Wei Zhong Le

Wei Zhong Le Poems

Wei Zhong Le Biography

After joining the Marines at 18 and spending several years abroad (living for 2 years in Japan as well as a 9 month tour in Iraq and a good many months floating around the Asian tropics in Navy ships) I married, divorced, separated from the military, became an amateur helicopter pilot, worked in a factory, did odd jobs, and finally fled my home once again for the figuratively greener pastures (or should I say paddies) of southeast Asia. The past 3 years have been spent teaching English and traveling around China. My disposition in these years has been characterized by almost bi-polar alternating periods of chronic depression and a passionate feeling self-worth, which can quickly plummet back into the doldrums. I volunteered in the aftermath of the devastating Sichuan earthquake in 2008, was the winner of a reality TV show, have been mixed up in a great many capricious romances, and found out, finally, just how small and insignifigant a force I am, even in regard to my own life and happiness, in the face of such a morally bankrupt, corrupt, and power-hungry world. I am now completely lost. At 30 years old I am undereducated, underpayed, and underinspired and I do not sense great things (or even satisfactory things) in my future. I have found love, but only at the price of another love. I want to write beautiful words, but I have no formal education in literature. I only know much about helicopters and rifles, neither of which can provide me much fulfillment at this point. I know nothing about the structure of a poem. Prose and iambic pentameter - I have heard these terms but do not even know their meanings. I only know the feelings that I want to convey, from my memories and experiences, and in my head this is exactly what they look like. Can I even call them 'poems'? Perhaps just statements of longing, for the past, for happier times. Though it strikes me peculiar that in my writings the times I seem to long for and remember with the most fondness are the times that I was most solitary. I admire people who have a way with beautiful words - wordsmiths who have the ability to make us open our minds and really see something in a new light. People who can take the mundane, and through their words can make it fresh again so that when we read a certain passage we may see and appreciate the mundane as something new and mysterious, as through the eyes of children.)

The Best Poem Of Wei Zhong Le

Float

The water is like glass,
a fiery sunset shrouded in silver mist

So far from home - solitary, yet never alone
I am content as another day ends
Night shift begins

Endless gray passages
labrynth of steel and flourescent lights,
familiar faces and greasy coveralls
The chow bell sounds,
it's time to go below decks

I'll look forward to later when the smoking lamp is lit
and I'll look out at the sea again

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