Poems

Men

							by Yee-Tak Chan 

	Men are such horrible creatures,                   
	artists the worst. I mean the true ones 
	like Van Gogh,
	mailing his hairy and unscrubbed ear, 
	just so the tart would scream 
	velocities of paint into the eardrum.
	Then there's
	that ailing tiger of a Tolstoy, Leo, 
	first letting then
	withholding from his shrivelling wife
	the diaries
	after having raped her continuously for
                                		decades
	And about my ancestors we have Li Po,
	getting drunk year in, drivelling year out,
	yet managed to write in elegant script
	on the theme of drunken
	husbands, mocking his wife
	in rhyming couplets, across mountains, paddies.
	Me too, how much longer are you going to
	let me do this,
	this flashing of feelings, that begin to have
	too many senses of directions
	like three dozen cars crashing
	all at once into all the houses
	under your last name in the phone book listing
	waking up the entire neighbourhoods 
	as if I were making war 
	on all your tribe and ancestors,
	just because of my resentment of 
	that quiet, tigress tread of yours?

Beatuty and the Beast

						         by Yee-Tak Chan

	It was as if Beauty were me, dull, and 
	sometimes deliberately coy for special effects
	and you, you the tiger bright Beast
	what is that supposed to mean
	I can almost anticipate you demanding
	(can almost feel your strong teeth sink into me
	disappointed to lick into bones that crumble like chalk
	and have no marrow)
	and find this droll and
	yea very funny you'd say
	the amplifier of your small but vigorous torso
	drowning out my bad breath
	and me sweating like the stump of the last surviving tree, 
	silently appealing for mercy, for it's not me, no, 
	it's no part of the ground plan for me to run
	into and like you, as the road dust thickens and
	me about to leave this neon dreamscape for another
	without saying goodbye.


 © 1995 Yee-Tak Chan. All rights reserved.


Last updated : Nov 17, 1995
Any comments are welcomed. Please to me at dlau@iname.com, and I'll pass on the comments to Chan.

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