Urbanite Demonstration

I am an individual.
All my life I am a city dweller and émigré. Cities create, nurture, transform me into who I am. I earn my fair share to speak out my opinions about urban and urbane lifestyles. They are biased, self-righteous, personal, honest and earnest.

My fellow urbanites, I suffer from the reality daily, but I have a dream for someday:

A. We are island souls. We live through everyday as zombies with I-pods and mummies with blackberries. We talk and text through our palm size gadgets. Easily we are connected to our respective universe. Surprisingly we are disconnected from each other.
Someday we will put down whatever we have in hands or at ears. We will smile at each other. We will connect directly through human interactions without any buffer electronics.

B. We make noise like porn stars. We feel entitled to our voice heard. We believe words are the most powerful and accessible weapon to declare who we are and our independence. We get into meaningless verbal fights with strangers. We snort at the idea of actions speak louder than words. We abuse words for the sake of communications.
Someday we will abandon our cynicism and sympathy votes confirming our own existence and independence. We will find peace and quietude.

C. We rush. To work, meetings, dates, coffee shops, restaurants, subway cars, public bathrooms, all kinds of social occasions and venues. We curse when we stumble. We misplace our frustration toward innocent others just because we can't get something or somewhere on time. We hate other people's rush but we rush whoever to demand them do whatever we want.
Someday we will find patience. And we will make efforts. We will realize it's not worthwhile attacking someone when landing on that damn C train.

D. We don't let go. We always remember those who once insult, cheat, and break our hearts. We use hatred and self-pity as Redbull. We mock our parents and siblings who still know nothing about us or even worse, misunderstand our choices for our lives. We feel ridiculous to defend ourselves against anyone with good intentions just because we want to get married with our same sex beloved and plan to adopt children or find surrogates. We are addicted to strangers' physical warmth with a vein hope that a beautiful relationship is developed. We are indeed lonely.
Someday we will realize forget is forgive. And forgive will make our life easier. We will acknowledge and understand our delightful lightness of being

E. We are racists. We are ageists. We are sexists. We are classists. We are superficialists. We have claustrophobia. We have homophobia. We have ghettophobia. We have gentriphobia. We have terrorphobia. We label. We enjoy labeling though it continues to deteriorate our own confusion and contradiction. We try to distinguish ourselves from others to help us find our identity, establish our support system, and feel belonged. But we are still lost, angry, anxious, frightened and we repeat doing the things from the points A to D.
Someday we will recognize human beings are just humans. We embrace each other for who we are. There will be no names and naming.

F. FUCK THOSE SHITS, WE ARE GAY!

Someday there will be no war; we all finally be gay.

Volver

Smoking a Camel Lights calms me

especially with two drags in a row

and take the Solgar Formula VM75 at the same time, for which--

turns my piss into meadow green

You are: about to wallow in the sybaritic splendor

Modern chemicals can be acerbic, for which--
I say goodbye but you say hello
Whoever leaves the party first should dance barefoot

You suck a juicy honeydew hollering sweet

I think it's time to take B-12, Folic Acid 800, and B-1

Your viscera contains syrupy fluid

I am: so ready to fall in the punch drunk love

Leading an ascetic life is half-baked

You say goodbye and I say hello

At Our Feet

I.
In the old days, she would drop something as a hint. Now
She merely glances.
An eye, and it quickly shifts to elsewhere.
(She always observes. With no assumption.)

Someday, somebody will pick up where she drops, and fall down to her feet.
Until then, nobody is paying attention.

They see her. (Of course they do)
She is unique yet common in everyone's eyes.
Eyes, and they quickly shift to other places.

Sometimes she senses their unspoken and indiscernible gazes. They turn into silent attacks. They are everywhere to corner her.
She runs/She dodges/She finds no shelter/She covers her head/She can't catch her breath---
And she blacks out.

In her dark universe, colors speak for themselves. They dazzle her.
Accents fascinate her. Styles puzzle her. Smells nauseate her.

She wonders, is variety really the spice for life?

II.
I am eager, proactive.
I go out to build relationships.
I try to be colorblind and minimum judgmental.
I want to believe sincerity IS the foundation for grandeur establishment.

Difficult. Two eyes rarely see the same thing.

People project me in their own ways. They see me and soon conclude who I am and what I should be.
I just let their imaginations develop, fantasies fly.
I am that light reflected, deflected with a rainbow of colors through their prism lens—
Made in U.S.A, or China, or India, or Turkey, or elsewhere.
The lens are roughly carved,
and I simply black out.

III.
From those stares an intangible tickle ripples her still water.
She feels that sudden wetness.
She is surprised, frightened, and at times disgusted.
She keeps to herself. She secretly analyzes every wisp of sense thread, imposes a scientific research, forces a lab purge.
(Her longing proves her confusion and lost identity)

In her white universe, rules are written as demonstration.
But nobody is paying attention. The connection is vanishing.
She-is-exhausted.
(Lonely? a little bit)

She asks herself: Why do these matter so much?
The Masses Think, Behave, Conform, Succumb to Uniform Value.
She does NOT.

IV.
Some day, somebody will pick up where I drop, and fall down to my feet.
Until then, I have no clue. All I know is--

The eyes will see.
The colors will mix.
We will be happy.

I can hold our hands/I can listen to our whispers/I can touch the softness of our flowers/I can feel our warmth under our sun/I can squint and smile
And I

Public Recommendation

On an A train heading downtown, I was reading Audre Lorde’s essay/manifesto, "Poetry Is Not A Luxury". At the 125 Street station came onboard a young poet looking for listeners, advisors, and penny patrons. I had seen him before; on my way to work, to friends' parties, to the poetry writing workshop. Every time he read different poems, but I hardly remembered any of them.

The poet was a short built African American. He was dressed in baggy clothes and wore a baseball cap. He had long dreadlocks. Seemingly in his early twenties or even younger, he carried an enthusiastic if not aggressive reading style. From a weathered notebook he held close, he rapped the lines with little punctuation. The only times he would stop were when the train scratched the rail to make screeching noise. Or a huge flow of expressionless crowd flooded in and out to cause him struggle to stand still among shoulder pads, briefcases, and fanny packs. Or when he finished.

Between 125th and 59th Street was an express skip, and my focus was mainly on Audre Lorde's. She explained to me that a poet, a Black mother within each of us, would whisper in my dream, "I feel, therefore I can be free". Meanwhile ten seats away, the young black poet exerted tremendous amount of energy to showcase a poem named "Public Recommendation". In my inner auditorium, Audre Lorde was the lead singer on the stage, and the young poet backed up. The performance also featured the jamming from screeching train noise, faceless pushy crowd, and the monotonous preaching of "Stand clear of the closing door please".

As always, I couldn't remember any of the young poet's words. But my ears observed his every move as my eyes locked Audre Lorde's. Although with high pitched voice and intense rhythm, this time he sounded a bit desperate as if he was indeed looking for public recommendation, or recognition. He stopped when he finished the read. He sat down and rested. The space returned to its normally anemic noisiness. As the train approached the 59 Street platform, he got up to walk around for contribution. When he stood in front of me, I was with this Audre Lorde's sentence:"For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive".

I pulled out of my wallet and offered him a few coins. My immediate or even automatic move reflected my standard reaction to anyone who was worth my contribution in a subway car.
"Any advice?" He asked.
I grimaced and shook my head.
"You are not paying attention, are you?"
Before I could respond, the door behind him opened, he turned around and stumped out against an inflow of power suits.
"Stand clear of the closing door please".

The train started moving as my thought came in shape. I wanted to tell the poet to continue writing and sharing in public. Somebody will pay attention and maybe offer golden advice. But I, confused and distracted, could and can only be his amateur listener and at best a penny patron.

But as I got up to exit the subway car, Audre Lorde whispered to me:
"Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence".

And Then

And then it drives me to do something, like pollen fusing in the air. I can't help but sneeze out. Sometimes sneakily, sometimes flagrantly. I don't even know what it's for. And then it drives me to float, voluntarily yet helplessly, on the boiling bubbling gas mud. And then I bend over again and again. Perhaps John Waters can answer that.

In haze I seek the light but feel blind. At middle of the night I toss out money to shop for the one and then it drives me to cry over the drive. It keeps coming back to haunt me, like pollen fusing in the air. I can’t help.

In the daytime the drive is gray, stoic, and oblivious. And then at night the heaven comes back in the crack.

I am not your Ching-Chung-Chong

I am not your Ching-Chung-Chong
Or Ching-Ching-Chung
But what can I do?

I am not the humble Chinaman you should verbally abuse
the smooth Chinadoll you may pervertedly play
the messy Chinatown you could randomly litter
But what can I do?

Mispronounce misunderstand misrepresent missing in action.
Do what you like
I will make a fuss
Call me drama queen
Isn't that what you want me to be?

It's human nature-my passive aggressiveness

I am not your squinty eyes Fu-Man-Chu
I am not your made in China sweatshop
I am not your memoir of a geisha

Listen carefully--My real name is CHENG-KUANG-CHUNG

(Dedicated to "I Am Not Your Princess" by Chrystos)

Lust, Caution (A Double Sestina)

A faceless' fuck is a sword
exacerbating the damned needs
Fear of contracting any unknown disease
always haunts me anxious
Would it be better
if we just fuck each other?

There are so many others
using fucking as swords
I, haughty as a royal ass, try to see better
through my insatiable needs
But I always fail to stay clear, always end up with feeling ridiculously anxious
and getting paranoid dying of any disease

I constantly feel the unbearable shame hit with any disease
from each other
Fucking suddenly becomes a game of speeding anxious
I desperately long for a polished sword
to wield clear the entangled masqueraded as needs
I try several times but can't feel any better.

Why do I want to fuck the faceless to feel better?
Can I survive above my disease?
I have so many bitch needs
Toward others
who have the swords to bleed me until I am
oblivious, yet still anxious.

I am always anxious
I assume running away can blind my misery better
Pathetic as it seems, anxiety is a smart sword
to shield me from disease
Because I don't want to fuck the faceless other
I may not generate any needs

Wrong. I am stupid not to respect my needs.
Only feeling anxious
cannot help me see each other
Stop fucking is not any better,
and I can't avoid any disease.
Eventually I am slaughtered by my own mental sword.

How can a fuckup use a sword to demand the needs?
Who will give me the disease to stop the never-ending anxious?
Will we live better by only fucking each other?

Séance

Darling—It's been too long since I remembered you. I am calling you here in this poem, hoping after these silent years you can still hear me, feel me. I have crawled across numerous and various bed sheets. Feeling afloat, restless.

Darling—I spent years getting rid of the way we were. It always came back under different circumstances. To rekindle my longing for family. To disturb my dream with haunting images. To worsen my weakness for strangers' touch. To motivate yet to destroy.

Darling—I wouldn't be an expatriate because of you. I want to, have to and need to. The door was once opened and I dared to look in, only to find out—like porn—I could do it at wherever with whomever by whatever. Liberated yet surprised. But the loved ones around started to blame me for bringing them misery. For better or worse, I feel sorry for the repentance and misfortune I brought on. But I did the right thing. Now I can chew away my insanity and spit it out at you.

Darling—I am happy. I masturbate once a day and feel fresh. I like to ride in a jam-packed subway car and be grilled with body heat. Sometimes a boner is tripod behind through layers of fabrics. I don’t turn around. I don’t squirm. I embrace the awkward by fantasizing a dance on the tip of an umbrella. Singing in the rain…Shamefully satisfied.

Darling—Are you happy? Are you married? Are you a contented father holding your twins with one arm? Are you hosting a barbecue in your well-trimmed backyard? Are you in your maze staring at your boyishly figured wife hustle and bustle? Are you drunk with the old buddies from our past? Are you looking away when they pry about me? Are you grimacing? Are you casually waving away their mockery and saying “Oh I forget who he is…”

Darling—All these silent years.