Gao An


SPRING AGAIN
04.29.2022

Small Poems
For Felicia Rodriguez


1.)

The ivory moon in
The morning sky. 
Seagulls. Scavengers of love.

2.)

How disagreeable
Life at times was.
Or had humans 
Simply made it so?

3.)

My pops once said
“Make the tool 
Do the work.”
Entertain the public
Then walk by 
A beggar who spits. 

4.)

I arrived on a cold spring day—,
A pack of cigs, and an empty red bench.

5.)

My sensei rarely smiled.
But when he spoke 
Of visiting his parents’ graves;
He looked so happy.

6.)

“We screw our children up
In one way or another,”
My pops said.
But now, he’s not around.

7.)

Grey-green of stone,
Pink of lichen
And the buzzards hanging above. Starved.

8.)

I rode the dark bus.
Grotesque faces, phantoms. 
And outside the 
Window, darkness.

9.)

I walked along the pier
That winter; crows lifted their oily black wings.

10.)

Was that the 1st time—, 
Or the last?” I asked her
But she made no reply…

11.)

9 suns in the sky:
I saw 13 crows where my heart used to be.

12.)

Discontent. Aimlessly 
I wandered. 
The moon’s thick haze
My evening whore—.

13.)

The spring sky’s eggshell blue.
The red brick of 
The courthouse
And the poet’s head
High in the clouds.

Gao An is an interpreter of signs and Poli-sci relations. Born in Harbin, he is skilled in a handful of Kung-fu styles and is a respected member of the American and South Korean hip hop communities. First and foremost, he is a poet—, a passionate lover afterwards.

 
 

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