g r a v e l

[y]

    

 

You seem obsessed with the first letter of the word as you are both yellow-skinned and yellow-hearted...

 

 

Using my yellow tail

 

I yellow-swam

 

From the Yellow River

 

As a yeast of the yellow peril

 

Against the yellow alert

 

In yellow journalism

 

 

With a yellow hammer

 

And a yellow sheet

 

I yielded to the yellow metal

 

At a yellow spot

 

¼ million yards away from Yellowknife

 

 

People call me yellow jack

 

Some hailed me as a yellow dog

 

When I yelped on my yellow legs

 

To flee from the yellow flu

 

 

Speaking Yerkish* like a yellow warbler

 

I have composed many yellow pages

 

For a yeasty yellow book

 

To be published by the yellow press

 

 

Don’t panic, I yell low.

 

 

* An artificial language developed for experimental communication between humans and chimpanzees.

 

​

 

[red]

 

seeing the strange belts

 

like little mouth masks

 

hung on bamboo poles

 

I often wondered:

 

what kind of clothing was that

 

so funny looking

 

in front of almost every straw-thatched cottage

 

but you boys don't bother about that

 

until one of my aunts told me

 

on a showering afternoon

 

it was only until I began dating

 

with a girl in a major city, so close

 

to beijing many years later

 

did I get to know them

 

to be no other than menstrual rags

 

 

(a taboo of female blood?)

 

 

although they actually looked

 

more like shrunken flags

 

than thick masks

 

 

that's all I remembered about my boyhood

 

my native village, my motherland

 



 

[week: directory of destinies]



Monday

 

               -Monday’s child is fair of face

 

Beginning of endless beginnings

 

When we start running between

 

Sun shine and electric light, caring

 

No more about the moon on moon’s day

 

 

Tuesday

 

              -Tuesday’s child is full of grace

 

Under Tiw’s rule, every law is

 

Established to stage war upon

 

The unlucky, who keep setting

 

Fires to avoid miss fortunes

 

 

Wednesday

 

              -Wednesday’s child is full of woe

 

Right in the middle of laboring

 

Even god of mercury turns green

 

As it persists in fasting

 

Far beyond the hump

 

 

Thursday

 

              -Thursday’s child has far to go

 

God of thunder, man of wonder

 

We will continue despite hunger

 

Until we cannot go any farther

 

Or uphold our spirits together

 

 

Friday

 

           -Friday’s child is loving and giving

 

POETS day, TGIF, Day of Venus

 

Unlucky for those trying to catch

 

A few fish in the open sea, but lucky

 

For whoever is swimming ashore

 

 

Saturday

 

            -Saturday’s child works hard for a living

 

Though confined to their earthy coffins

 

All vampires are eager to go hunting

 

Both within the nightmares of mad dogs

 

And outside the shrinking orbit of Saturn

 

 

Sunday

 

          -The child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

 

East or west

 

All for a rest

 

When wanderers doze off in the sky

 

Meditators wake up to a distant cry