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john tiong chunghoo
john tiong chunghoo
(Jan 21,1960 / Sibu, Sarawak, Borneo East Malaysia)
john tiong chunghoo Poems
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Best Poem of john tiong chunghoo
04. Beautiful Women
young women, old women
in their heart
despite the years
the yearning to be beautiful
young women, old women
they look at each other
one with envy
the other with fear and contempt (of the wrinkles, old age)
young women, old women
they look into each other
one for a mother
the other for a daughter
Soses Crowding The Sky
stars are
SOSes
crowding
night sky
that every
glitter would
soon be
consumed
by darkness
diamonds
returned to bellies
of earth
darkness
builds on
wiith each
passing cousin
these last
sos messages
crowding sky
sos'es to help
us help ourselves
''Keep On! ! ''
Not rubbish - modern physics, see for example 'The Elegant Universe' by Brian Greene. The time of a traveler moving at the speed of light relative to you is stopped according to your watch, just as your time is to the traveler. This is Einstein's special theory of relativity. Photons are sub-atomic “entities” that convey light. They have the extraordinary property of always traveling at the same speed no matter where they are coming from, from where they are observed, or how fast, or in what direction the observer is traveling. Since light travels at the speed of light relative to anything, everything, there is no time in the realm of light (also it is by no means clear that light is bound by the laws of space, see the new work on entangled photons that appear to communicate instantaneously no matter how far apart) . Strange but true. The eight odd seconds that light takes to reach you from the sun is your time, not light's. As a poet I recommend that you read the new cosmology, it is very strange but very beautiful.
A Buddhist monk was once asked if art could be a path to enlightenment. He answered that it was a good way to start but the danger was that one became attached to one's creations.
I send you to renderings of D. T. Suzuki's translations of Kaku-an's poems for the first and eighth oxherding pictures.
Searching For The Ox (first oxherding picture)
Kaku-an Shi-en
Sung Dynasty China ca.1300 AD
Alone in the wild
Lost in the forest
The boy searches searches
The flooding streams
The distant mountains
The endless path
Exhausted
In despair
Nowhere to go
At dusk he hears only cicadas
Buzzing in the maple woods
From a translation by D. T. Suzuki
Ox and Man Vanish (eighth oxherding picture)
Kaku-an Shi-en
Sung Dynasty China ca.1300 AD
Nothing there
No whip - no rope - no man - no ox
Who can tell the size of the sky?
No snowflakes fall above the fire
When all this is so
The ancient Mind appears
From a translation by D. T. Suzuki
I like the Haiku's. I thought they were supposed to be 5 syllables,7 syllables, and the 5 again....?