Alan Chong Lau: Poems

Alan Chong Lau was commissioned by Hugo House to write new poetry on the theme of Born in the U.S.A. as part of the final event of the 2010-2011 Hugo Literary Series. Lau premiered his poems, "even the ancient chinese civilization" and "where the lights are low" at Hugo House on March 18, 2011, alongside authors Victor LaValle and Debra Magpie Earling and rapper Khingz.

even the ancient chinese civilization

for the chinese who hung from the cliffs of the sierras building a railroad, louis chu, the folks at open books and hsin tung's (shio dong) eyewitness account of a shamanistic meeting as translated by arthur waley in "nine songs"

1

i sit
a poor man
in a room of locked doors
fingering hexagrams
decoding
mahjong pieces
talking back
to the cracks
in the wall
where yellow streams of  light
call out my name

i have tasted
the mountains of knives
the tree of swords
the sea of bitterness
the lake of blood
i was afraid
but i survived

i have been
in the devil's
stewpot
seen my people
go up in smoke

i have seen
the devil's work
seen his fire climb higher
angling red fangs
quivering death
on tips
on tongues of prongs
on spears of glass

a brother turned into a cow
with one leg on backwards
a sister
a sad horse with a hump
a grandmother
with a rat's hungry tail

crawled away
into a book of faded strokes
given up by my enemies and friends

think
of a moth
dancing with a flame
but still fluttering
that's me

even the ancient chinese civilization
tottering on a peasant's last legs
must get run down sometimes

2
the wind came
the crunch of wheels echoed
before i ever saw the procession

an obedient scholar
turned into a hairy white goat
chewed off
the heads of 10,000 people
swaying in slave songs
dedicated to the good earth

workers throw off their clothes
the pus of half-chewed silkworms
lining the roads in
a soiled tapestry
of filial stains

shrouds
for everyone
take time

the biggest cart
will not last
spokes in a wheel
fall apart
snap like rotten teeth
in a mouth of lies

3

when my hundred and first
honorable lost relation
got smuggled into this country
his face still bore the brunt
of faded calligraphy

when the u.s. marshall
a waddling rump
stitched to a saddle

elastic jowls
hung together with rubber bands
badge and hat costume
stretching the boundaries of flesh
found him hiding
behind the frozen food locker

it was all
my father and his brother could do
but cry inside
and keep their hands
buried in baskets of bean sprouts
and swear through innocent almond eyes to those bloodhound eyes

"no sir
we don't know this hombre
he said
he just pulled in
from san anton'
or baltimore oriole maryland
or some parts of these great western states and we just needed an
extra hand so we pulled him into our net as an all right fish just
like our ancestors would have done thinking the best of everyone"

oh my ancestors
your descendants have learned
american sports well
baseball  monopoly
and the transcontinental railroad
all good games to keep in mind

4

if you are still listening
i'm still here
a slack jaw
carried between
two broad shoulders
talking shop to the shaman sisters
due to  perform the river of songs
half of me in the front basket
the other half
with another sister
in the back basket
swaying over a peasant wife's back
admiring the pigtails
adorning the nape of her neck
hoping she don't drop us
in the night soil

the shaman sisters
perform
and i file this report
from hsia tung (shio dong)

fiction or nonfiction
is up to you

"of remarkable beauty
they wore costumes graced with birds
of unbelievable plumage
sang chants, love songs
sweet and bitter
accentuating every nuance
of a word
with lithe movements
of arms legs  whole body
they also had the power
to become invisible
at nightfall
to the accompaniment of jews harp, bells, drums, gamelans, strings,
flutes, sitars, couch shells and black screeching saxophones
blow and strum    blow and strum   blow and strum
they would slit their tongues
with shimmering blades of knives
already leaping, whirling and shaking
general pandemonium rang true in the backyard as i approached there
were spirit conversations breathing of fire and spells proceeded by
spills of ghostly laughter exchange of wine cup round and round"

5

my father at keno
all night
must have been down there
coughing up the flecks
of his stale fortune cookies
trying to shake off his bad luck

morning and
the eyes of fish
lie scattered all over this table
on white bone plates
flesh devoured
just eyes
swimming cold journeys
into the seams of the night

tonight
a chonk writes
with a can of spray paint
finds a wall in chinatown
big enough to hold his name
and he sings it
"wing fat lives  wing fat lives  wing fat lives

wow you mother
you many mouthed bird
you dead dog
go sell your ass"

even the ancient chinese civilization
tottering on a peasant's last legs
must get run down
and drop dead sometimes

6

after brewing herbs
my grandmother's younger brother
would sing chinese opera
transform himself
into a young girl
about to die for love

tonight
i walk across
a carpet of pine cones
strewn across weeds
wet with the fragrance
of rain and know
i am home

where the lights are low
for louis armstrong and his 'cornet chop suey'

where the lights are low
my filipino tennis shoes can't stop dancing
shoelaces unlace, squirm
out of a straitjacket of holes
canvas tongues jump up and scat

doom's business
falls in a rag pile
lined with bones of defeated dinosaurs
rats wait to devour what's left

the music is a steamroller smoking
orange blades of joy
that slice open cantaloupes
gut the cheeks of tomatoes

the nastiest notes gouge me
behind the eyes
pepper me with innuendo
spilling sparks of fireflies
into the fabric of night

up against the wall
ready to wail
the words finally surface
through a melody sung like sandpaper
"chinatown, my chinatown
when the lights are low"

"chinatown, my chinatown
when the lights are low"