FLIGHT (EXTRACT 3) Comments

all flows towards modernity So many people flowed over London Bridge

"Every now and then I also converse in English"

so many people the poet never dreamed that this

What is that sound high in the air

would attract so many readers particular about the rhyme schemes of classical Chinese poetry

he never dreamed that God's old gardens would cause so much heart-ache

so many hands squeezed into this cabin clutching boarding passes

like withered branches snatching at the edge of the blaze

Here there is no sound of complaint Apart from sighs

Racking the forehead of eternity



I left my old home and set off for distant places I had left behind the home where I dwelt so long

in time's backyard there is no arriving at the beginning of things

drawing away from beginnings towards what comes later and yet barging into the lobby of the future arriving at the station

arranged in alphabetical order Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter noon

photocopied in lifelike multiples shunted here and there like chain stores

city A city B city C city V city R city M city W

grey airports have already sprawled their enormous bodies, their teeth and claws across the outskirts of so many countries

like dinosaurs hatched in nests of concrete poking long illuminated tongues out into the darkness

to swallow us swallowing the entire flight crew air hostesses maintenance staff Chinese

Greeks Mayans American Indians all the bigwigs petty crooks proletarian elements Buddhists

prostitutes vegetarians cowboys presidents all of them let's get off passengers

this is the only way out no one can refuse

In the distance All we can see Is the enormous wasteland of eternity

in through here out through there

it's only nine hours it only takes the press of a few keys "Enter!"

I already find myself in a large tract of alphabet two jug-like ears flapping
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