Clever Tricks

In the video store surrounded by
frilly espresso romances,
expository explosions,
lack lustre affairs of simple pleasures,
and fictional instalments of non-fiction

I was trying to figure out which movie
it was you hadn’t yet seen
when I walked out,
past the rack of sodas
towards the sun
up the hill.

As I reach the top
I grow certain of the time
and then it’s gone.

Now there is nothing left to salvage
not even the sound of light
against glass,
refracting echoes
of lost bird calls.

I squint at the sky
and go home.

© Caroline Cheng, 2008

Strange Places

Here’s a tip, click on the title of the post so you get a better formatted poem to read. The words get all squished together on the main page.

Yesterday I waited for the day’s second last bus
to barrel down Broadway
and bring me closer to a place where you said,
	Our mission is to build beautiful light.

You had to coax me out of the corner
as we stared at one another through slits
of light cast by the moon
or perhaps the streetlamps;
nobody could ever tell
over the white noise of a dying conversation.

If you want to go for the big money—
	(I’d like to live in the delicate part of your voice
	where every word thrives in immoral inflections)
				—you’ll have to kick in half.

It was the only time I noticed your eyes
were dark freckles swimming in a murk of blue
so I had to shudder,
then smile at my secret discovery.

There were Others but we didn’t care
and They wouldn’t look;
	When Nobody sees anything, it never happened,
you tell me through clouds of cigarette smoke
clinging to damp early morning air.

Well that’s a shame
since it was the greatest of fun
trying to get in there when the tide was going out.

Remember my kiss,
it tastes like vanilla mint lip balm.
I’ll remember the way
			we fell apart
reaching for the door,
past grey chances,
and old dances—
	You take care of yourself,
	I’ve got enough to worry about.

I need to learn to walk faster
because I was left behind again.

© Caroline Cheng, 2008

What the Magpie Stole

Blue hair, over there
	invokes the image of an imperfect
	                      Joker
any	 Official Batman Fanatic	would know
and  love
or     loathe

but that can’t matter now,
not at the 27 bus stop/
	                             the Rupert Skytrain station.

Did I tell you
I am
the accumulation of 		everyone
	I’ve ever encountered:
a lifetime
of frozen dinner stains on plaid shirts
and pills tucked away in designer bags from Pair-eee
	(you must say it the way any first-rate Yuppie would, please)
and grey smoky ancient back alley ways
and pathetic wines
and twisted accents lilting past lacy cheeks—

lost buttons
sneaky lullabies
gloved fingers—all this
	and more.

You must
know
I am convinced that floor is
	             crooked
but
you wouldn’t notice

because the man desperately drinking last dregs from
	empty
beer bottles;
the same
  	man who tried to sell cigarettes
to a teenager shielded by earphones
the same
	      man sitting
	                         diagonally
across from me
on this train
is much more important than a
	                           crooked
	ground. 

Now I can only think of
aged Asian women dou-
	                         bled
over from history
with their fractured english
trading 	  (empty)   	 cans and bottles
for a dollar twenty
give or take.

What could you do with that change?

Maybe in twenty score years
of accumulation
you could
buy a rocket,
a robot,
a kiss…
or a scrawly drawing

like the one I found on the bus
today
wrinkled and marked
by a child learning to trace his (or her)
hands. 

Which makes me think about
your
fine, precise artisan hands
tracing the graft of new skin you placed	   just
	below
the base of my neck
	    and I have to shudder
	             from the way your fingers
never
paw or grapple
but slide across that skin.

Did you ever imagine if you could taste
on my lips
the coffee from the cup in my elven faerie hands
	(angel hands, says another):
beans soaked in Arabian sun and wind;
I remember the time
you were drinking
Snapple Peach Iced Tea
	(my favourite drink by the by)
and I couldn’t 		help
but wonder if
I kissed you
whether you’d taste like peach blossoms.

I’ll try not to
stare
at your damask eyes

as long as you remember
that I am a
     haphazard
		  non-
	sensical     jig-
saw
made of pieces from
other puzzles
	jammed into places
where
                  nothing
belongs but fits nevertheless.

I am a
        take-a-penny-leave-a-penny jar
and you are carrying a part of me
	on that plane to Germany.

Don’t lose it.

I would never 	     lose
the piece you’ve

left behind.

© Caroline Cheng, 2008

Clinically Proven for 24 Hours

I lack short term memory
		(where are my keys? did I brush my teeth?)
	so I am burdened by one ridiculous long term memory 

ask me about Kindergarten and I could tell you:
	paintings I did in only red and yellow because you had to share colours
	and I wasn’t the kind of kid who had the patience to wait
	although I was nice enough not to budge in line that time I could have

ask me about Grade 7 and I could tell you:
	I never really liked that boy
	but still made the effort to play footsies under tables
	made of wood that was really plastic
	so you couldn’t even knock when you needed the luck

ask me about Grade 9 and I could tell you:
	how I spent whole summers at the library
	safer than a house because words don’t like to remind me
	to smile when I really just want to stab
	the photographer with a blue ballpoint pen

ask me about last December and I could tell you:
	the only time I ever really lived was under the gun
	in a world where an Irishman can whistle a tune you will remember
	when you’re walking down Robson by yourself on Christmas Eve

I remember everything and I’m terrible at forgiving
	so please don’t laugh and
	be gentle.

This is a poem I wrote in about 20 minutes right before I had to leave my house for school that day because Writing class was in the morning and everybody had to bring in a new poem that they had written to read out loud. I put this in my poetry anthology project and Mr. Derreth said that this was his favourite poem. I wonder why…I can personally see how rushed it was but maybe the best inspiration comes when you don’t over think things? What do you guys think?

© Caroline Cheng, 2008

Softsoap Fiction

It doesn’t have to be something of
	crushing importance
	but it certainly can be,
says my writing teacher
	and I am reassured as I sit on this
	cracked faux-leather seat.

I listen to your unremarkable metaphors
	resist ripping my ears out
	to reject shadowy pill-induced nightmares

the high school anxiety
	that metamorphosed
	into bad poetry.

I don’t want to hear about crushes
	on Maybelline girls
	teetering from fuchsia heels that could kill
	and have
stomped
	ground your heart into pools of

dry organic decaf low-fat sugar-free white chocolate cappuccinos
	with extra whipped cream.

There were those days you pulled fire alarms because
	you get a strange neurotic thrill
	from seeing seventeen hundred teenagers
      grumbling
		       gossiping
			              and laughing
	out on that green field.

You always thought ice-cream tasted
		  best
during December
	when sweeps of snow
	would fly rampant
	like frosted flakes
		(they’re great!)
        falling from the closed fists of your baby sister.

The rage that would boil and hum in your blood
	when an entry-level employee in a service sector profession
	would tell you to have a nice/good/wonderful day.

Then you tell me
	about every time you decided
	you wouldn’t cross the street anymore
	making up your mind that you’d finally go down the road
	only to get	lost
		    in the back alleys.

I can’t look into your
	sickening eyes
	the shade of what blue lightning must be
	when it recedes into black night

so I start smoothing out this piece of tin foil
	from one of those cheap chocolate eggs you’d find
	guarded by a lonely gnome
	because your grandmother’s daffodils still hadn’t bloomed
	when the annual hunt came around again.

We’re listening to some old indie mash-up hit
	made of whoops and trendy guitars

and just to make sure I’m still here
	you’re reaching across the crumbling plastic table
but	I get 		a knee jerk reflex type of feeling
	so my foot connects with your shin.

In a slick mom-and-pop’s diner
you’re telling me all these things
	and I forget to remember to forget
	if this is genuine or
some old elementary school tactic
	for bullying? for crushing?
	for what?

There is some rustling though
	because you’re going out for a cigarette
even if you don’t say anything at this point
	I know I can’t follow

and I can only wonder why you need the smoke.

So that was my poem, I hope you enjoyed it. I’m messing around with WordPress now as a temporary home for my poems and other writing. Although longer works…would be more difficult to post here unless…Oh! I can get some free webspace and post my longer works and link them from here.

© Caroline Cheng, 2008