Life of Brian

Confession

Confession
Ten Lines Found Poem
Janice Yang

Hush! Silence…
Please…please…pay a little attention to my confession:

Here I am! Can you listen to me? Can you hear my lamentation?
Stray Dog what you call me is my stigmatization.
All my life is filled with humiliation.
I am overwhelmed with desperation.

Alienation! Banishment! Crucifixion!
Devastation! Exploitation! Fulfillment!
The Glory of the Passion is my final destination and my first redemption.

[Running Dog by Jing Yi Liou]

Ukiyo

Ukiyo
Ten Lines Found Poem
Ted Lee

Under a kimono crouching a girl
Whose head is size large but body a coil
Tender and submissive we deem she is
Tough and subversive her true nature be
Gazing back at the world that tries to peep
With the movement still but a mood that roars
At her right hand side is a green forest
While the other side lies a brownish field
Dare not to tame her by tongue or power
For she is not that Kate in Shakespeare’s play

[Ukiyo by Yoshitomo Nara]

Elegy for a Man in His Early Thirties

Elegy for a Man in His Early Thirties
Ten Lines Found Poem
Nicole Dai

It’s a Friday, like today, when we first met
You had wan flesh, wine hair, and stormy conscious
You said you’re the son of God
I saw you got problems;
But the words turned me on and we had such a wild night.
You were a nice person, yet mixing up real life with stories in your mind,
The reason they put you on the cross.
Now there you are,
Wan limb bruised, wine blood dripping, and stormy conscious gone.
It’s a tremendous loss you’re dead, or we could try something else this weekend.

[Christ on the Cross by Velázquez]

Condolence for the Girl with Pearl Earring

Condolence for the Girl with Pearl Earring
Ten Lines Found Poem
Ginger Ku

Beauty!
Frost—in Shakespeare’s summertime
Lost─on Homer’s blood-shedding field

She bounces, flings, tumbles and falls
Grasped again─
By the master’s lascivious eyes,
Yet offered an unexpected loot: An Unfading commemoration.
So she glances, with somewhat surprise,
At the dauntless men
Craving for her long-oublie smile.

[The Girl with Pearl Earring by Vermeer]

The Scream

The Scream
Ten Lines Found Poem
Teresa Lee

The space you need,
I let you be
No matter how you disguise
I sense your inanity.
You tangle yourself in a way unfamiliar
I drag you out in my way familiar.
You scream aloud to let me hear
I tremble to envision what I can get
Trapped and detatched you are
distant and desperate I am.

[The Scream by Edvard Munch]

The End of the Tunnel

The End of the Tunnel
Ten Lines Found Poem
Cindy Wu

Cold and dark, the tunnel inside,
Following tracks that left behind.
Forward, forward, what do you see?
Is there in the back more to meet?
A beam of light front seems to shine
More closer, more to decline?
What leads us down here in the tunnel?
What would last till the final?
Doubts, fears, hatred, tears
Comes from or after the end so near?

[_____ by _____]

Impression, Sunrise

Impression, Sunrise
Ten Lines Found Poem
Audrey Lau

Sun rises,
Here
And there, blushes
Eternal water transparently as
Changing sky.
No rowboats and no fixed
Shape
Ripples in thy crystal eyes
I could feel before
I Thought

[Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet]

Victim of Fire

Victim of Fire
Ten Lines Found Poem
T.C. Cheng

Let me be the worshiper of Satan,
for God has turned my city into fire,
and my hair into flame.
Light me up, Darkness
for I'm the citizen erased and my face vague...
Shadow, Shadow,
concrete me, Hatred,
and hang them on Satan's teeth
by eyes,
for the shadow cannot pull out the sword.

[Head of a Boy by Jacques-Louis David]

Hideaway

Hideaway
Ten Lines Found Poem
Pauline Huang

In daylight, captivated in dark of
Despair, was she not seizing the letter,
But seized by the sudden punch of words,
Escaped from life, Intentionally.
A blossom lost its hue amid reluctance ’nd will.
Not freedom she has longed for, shut in silence
Of love, thy hate seem’d the sweetest pain to taste
With, the pain that’s stricken, fractured, and reborn.
Love was ever, was never, that quick enough
To seize, then lit, split, and ruptured down to end.

[La Lettre de rupture by Alfred Stevens]

Marcus Stone's "In Love"

Marcus Stone's "In Love"
Ten Lines Found Poem
Diana Chiang

Sitting so close
I cannot disguise
That love so deeply intended
Could cease to live at dawn
I gently gaze
Searching for a sparkle in your eye
Given back to me
the love I once desired
One pleasant afternoon
I gaze upon myself.

[In Love by Marcus Stone]