On Coming Forth by Day
She found him in the garden, dying. He
lay on the steps of his master's thoughts drawn to the extreme. With
nowhere left to go, he returned home; she knew to look for him there.
He didn’t see her because he couldn’t see; he didn’t feel her
with his heart, either (that had died long before). The moon rose
backwards that day, and the sun spun around the horizon as she peeled
back the layers of years surrounding his soul until there he stood,
naked before that tiny intangible thing we keep hidden in a little
box beneath the altar of life, known as love. He bathed in her tears
as they held each other bodily, never again separating.
Concerning the Past or What Has Been Will Not Be
When he thought about the books he
called his own, that sat at his parents house collecting dust, his
mind always wandered to a particular passage in a particular book
hidden amongst the larger and more well known tomes in his
collection. It was written by a man who spoke Aramaic in addition to
Manchurian, and in it the man often reminisced of the precise
physical and chemical arrangements within the cores of certain stars
necessary for the creation of elements required to form proteins. His
life was never quite the same after he began to forget that passage
his mind once often turned to.
On Linear Continuity Excluding Actors Prostitutes and Unclean Tradesmen
It was a Sunday when the Emperor died.
Later that day they named a new Emperor. On Monday, the bakers baked
their bread and the fish mongers recited their wares to passersby;
only the prostitutes wore a darker shade of lipstick, and the actors
heavier mascara, until they too, forgot about whomever it was they
were mourning.
Arrived Promptly at Dawn
After they met it always seemed that
the moon was a little bit bigger on weeknights, and the red of
envelopes and leaves was just slightly more vibrant after the first
cold autumn wind. That same wind still tore though the Hutongs with
its usual bitter vengeance and the eggs in moon cakes would always
taste funny, but the bats never flew quite as high over Beijing after
they had left.
It was a Tuesday when he parted from
his mistress (the city, that is, lest he misrepresent himself) for
the last time, leaving with that woman who would later become his
wife if only he could master the aggregate of human knowledge before
the next predicted apocalypse. She told him 'abracadabra' was Hebrew
for 'I create what I think', and
that he was (maybe is) the only thing
holding himself back. It was also a Tuesday when he met life walking
upon his path.
Before
they grew old and died they saw the world together, they were humbled
by lives carved of hardship and houses built of straw and mud. They
would rest only occasionally, as they imagined a pause in life would
lead to greater consequences. Curiously though, they often found
solace in those most silent and still moments under the stars when
the nocturnal world begins to slumber, yet while the day still
sleeps.
Reflections in the Landscape
No towering skyscrapers sat glittering
in the moonlight beyond their windows; only dull and gray apartment
buildings like theirs littered the horizon towards the
mountains. They lived on the edge of the world, as the city was their
world –it was all they knew besides each other. And there it was
that a life began to grow into memories; fondness faded into love,
and thoughts, great and small, were born into reality.
The Last Empire
It was the early morning when they
arrived at Jiangguomen, as they had gone to work quite quickly that
day (for some misanthropic reason, no doubt). It always seemed to the
locals that these four boys possessed a deeper, nefarious purpose;
all they wanted, though, was to simply be. It was not until years
later that the one of them who remained in Beijing realized that he
had been lost in the culture of it all, and had forgotten what color
her eyes were.
Through Geometrically Aligned Back Alleys
It is quite well known that the drink
of choice purveyors of fine alcohols in Beijing wish
to level upon their foreign clients is, in fact, the mojito. It is a lesser known fact that outside the city of Beijing during
the mid-autumn festival there are more fireflies than in any
other place in the world. And it is only known by few that the large, manhole cover like device, in the basement of a particular store
near Beixinqiao subway station conceals a very ancient well, home to some antediluvian wyrm.
Epilogue
I have written these short poems over the course of about a year while living in this lovely city I affectionately refer to as The End of The World, for as in that dream like vision in the mind of the narrator of Hard Boiled Wonderland, I sometimes feel that this place exists only in my head. These poems represent the city of Beijing as seen through my heart, which more so than the mind can be seen to represent the 3rd eye Mr. Gautama once urged humanity to open. But even more than that, I cannot say that I see the city through my heart because I like to believe that I exist in the heart of Beijing, so it may be more fitting to say that these feelings which I have translated into words are the love children of myself and my mistress, the beautiful world capital known as Beijing.
This series was inspired by the writings of Alex Epstein and his style of writing that he deems micro-prose which I stumbled onto quite fortuitously several years ago. His book, Blue Has No South, is a thoughtful and amazing work that I can only imagine strikes the heart much more deeply when read in the original Hebrew. Mr. Epstein's style of writing inspired me to write in a similar fashion, and what better subject matter than that place which I now call home?
My first love in this life was the written word for which I have had a great passion since childhood; it fills my heart with such purpose and love that I now have a platform with which I may share my poetry with the world. Thank you for your time, I hope that you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
-Joseph
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