Those Were the Days

I remember the days

Of after school escapades.

We watched the afternoon scuttle along

As we filled each others’ ears with classic remarks.

-

Your gestures still dance before my eyes:

Please tell me you still remember the stitch at your sides

When I made you forget who we were – two fearless innocent girls

At the ice-cream shop – and gave everything you had in

You to laugh;

The comfortable shy silence that followed

When we hastily scooped up

Rare bits of still-intact ice-cream

Ring in my ears -

I want to go back to those

Careless days of fro-yo nonsense,

When we painted each other’s imaginary canvas,

And sparks ignited my only heart.

-

Iris Zhang, May4, 11

Edited May23, 12

Don’t Look

The bright lights only blind those

Who see it, who have the hollow eyes

You need to feel it, to lavish in the taste of

A foul, repeated opulence

Over and over again on the very

Tip of your tongue.

Lightly tickling those devils.

-

They cannot reach us, they cannot

Touch or bear to even bite the seeping

Melodies from the pores of our skin; they just

Cannot understand what it is like to celebrate the

Dark. Darkness is the hatred in your eyes, is

The cold imperative of half-hearted lies,

Is the revelation of the happily blind.

-

Iris Zhang, May3, 11

The Calm Before the Storm

After the sullen storm brings the dust to a halt,

Please permit me to settle like the silence that buries

These past memories.

-

I come from the tide like scars and flowing ashes

To recline in the desert of your ignorant compassion.

The silence sears a million more secrets as clear

As your watery eyes; secrets that should have

Stayed secret behind my pursed, trembling lips

That render me speechless before your listless concern.

-

Iris Zhang, May11

Displacement

Communication, the high brick walls

Of words and pause;

Pause like a mouth just about to

Open; Open those cold, indifferent walls,

For I cannot climb, for I cannot

Suffer your insurmountable walls

That bear no meaning, that bear no weight

On this burden of thoughts that compel me

To keep banging on those formidable walls.

-

Iris Zhang, May11

On Foot – Edited April11

If home be my destination, you are the voyage–
The walk from here to where:
The barefoot trek on pebble gravel,
The journey that grows garish and weary;
The adventure on calm bullets of inexplicable silence,
The trip desperate to prove functionality on a fatal Tuesday morning.
The crossing on smothering brick-red stones smooth like water;
But water splashes like the feast of starvation rushes through each bloated vein–
The refreshing expedition to a familiar dread,
The travel designed for the traveling rather than the destination.
And before expected, home, is where my reflection ends.
Sand and dust;
Soil and dirt;
Scars and dreams;
These memories and footsteps never liberated
attach ingrained to the souls of my worn-out sneakers–
Know that the road on which it lingered later absorbs footprints of immovable weight, of companionship and cheerful comraderie.

Voyager lost at the end of the voyage–
Yes, if home is where the voyage ends, you are the voyage and I the vessel drifting at sea.

Iris Zhang, Dec09, edited April11

You always seem to know where to find me and I’m still here behind you
In the corner of your eye.
I’ll never really learn how to love you
But I know that I love you through the hole in the sky.

Where I see you
And that’s not an invitation
That’s all I get
If this is communication
I disconnect
I’ve seen you, I know you
But I don’t know
How to connect, so I disconnect
Communication, The Cardigans.

Me and You

I have two cats…

Scratch is an iceberg of reservation;
The Amazonian warrior, always alert
And ready to attack without hesitation.

Her independence shields her from getting hurt
By the follies of reliance and broken promises
By her owner; so she exerts all her effort

To keep it that way. But at night she quietly begs for kisses
And curls up in her owner’s arms, for no queen can forever be
On their own. They too need loving caresses.

So keep her safe; be gentle but never too bold,
Though her true self will never completely unfold—
Indignant yet innocent Scratch, your sadness remains to be told.

Kyle is the King of free will,
The eager explorer following his cause,
Curious and carefree, and never idle.

He is his own cat. He writes his own laws.
‘Think less, eat more, and sleep even more.’
He knows just how to charm by kneading those paws.

Playful and friendly, he is never a bore.
Those expressive blue eyes always tell the most
Exciting of stories you’ve never heard before.

No worries in his naïve little head,
He claims every inch of our house as his bed—
Insufferable (adorable!) and insatiable Kyle, your hunger remains to be fed;

…today I observed them
And was reminded of me and you.

Iris Zhang, April11

Author’s note: This is a poetic exercise inspired by Plath’s ‘Pheasant’, which follows the aba bcb cdc ded efe fgf ghg iii rhyme scheme – I obvious didn’t adhere strictly, but come on, it’s hard :p

Shorts

Summer10, what a journey.
A collection of shorts that I was compelled to write when I was nearing the brink of my sanity this summer.

Late
I speak of infatuation, of plans and of grand ideas.
I teem with ignorant youth -
The unstoppable energy that drives me,
Wishing I had thought of brakes.

Never
‘Goodbye.’
I cried.
Goodbye meant never,
Which in fact is so very bad indeed.

Wait
I just could not decide how to begin.
So I instead sat down next to you,
Until you got up,
And left behind the end.

Iris Zhang, Aug10

Please Stay

Stay

Shadows of the sun of wind
Surreally running through my fingers
Undress me with strands of casting flames
Like slenderer wisps of smoke sinking
Seeping through a diaphanous resolve
Suddenly we are projected back onto the sea
Mulling in the moon as if we forgot
The way we drowned or the way back to
Where we stemmed from a thought or the twisted
Innocence of a tweaked momentum that propels
Us on our haunted journey till we arrive as empty
Shells somehow with a nautical story to tell like how the mast rose
Above the tide while we sat on the deck like waking shadows
Shadows of possibility and what it means to be afraid
Of an elusiveness that keeps returning
As what we knew right from the start to be simple
Shadows.

Iris Zhang, Aug10

This is my latest revised edition of ‘Frolicking Theories’

Accepting this damned calm.

When one is too weak to fight back, to shout, to yell, to holler and to stand this frail destitute temple of resolution firm against the ground,

Eyelids flutter, and envelopes of silence hush embraces writhing in tenacious sincerity.

One accepts.

-

One accepts that throughout this livid life, resonance, simple victories, goal attainment were not meant to be friends; they part like the fingers dwelling on white ivory melodies.

That if I were to walk amongst the leaves and levitate above the ashes,

I am redeemed.

-

Life is not a redeeming pleasure; it does not sink above the heart’s desire, nor does it gently kiss through my hair and comb through the horizons with singling thoughts,

It is a tempest; a travesty of disparity, of wit wealth tolerance and self-destruction.

One disembarks.

-

Disembarking and letting go were once brothers; to leave one free and bind another dead in relaxed demeanor of suppressed agony,

If life were a less clinging journey the tides might have crashed harder.

We watch.

-

Because we can only watch; no force my will or any song can budge this fate to speak less to me of wasted efforts and loud noises coming to pathetic intensity.

I slowly learn the whip of life, to keep silent when the crop will blindly crack.

I listen

-

So that the value of silence may only be profound in times when the heart’s cacophony forces itself to drown and suffocate, choking tears to be liberated in the caress of this raucous calm.

One accepts.

Iris Zhang, May10

shutters.

The light slowly dims as I lower my shades.

I sit in my corner and sip this cup of swirling hate.

I look at my bones and fragile flesh,

And force through the hardened pores,

Like water seeping through your sheer red blouse

That reeks of a hopeful globe, which spins around

This skull of a thought that rests on this tense tired muscle.

I lay it down to rest

As we submerge into this fluid conflict.

Iris Zhang, April10

Oh but I’ve been so mellow in grey.

Closing my eyes just to see little lights

Flash and dance in glowing stripes, which

Dash across the universe of my tightened

Eyelids that shutter against my resolved expression.

And if only I could draw you into this plethora

Of colors that flourish and bloom,

You’d see that these painful eyes blink more

Than you’d ever find from outside your lonely window.

If you were me, you’d know how it feels.

To want to strip bare to dust

And bite through the clouds,

Anywhere but here.

Iris Zhang, April10