by Tom KE Chan
TREMBLING FEET
Trembling feet
ten feet off the ground
staring down the foul gutters
some unfortunate rat
splat when first encounter
the fallen head from the sky
split into two.
The caged bird
climbs the iron-barred fence
only to find
a decisive fall
reduced to a number
on an excel form.
The eye watches from the other eye
a new-found silence
piecing together
fancy pictures from the TV screen–
Beware the glassy skies!
The bodiless body resting cold
curdled blood
in a plastic bucket on the floor.
Roaming white shirts
badgeless uniforms
in disguise
the yellow umbrella tainted red
bloodied fists
red terror in the streets
Counting corpses
deafened ears
morbid eyes
withdrew silent tears.
The threat
an uneasy child makes
when walking
on trembling feet.
TRICKLING WATERS
Trickling waters
dripping down cold crevices
into potholes
on the ground.
Dreams engraved
on the half-covered sky
peering through
a light
captured between the spaces:
paper-thin holes
a cross-generational infestation
in cemented bricks
leaking gold.
Tightened collars
strapped around the neck
made copper not silver
a life’s choice
served on civil tongue.
The papillary ridges on the walls
made too thin for the rain;
two buckets filled
a third readied
in waiting hands.
I placed
the upside-down watch
on my wrist
as time follows
the clockwork I put
in reverse
Counting backwards
to a non-existent number
written in sympathetic ink
thirty years ago:
5 35
a forboding memory
began
once upon a time.
Absent tears fall
like trickling waters
the white tile overshines
a new obsession
the new-born child
turns over a deistic side of the coin.
the decaying walls
unsurfaced
as loyal rebels
rummaging through
history books
with cut-out tongues
and heavy heads forced on tyrannical ground.
Tom KE Chan (Orion Blightman) is a fresh BA(L&C) graduate from the University of Hong Kong. He is actively involved in various creative projects related to poetry and dramas. In January 2018, he published his first book, The Twelve Chimes Before Christmas, under the pseudonym Orion Blightman. His poem “Still I Fight” was included in Issue 35 of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal in 2017. Tom is currently working as a teaching consultant and is looking forward to new possibilities in life as an aspired writer.