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.