by Felix Chow

FOUR VIGNETTES FROM A CITY ON THE BRINK

1.

A woman on the pavement sits,
Wrapped in cling film, clad in black.
Cardboard sheets lashed on her wrists.
a paper shield, against attacks
from metal batons, flashing bright,
cries of pain sound through the night.

Too young to fall, too young to die.
Too young to make this sacrifice.
Grenades rain down from the sky.
A bang, a flash. The white fumes rise.
Choking clouds of tear-gas coax
unwilling tears from bloodshot eyes.
From all sides, the men encroach.
Uncontrollably, she starts to cry.

2.

A woman on a tower sta

nds.
She tried her best. But to no end.
Two million, have voiced their wants.
Two million. No response.
No hope. No strength left to give.
She fails to find the will to live.

A city fractured. A city doomed.
A rosebud fated not to bloom.
Trodden to death. Under boots,
the corpse of freedom lies entombed.
The death of dreams. The loss of life.
A desperate leap. A bird in flight.
She looks down below. Red cars in line.
Uncontrollably, she starts to cry.

3.

Another woman, this time old.
Her likeness wrinkled. Her hair is snow.
The TV’s on. She sits alone
in the cage that she calls home.
The screen glows bright. In blue and black.A war of colours. Multichrome attacks.

Her dying world burns bright in flames.
No tranquil peace. Just forlorn sighs.
Reds give out to burnished greys.
Ash flakes drift round in the sky.
Grey fades to black. The end is nigh.
It’s in this chaos she will die.
Tears creep out from senile eyes.
Uncontrollably, she starts to cry.

4.

People my age have given more.
They go home spent. Some not at all.
Our leaders hide behind steel doors.
They taught us protest works for naught.
If they want this war to meet its end,
well, the answer lies in their hands.

I wash the tear gas from my eyes.
A 3M mask. Ten saline packs

.
A darker future, a splintered life.
Awash with red. No turning back.
A city built on oft-told lies.
Democracy? Yāt gwok léuhng jai?
The Black Bauhinia flies on high.
Uncontrollably, I start to cry.

LAST LETTER (THREE)

My dearest,

Desperation drives you to lengths you’d never envision.

I feel like a broken petal,
floundering in a shifting stream,
torn to shreds by frothing waves,
never to blossom. Never to bloom.
I am tired, my love.
I am so tired.
I do not have the strength to carry on.
But if I ever did bloom,
I bloomed for you.

Words can never hold what we are
but I hope to at least do my death justice.
I intend to die not as a martyr.
I die because I feel fractured. Broken. Irreparable.
Like the city we live in. The city we love.

Some say we are but pinpricks in the ocean.
Souls lost amongst the transiency of life, caught up in our own self-importance.
Some say our existence is impermanence.
Like the foggy imprints warm hands leave on the windowpanes,
leaving their marks for a fleeting moment
then fading away
Forever.

But what’s wrong with fighting,
for the best life we can live.
for the life we ought to live.
We may be individual raindrops in the incessant stream of time,
but we refract.
We divide.
We bond together.
That’s what raindrops do.

And if this raindrop should fizzle out,
Under the might of an uncaring red sun
I’ll live on.

I long for a place where freedom is constant.
Where it is given, and not demanded.
A place that’s without willful ignorance.
A place where watches don’t twist the time.
Where they don’t say five when it is nine.
A place where rulers do take heed,
of two million people on the streets.
Where the public fears the triads only,
And not the police.

But I can only long for it.

I want to be with you dear.
I want to.
To stay at your side and be blissfully blind to the chaos around us.
I see ourselves hand in hand, the winds of future autumns creasing our faces.
With a softer sun shining above.

I hope we are fighting for something greater than ourselves.
That our cause is one worth dying for.
And if by some miracle, we meet again, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
In a better world.
A safer world.
In the city we call home.

And when I go,
I want your words to leave my lips for one last time.

I’m sorry it came to this, my love.
I’m sorry I couldn’t see this through,
I’m sorry I lost to the flawed world we live in.
Don’t worry.
I’ll be alright. One way or another.

I just want to see Hong Kong win for once. 

Felix Chow is a second-year student majoring in English Studies and Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. He started writing poetry after coming across Allen Ginsberg’s work, and is now trying to make it a major element of his life. His poetry has been featured in Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine and Zolima CityMag, and he was the winner of the Merit Prize in the 2016/17 Hong Kong Budding Poets Award. He is also an active member of Poetry OutLoud Hong Kong and was featured at the Cha Reading Series.