Chen Chengli

My Babe Monster

              -To Thesis

I was a child unfamiliar to life,

Married to my blind passion.

I was pregnant with you,

My invisible babe.

You had been sleeping all day

And growing up silently in my brain.

You were a gluttonous babe,

Absorbing my train of thought

And my happiness and hopes

As your essential nutrition.

Hence I got a migraine afterwards,

And fell ill with no fixed schedule.

My heart broke each time I thought of you,

My dearest babe.

When my youth was wandering on the pages,

My dream could never escape from the hard covers.

In the labyrinth of books,

How dazzling I was when I kept vomiting words.

You were doomed to be malnourished,

A fateful freak.

My babe monster,

I gave you birth under my fingertips.

You, so unsightly, but do not worry.

I would apply cosmetics on you every day and night,

Until the venerable professors hold you in their arms.

Yet I had to hold a public hearing for you,

And disguised you as a hopeful child in advance.

I would shout myself blue in the face,

Until the stern judges throw an unwilling smile to you.

Those Were the Days

                   -To a Knowledgeable Friend

We meet.

And climb.

15 floors high.

We chat.

We debate.

We smile.

We share movies, stories,

Theories, melodies,

And unforgettable memories.

We msn.

We email.

We click, type, and type.

Then we pause

And listen

To a final farewell.

Chen Chengli graduated from the Program of Comparative Literature in Soochow University in Taiwan. He has been writing poems both in English and Chinese for years. One of His Chinese poems named "Leda" (麗妲) won the first prize of The 2nd Swordsoul Literary Competition in poetry in 2009.