Cyril Wong (b. 1977)
SELECTED POEMS
an excerpt from Satori Blues
No separation between the controller
and the controlled. Eyes saw the leaf
because of that light, but light and leaf
were possible because of the eyes.
Push or pull, the wheel doesn’t stop turning.
What sound does the ego make upon departing?
Suspended in eternity with nothing to prove.
The world as nothing beyond action
and relation. The self is simply a knot
along an endless piece of ropethat unravels like a magic trick
with the gentlest tug. Watts accused
Kerouac’s version of Zen Buddhism
of being too hostile and nihilistic.
Doesn’t matter which cave you retreat to
if the cave is not already within you.
That dream of a harmonious world
is the reason that I’m always on fire.
Love is not enough when the self
adheres to its core. What I cannotretrieve mocks me from behind time’s
two-way mirror. Something else
is required; something a little more.
Without the mirror, past and present
penetrate. A circle, but with no circumference
you can touch. Days resume unnumbered.
Time, no time; no time to waste!
Crime, no crime. Don’t judge; don’t give up!
Fields of emptiness between the wild arc
of electrons and every atom—a vacuum notnothing after all, but the purest form
of something like compulsion that fixes
us into being, stopping the self from
coming, no, flyng everywhere apart.
Wake up, eat, drink, pass sunstances—
the ignorant laugh, the wise will understand.
A mirror is not a home but pale captivity.
For freedom to move, loosen the ropes
of language. Names fall off their hinges.
by Cyril Wong
from Satori Blues (2011)
