sleep well."

amidst debris

scattered through the fields ...

a child's pink book

A reporter keyed in the headline,"7.9 Earthquake trembled through Sichuan, China." Official figures (as of June 4):

69,122 are confirmed dead,

4.8 million people homeless,

and 7,000 classrooms flattened...

one howl, then many ...

the starless night

even darker

An operator pushed a button; numbers and images spread over the front page.Newsprint slid through color printers. Somewhere in the back pages, the China earthquake story waited with the news from other developing countries.

Revision, A Hundred Gourds, 4:4, September 2015

Selected Haibun: My First Canada Day

Sitting in my ESL teacher's living room with its wall-to-wall Persian rugs, I am enveloped by family stories and jokes. Although half the time I can only guess what's going on, I put a smile on my face and keep saying Yes, No, and I see in the right places. All of a sudden, a shriek breaks our laughter. My teacher's sons rush to the door. Slowly, we file out of the house toward the manicured front yard.

rainbow flowers

blooming in the night sky

my immigrant dream

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

Haiku Canada Review, 9:2, October 2015

Selected Haibun: New Immigrants

After the last shift, they come in a babble of tongues, battling over the Canadian winter, work-related issues, and politics -- both from the local district and back home. Their talk begins in Mandarin, merges with Cantonese, often migrates into accented English, and then returns to their native tongue. Most of the talk is repeated, amplified, and sometimes changed a little for a new co-worker or particular occasion. The only pause is at the mention of broken dreams.

chopsticks clicking

in Gold Mountain Diner

the smell of home

Haibun Today, 9:2, June 2015

Selected Haibun: Any Difference?

leaves falling

one begging bowl

and a dog

on Progress Avenue at noon men and women in suits walk at a quick pace thus the indifference to the homeless John Doe can’t remember the human faces moving past thus the indifference toward humanity and yet ...

Chrysanthemum 17, April 2015

German Translation by Chrysanthemum Editorial Team

Irgendein Unterschied?

Blätter fallen

eine Bettelschale

und ein Hund

auf der Fortschritt-Allee zur Mittagszeit Männer und Frauen in Anzügen mit schnellem Schritt deshalb die Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber dem Obdachlosen Otto Namenlos erinnert sich nicht an die schnell vorbeiziehenden Gesichter und deshalb die Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber der Menschlichkeit und doch …

Selected Haibun: What’s Past Is Prologue

Sitting alone by the window, I look out at the maple branches swaying in the breeze. Out of nowhere, I feel the stab of a memory -- she waving me goodbye at the airport. I hold on to that memory, the universe hanging on the branches.

winter moonlight

breaking between branches

the sound of my voice

Cattails, May, 2015

Selected Haibun: An Unofficial Story

for Oskar

ink-black:

smoke trails a life

from the north tower

Another sleepless night. Winter moonlight on the empty side of her bed. From the bedside table, she picks up A Place of Remembrance: The Official Photo Book of 9/11. She stares at the book for a moment. The tears roll down her face as she rips out some of the pages. With a sigh, she puts the torn-out pages in reverse order. When she flips through them, dozens of people are flying through the windows back into the building.

Editor's Choice Haibun,Cattails, May, 2015

Comment by Cattails Haibun Editor Sonam Chhoki: The power of Chen-ou Liu’s haibun, An Unofficial Story for Oskar lies in its closing sentence: “When she flips through them, dozens of people are flying through the windows back into the building.” It is amazingly evocative image that has echoes of redemption and freedom from the tyranny of time.

Selected Haibun: Confession of a Photography Addict

Mary invites me over to her place for an interview. She has her strands of hair dyed every color of the rainbow, and looks much younger than she is. On the wall facing the window, she tacks up a giant photo of herself, composed of many smaller pictures. After taking a sip of iced tea, she start talking in an unusually deep, husky voice, "I've spent ten years on a shrink's couch, but I still hear him through the wall whispering to me. Every day when I get up and look in the bedroom mirror, I see that man staring back at me. I want him carved off my face..."

Father's Day

blanked out on her calendar

morning chill

Hedgerow, 14, Jan. 30, 2015

Selected Haibun: I see through a glass, darkly

like a newlywed standing by her wooden mailbox,
like a hungry spider lurking in its dewy net,
like a spring seed breathing under heavy snow,
with fixed attention I’ve been looking
at the end of the winding road
where He is supposed to emerge

winter twilight
between the pages of Job
a wooden cross

Haibun Today, 9:1, March 2015

Selected Haibun: This Drifting Life

I am here -- and not here. Every night I sleep in Taipei, but wake up in Ajax. My mind is winged by a yearning for things not yet lost. It flies into the garden of hometown memories.

between morphine drips ...

feeling the weight

of cold air

Haibun Today, 8:4, December 2014

Selected Haibun: Suspended between Life and Death

On my way to work at the meat factory, a dewy green leaf is shaken loose and blown away from a maple tree. It floats along the sidewalk. Suddenly, a wind whips it about and sends it soaring skyward. Then, the wind stops and the leaf falls to the ground.

evening chill ...

pressing the razor

against my skin

Cattails, 4, January 2015

Selected Haibun: Child Is Father of the Man

winter twilight ...

Father stands firm

in diapers

He can't remember what he had for dinner but can still hear The Spring Rain Will Come Again. It was playing when Sarah Rose danced topless on the bar at Janus in his freshman year of high school. Now, he mumbles to himself, Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day, my boy...

A Hundred Gourds, 4:1, December 2014

Selected Haibun: A Company Town

Lord's Prayer

through cracks in a window

winter moonlight

A middle-aged man stands looking at the crucifix, seeing the face of Jesus in agony. He leaves the church without saying a word. The night deepens as one stray dog answers another.

Chrysanthemum, 16, October 2014

Selected Haibun: A Woman Who Enjoys Reading Orlando

first kiss --

behind the bookshelf

her scent lingers

Her parting words scribbled in pencil on the back of a transfer ticket:

Elizabeth and I finally enter the caves -- warm, damp, and fold upon fold -- that are bigger than your mind can hold. With my mouth, I swallow her and myself ...

Alone on the road to our favorite beach. It twists along the edge of the ragged coastline.

waves lapping  ...

that night her fingers

caressed me

Modern Haiku, 45:3, Autumn 2014

Selected Haibun: I Am a Poet Nevertheless

if you die poor and young,
your poems may be worth something ...
her dimpled smile

After she left me for a man with a 9 to 5 job, I say to myself, at least I have two loyal readers: my drunken shadow and the black hooded man holding a scythe.

Haibun Today, 8:3, September 2014