Thursdays responds to Kai Cheng Thom’s poem “the river”
On Thursday April 27, we were visited by author Kai Cheng Thom, who read from her new poetry collection a place called No Homeland. One of the poems Kai read was “the river.” This poem alone generated a lot of writing and passionate discussion.
Below is “the river”, as well as response poems written by Thursdays’ writers.
the river
someone told me once
that a secret river flows
under every street
in every chinatown in every city
in the world. and this river speaks
in a secret language that sounds like
a sigh
and stretches
to follow every footstep, every turn, every twisting alleyway
to swallow every sacrifice our mothers made
every blow our fathers struck, every
drop
that ever fell
from slanted eyes spilling over
withjoy or sorrow
it is in this thirsty, salty river
that forgotten names are born
Kai Cheng
XiaoMei
Ei Lien
BicLein
Yeet Jin
Yao On
shadows without bodies, words without tongues
these names swirl in the river of sighs, whispering
thesecrets of their meanings as they wait for the nameless
to return
OiLein
Ah Keem Kai Cheng
Xiao Mei Yao On
beneath the motor-rumble roar of vancouver’s cityscape
i can hear the shushing of a river
it stretches across the sea
it reaches across the years
it slithers into the Cantonese restaurant where i am sitting
and suddenly i am drowing in
smells tastes memories cravings
for places i don’t remember
and dishes i never liked
stories i didn’t understand
relatives i never loved
the waitress comes to take my order
but all the chinese words have been crowded out by longing
and i am forced to point to pictures on the menu instead
ears burning with embarrassment
and full of the river’s laughter
Kai Cheng
XiaoMei
Ei Lien
BicLein
Yeet Jin
Yao On
dancing to the drumbeat pulse of amateur DJs in montreal’s nightscape,
i am swinging sweaty hips
and licking the salt off my lips in the arms of a stranger
who tells me that he loves the sound of chinese
so musical
a beautiful language, for a beautiful people
nihao, he says lei haileng jai
and i smile,
and say, i’d like a tequila sunrise, please
and because he buys me one, i let him kiss me his lips taste like cinnamon
he asks me
what’s your name?
and i tell him
he says, no, i mean your real name. your Chinese name
and suddenly the walls of this nightclub fortress,
this place where desire grows like something forbidden,
begin to crumble,
the foundations of this queer-love-island-in-the-dark
begin to shake, and i can hear the sound of history
crashing down like a current
bearing down like a flood
sweeping down like a hurricane
i lost my name to the river,
i lost my memory to dreams,
i cannot sleep for dreaming,
i dream live body geographies, nations
sculpted from the permeable borders of skin
wet warm earth-colored wombs that swell
and rise and tremble with the moon
to give birth to babies connected by blue-river veins of memory
my blond white lover tells me that the revolution
will begin in New York he says
that when the revolution comes there will be no colors,
no classes
no genders
no nations,
my lover tells me that when the revolution comes, he will hold me
and our kisses will undo every blow ever struck,
will turn back every sacrifice we ever made,
erase every scar i have ever borne,
and replenish all the soil we have ever drained of life
my lover tells me
that when the revolution comes, we will make love as the towers burn
and all the empty spaces in me my body my spirit will be filled.
OiLein
Ah Keem Kai Cheng
Xiao Mei
darling, when your revolution comes, i will not be here,
when the towers start to burn, i will be the first to die,
when the bombs start to fall, my love, i will go down to the river
i will wait for you in the river
where the names of my forefathers and foremothers were born,
where the bodies of the forgotten float
Ah Keem
Oi Lien Yao On
and when you tire of watching the explosions
perhaps you will come to me then, my darling
perhaps you will make love to me
to my closed eyes to my still limbs
perhaps you will fill my empty spaces with your anger
your longing your lust
and whisper
the revolution’s come, the revolution’s come
i’ve saved you, you’re free
Xiao Mei
Ei Lien
BicLein
Yeet Jin
Yao On
someone told me once that a secret river flows through every ribcage
of every colored person who’s ever been lost. and this river speaks
in a secret language that sounds like a sigh. the river remembers
everything that we’ve ever forgotten, ever footstep, every turn
every twisting alleyway, every blow our mothers struck, every sacrifice
our fathers made. and this river waits for us to return to it, waits for us
to return to ourselves,
to kneel at the bank of the forgotten stream
of our bloodlines, where all our forgotten names
are waiting to be born.
Kai Cheng
XiaoMei
Ei Lien
BicLein
Yeet Jin
Yao On
Response Poem by Cindy McBride
What’s Underneath Us That We Aren’t Seeing?
When I was sick one time I was waiting for a hospital bed in the hallway on a gurney. I was handcuffed to the gurney and we were in a hallway in a tunnel under the hospital. People of all sorts were going past me. From the right and to the left, doctors, nurses, attendants, service men, police officers, fire fighters, mixed in with people off the street.
As usual I had to take a pee but I had to wait. I was handcuffed to the gurney. I was minding my own business when someone went past and as he passed he had a sort of a sling shot that shot a pin in and out of my leg. Boy did it sting and the infection spread immediately. Now all I could think of was my leg. Hours went by and I finally got to the PAU, Psychiatric Assessment Unit. Finally medication, a bathroom and sandwiches!
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Response Poem by Wei-ting
River of opium blues 1842
The American Clippers enabled them to bring them faster:
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