Meditation on Fame

From time to time, the neuralgic pain about fame returns.

When the rain distorts vision, when fuzz balls snag a jacket zip.

The pain is shaped like a lightning-struck tree.

After rethinking interpersonal relationships, he deliberates on fame.

Fame is a bee, wrote Emily Dickinson.

Overthinking doesn’t bring anyone any good.

Lucky strings will sadly be burnt like other old inventions, such as the

telephone cords.

The bees perform a waggle dance to exchange information with each other.

About pollinated flowers, waterhead, sites of new hives and how far they are.

Down on his luck, he follows the rules at every step. Damn, the zip jams again

Again, Dickinson wrote, Fame is a fickle food.

How much does she indeed care about fame.

Thinking helps him distract himself.

Like a metaphor coming forward.

Like a colony of grapes growing plumper each day.

Like a wreath that crowns Dionysus, if you will.

A mere ten poems were published in her lifetime.

Dickinson handsewed paper scraps of poems into a hefty manuscript with strings.

1,800 poems and more. Her peculiar handwriting, a dance that slants.

Slant rhymes and metaphors, charming pressed flowers.

Funny thing is, honey isn’t exactly a fickle food.

And the grapes, he has to check if they survive the frost.

All telephone booths are within a stone’s throw.

But let’s make sure the neuralgic pain requires no medical opinion first.

Then watch the sunset glow behind the tree bruised by lightning.

Its dark crimson, its yellow bleached.

Translated by Nicolas Wong

May is the Month for Willingness

Pale green, a glass window goes pale green because of the trees

Small, a bird goes small because of the window

May is the month for willingness. It leans over a refined writing desk

The letter sheet is stamped with a watermark of light and window grilles

Open the window, open the piano’s lid before the playing begins

Fresh air comes in. The bird is chirping A Poet’s Love

You are holding a pen, a poem

And the poem holds love. The willing May turns the letter into a symphony

On the writing desk, a pale green fan stands

(Ambiguous, sentences ambiguate because of the window grilles)

A sheet of paper floats and sinks with the moving air

Your sweat drips in small beads. Love makes a refined watermark

In small pale green ambiguities

A bird has spoken to the unanswering June

Translated by Nicolas Wong