The Swaying Bridge


 


By ChiAn


 


 


The swaying bridge,


Black, silent, she
speaks not,


A dot of red on her
forehead,


The whirlpool eye,
half closed,


Seeing the unseen,
sensing the unknown,


Secret longings for
pumpkin seeds,


Sown in the stomach
of coal,


Cold ash on the
ropes,


Adjoining the canyon
of tomorrow,


Rail handles for Mr.
Postman,


Running from village
to village,


Delivering serenades
in rum and gin,


Crossing infernos,
the deepest depths of hell,


She would go, to see
love unfold,


Her heart ahead of
her mind,


Twisted by the wild
twirls of his hand,


Sweeping her in waves
of ecstasy,


Planting danger,
planting sulphur,


She would flow, to
see white conquered,


Her mind ahead of her
tongue,


Curled by the
swarming fireflies,


Green, beaming and
sparkling,


The river of fire,
roaring,


Indignant molten
streams of amour,


The flames not
burning her,


The waters not
drowning her,


In a portal of
pearls,


She would be
protected, neglected, reflected,


On the silver
pathway, the eclipsed stairway,


Leading to
misunderstandings of grief,


I will understand if
you cannot wait,


So said the squashed
tomato to the mouse,


The tides will rise
and fall, come and go;


The last boat is at
the pier, catch it,


If you miss it, you
May never leave.


This island will be
your prison.


If you miss it, you
May never arrive.


 


 


All the oceans of the
world is but one.


There your time
comes, there your time goes,


Walking on stilts of
incense and rosemary,


Simon shooting St.
Paul on the horizon,


Hijacking heaven, he
ransacked the mansions,


Looking for pay, searching
for Mei,


The beauty of the
Orient, long lost,


Long dead, this song
that doesn't exist,


This wrong which
cannot be righted,


For mistakes, for
lipsticks, for mystics,


They would be kept in
her navel,


 


Droplets of sweat
flooding the belly button,


Vapors of confusion
crawling up her spine,


Tarantula piano
recitations, purring and stirring,


Clawing into space
evaporating, taste dissolving,


She was a ghost, a
foiled voice in the dark,


She would not
descend, she would not ascend,


For if she could be a
constant, she could not wait,


Not for another
quarter of a second, not forever,


Slashing another
fishbone to represent ten years,


She hear the lava
hoofs of minotaurs,


Twenty thousand miles
from her rushing head,


Thinking about how
age would have graced him,


The knight of
despair, riding on a fluid unicorn,


Inching forward, he
thought he would never make it,


When he started, his
hands were empty, his feet tired,


 


And even if he had
lived up to five hundred,


He would never
believed he would get so far,


So much nearer to the
shores of oblivion,


He would not know if
she would be there,


It was the biggest
gamble of his life,


This one for the
romantic fatalist,


Standing in the
middle of midnight,


He sent her a cloud
grasshopper everyday,


To sustain her, to
retain her, to obtain her,


Forever, Mei,
forever, he would struggle,


For her hand on
fevered throat,


The signal for
progress, for a new dress,


Expressively, he
would deliver to her window,


The song of white
crows.




***He wrote this piece in year in 1998, just found it in my old achieve.