Moonlight Storm

BY Phaw Way

She and I
Were resurrected.
We passed a foliate bridge
Arching over the track of tear flow.
I tended her wounds with affection,
She resented the culprit of my wounds,
As we walked staggering down the path.

We have: wings on our back

To carry us into the sky,
The world we alight on,
And the cavern shrine of lovingkindness
Where we hide.
We shall slumber in people’s prying eyes
Clouded with envy and spite.
The heat line
Flows through Tagaung dynasty,
Within our chest— full of ciders.
Life is a charred stump
How the days the moon waned sprawl!
Sometimes sit in a cup of bitter tea,
Sometimes take a rest inside Dura cigarette case,
Leaning such a soft & cottony moonlight
Shone on the full moon night of Tabaung.
We talk and talk the soundless words,
And celebrate our private
Kiss feast Thingyan.
I love the satirical look
Shrouding her misty eyes.
I adore a stray mind
Smoking cigarette fashionably.
To my apprehension,
How I have been infatuated with
The way she sobs and giggles
After entrusting her body.
Before the old tradition ties the nook on the neck,
Love has gone crazy.
Effluvia from urban alleys,
Morning over the frying pan,
Black sighs— heaving
Just before the death house opens the doors.
Does the yellowish moon smell so sweet?
How fragrant is the guardrail of pontoon bridge!
How fragrant is the anchored ship!
How fragrant is the scenery across Dala River!
How fragrant is her body scent, balmier than Paris evening!
Is this the primordial voice
Wafted from the genesis of the earth?
Just a single utterance,
“I want to sleep in your heart, koko”.
“Ooh!”
Whisk off the dust from the cloth,
And wash the face.
Youthful hearts are blooming
In the oasis of a wasteland.
Tahiti or the lake isle of Innisfree:
Far-off places.
Let us saunter into the heart.
Ah, this is Hlaing River.
Electric bulb floating on murky water.
“Shall we take a boat ride, koko?”
As we chortle, so our hearts flutter.
None of us can swim, my dear.
11 o’clock at night,
We hear a faint calling
Of Shwedagon pagoda festival.
On No.10 bus,
Two of us are the only passengers.
We find ourselves in the crowd again.
Graveyard of house-in-labor
Present days from uncivilized age
Paralyzed uvula
A living medieval cane
The most evil and cruelest surface rans sleek.
May I be free for a while.
Serene the Shwedagon pagoda square.
Melody of banyan leaves lulling.
Drowsiness demises.
Let us weave the net of dawn
With delightful laughter
To spread out on the world.
27 March,
Summer morning
Panting heavily
Underneath our feet.
Scorching earthly heat so deniable,
We shall scrape it off
From the face of people of this age.
The green of Kandawgyi Lake
Reflects in the sore eyes.
What a shy grasses
Bending,
Crouching beneath our lying backs,
Timidly giggling.
Breakfast
Then, supper.
“Koko, I am not hungry at all.”
Rein back the tears from welling up,
Fling the rice away_
To the place faraway the tradition.
Yellow night
Jostles along the festival street,
Passes by quiet tombs
And deserted alleys,
Slithers down from a couple of silhouettes
Then collapses at our feet.
Stickiness of human
Full of clutter
“Let’s not say goodbye, my dear.”
As oil scums on the sea surface
The tide will ebb away.