The Crazy Lady of Jiao Ba Lu
Jiao Ba Lu is an ancient street,
The cobbles are overgrown,
A few mean dwellings still bar their doors
The others are falling down;
They say a woman who lives down there
Is three parts gone to the moon,
While children mutter a curse, or pray
When she stumbles out in the gloom.
For Gao Fang Fang has pure white hair
That blows like a ghost in the breeze,
Her eyes are wild, and she never smiles,
And she often falls to her knees;
She falls to her knees with a cry of pain
At visions she only sees,
And wails at night when the moon is bright,
Or shadows form through the trees.
Over the hearth of her meagre home
Is a picture of Mao Zedong,
And she is there in the picture too
A girl with an armband on,
A girl with the light of reforming zeal
That shines from her hard black eyes,
Her hair tucked under a forage cap
With the rest of ‘The Helmsman's' lies.
D'eng Xiao Bei was her only love,
So young in those distant days,
But he was the son of a landlord who
Was threatened to mend his ways,
They took his land and his money too
And cast him out in the rain,
While D'eng Xiao Bei hid his head in sin,
And cried for his father's pain.
Then one dread day in the neighborhood
The Red Guards came in force,
So Gao Fang Fang put her armband on
But D'eng just hid in the house;
They dragged him out as a traitor then,
And put him up on the stage,
But D'eng Xiao Bei had nothing to say
To the Guards in their rabid rage.
They tied his arms, they made him kneel,
They beat him with sticks and a club,
‘Your father, he was a landlord pig,
So you are a turtle's egg! '
They tied a sign on his chest that said:
‘I love not the Chairman Mao! '
And tried to make him confess his sins;
They'd still be waiting now!
While others pelted with rocks and eggs
Fang Fang looked on with shame,
She'd loved Xiao Bei with a burning love,
But nothing was now the same,
Her comrades urged her to show her zeal
To punish the ‘running dog',
So she took a breath, picked up a rock
To fling at her one true love.
The rock was sharp, bitter and hard
And tore one eye from its core,
D'eng stared at her with his one good eye
As his blood seeped out on the floor,
Gao Fang Fang gasped, then looked aghast
And paled at the thing she'd done,
Then watched him die as the others cried:
‘Long life to Mao Zedong! '
Fang Fang went home like one deranged,
And flung the band from her wrist,
So soon, in front of the People's Court
She was termed a ‘revisionist! '
For ten long years in a prison cell
She wept and cried: ‘ Enough! '
But the years did nothing to soothe the pain
Of killing her one true love.
And still she lives at Jiao Ba Lu,
Alone, in the dark she cries
In a part of town that's coming down,
Just like ‘The Helmsman's' lies.
Those days have gone, but the lady wails
As she works away at the loom,
While the neighbours shake their heads and say:
‘She's three parts gone to the moon! '
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Ive Got A Fang
Glistening white triangular tooth
Open up a can of tomato juice
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Girlfriend took me to meet her dad
He didnt like me because I look so bad
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Girlfriend took me to meet her mom
Her head exploded like a atom bomb
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Glistening white triangular tooth
Open up a can of tomato juice
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
Ive got a fang
song performed by by They Might Be Giants
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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White Mountain
Thin hung the web like a trap in a cage,
The fox lay asleep in his lair.
Fangs frantic paws told the tale of his sin,
Far off the chase shrieked revenge.
Outcast he trespassed where no wolf may tread,
The last sacred haunt of the dead.
He learnt of a truth which only one wolf may know,
The sceptre and crown of a king.
Howling for blood, one-eye leads on the pack,
Plunging through forest and snowstorm.
Steep rose the ridge, ghostly peaks climbed the sky,
Fang sped through jungles of ice.
Hard on his tail, one-eye drew from the pack -
An old hero conquered by none.
Steep, far too steep, grew the pathway ahead,
Descent was the only escape.
A wolf never flees in the face of his foe,
Fang knew the price he would pay -
One-eye stood before him
With the crown upon his head,
Sceptre raised to deal the deadly blow.
Fang, son of great fang, the traitor we seek,
The laws of the brethren say this:
That only the king sees the crown of the gods,
And he, the usurper, must die.
Snarling he tore at the throat of his foe,
But fang fought the hero in vain.
Dawn saw the white mountain tinted with red -
Never would the crown leave again.
One-eye his the crown and with laurels on his head
Returned amongst the tribe and dwelt in peace.
song performed by by Genesis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dragon Lake
Bao Peng sat back and lit his pipe,
The hob was cold, the ash quite dead,
He drew a tiny firelight
That lit the scar high on his head.
While Zhang was hushed, he gathered round
Each brother, cousin; neighbours too,
‘Bao Peng will not begin his tale
Until your silence asks him to! ’
‘In years gone by, ’ Bao Peng began,
‘When revolution ruled this land,
Our village lived at peace back then,
We helped each other, as we can!
We grew rice in the paddy fields
Kept pigs and horses, sheep and game,
And lived, though poor, contentedly
Until the Helmsman’s Red Guards came.’
‘We drew our water from the lake
And shared in everything we grew,
The Buddhists had a temple there
A thousand years, for all we knew.
They held our manuscripts and deeds,
Cared for our souls, and history,
These holy men did no-one harm
But lived an ageless mystery!
The Red Guards came, in gangs and droves,
Just schoolkids really, like some mob,
With filthy mouths they screamed at us,
Then beat our women, killed our dogs.
They made us swear to love their Mao,
To hate the ‘Olds’ - old buildings, books,
We didn’t stand a chance -’ Peng stopped…
And felt the scar from Red Guard hooks!
‘They killed my wife, Mei Fang, ’ he said,
‘They stoned her up on Bullock Hill, ’
The tears streamed freely down his cheeks
And we could see, he loved her still!
‘And then they went down to the lake
To burn the temple, burn the books,
The monks were slaughtered, beaten down
With clubs and knives, with swords and hooks! ’
‘The flames came through the Temple roof,
The pages of the books were charred,
We stood well back, as well we knew
What they’d not know - the Beijing Guard!
A form stirred deep within the lake,
The waters moved, and out there slid
The monstrous shape of fang and claw,
The greatest ‘Old’ that ever lived! ’
‘The screams were heard for hours that night,
The ghastly shrieks of those devoured,
The ones who raised their clubs to me,
Dragged in the water, overpowered!
The Red Guards never came our way
Again, we held a village wake…
They should have asked, before they burned
Just why we called it - Dragon Lake! ’
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The silver-fanged boar [Mistreţul cu colţi de argint]
A prince from the East who loved hunting with passion
through woods vast and gloomy was toiling ahead.
He crossed the green thickets in recklessly fashion
And playing a bone flute he merrily said:
- Come, folks, let's go hunting in forests forbidden
the silver-fanged boar, who is savage and sly,
and daily he changes, in hollow-trees hidden,
his hoof and his fur and his glittering eye...
- O, master, the servants with bugles were calling,
that fierce ugly boar to come here never dares.
Let's chase some big antlers, it's equal enthralling,
or red colored foxes, or small fearful hares...
The prince smiled undaunted neglecting the riot
and passed through the trees admiring their dyes,
but left in their shelter the deer frail and quiet
as well as the lynx, with its small glowing eyes.
And under the beech trees through bushes would wander,
Then stopped: - Lo, he's waiting for us, rest assured,
the silver-fanged boar, you can see him, it's yonder,
come quickly, let's hit him with arrows of wood!...
- O, master, it's only a creek that is steaming,
his servant replied as if tried to implore.
But turning around he said: - Hush! I'm not dreaming...
And that creek did flash like a fang of a boar.
Then runs under elm trees, his servants he rallies:
- Look there, how he grunts and scratches with zeal
the silver-fanged boar the slopes and the valleys:
come quickly, let's hit him with arrows of steel!...
- O, master, it's only the grass we are seeing,
his servant replied as if tried to implore.
But turning around he said: - Hush! I'm not dreaming...
And that meadow shone like a fang of a boar.
From under tall firs he would urge them unthreatened:
- Let's go to the ridge, where reposes our game,
this boar, silver-fanged, from the popular legend:
come quickly, let's hit him with arrows of flame!...
- O, master, it's only the moon, which is gleaming,
his servant replied as if tried to implore.
But turning around he said: - Hush! I'm not dreaming...
And moon gleamed above like a fang of a boar.
But woe! When the sky pallid stars was displaying
late at dusk at a spring he fell with a thud,
and a huge sharp-fanged boar dragged him, gracefully swaying,
through the dust which at once was reddened with blood.
- What's this strange ugly creature which tears me apart,
and stops me from hunting the boar in his den?
What black bird in the moonlight cries for me in its heart?
What dead leaf beats my face again and again?...
- O, master, the boar with his fangs bright as silver,
has caught you and, grunting, escapes through the brush.
The hounds bark and chase him, to corner him thither...
However, the prince turned around and said: - Hush!
Blow loudly the bugle, let all hear its whining,
Until I am dead to the sky send its song...
The moon crossed the ridges and quickly stopped shining
and sounded the bugle, but not for so long.
poem by Ştefan Augustin Doinaş, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Submitted by anonym
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Love's abracadabra
I have spelled out love's abracadabra
To take the gem from head of a cobra
I am playing the pipe to make her dance
I am dancing with her in wild romance
I have broken her fang to tame her now
She has become as good as a pet cow
I have touched her head with my magic wand
In order to make real my sweet dreamland
Thus I have turned her into a woman
Now she has become my favorite fan
poem by Asif Andalib
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Love and Optimism Roll
When love and optimism stroll in the straw
the future is born without fang or claw
Where is there a negative love?
Who wants/needs it?
and its chemical glove
What we have is soaring sensational blithe
we live through twists, trysts and ti raids
Even so we carry our hearts on our wings
very song of very warm breeze
eating nourishment all of our days
from each other's marrow
not just our own ways.
poem by Boink Boink
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Hickory-dickory Dock! The Lonely Mouse Runs up the Clock!
I saw imaginary masks walking along the streets in the Wolf Creek,
So I too wear a mask to hide my tears with a big smile plastic.
An absolute darkness is eating me, all I can feel is heebie-jeebies;
Yuk! I'm sucked deeper and deeper into a hole of screaming meemies!
Gee! I lay in the dark - with fang and claw, a lonely serpent stings;
Hickory-dickory dock! A Lonely Mouse runs up the clock with 24 masks.
A round-backed figure with a cigar is sitting on the narrow bridge
Heaving tortuous sighs, sledging at his own shadow with a grudge;
A lonely man is a lonesome thing - a stone, a stick and a bone!
Ugh! Shedding two tears, I Weep alone and walk alone in a cyclone.
Gee! I lay in the dark - with fang and claw, a lonely serpent stings;
Hickory-dickory dock! A Lonely Mouse runs up the clock with 24 masks.
I bid to meet harlequin on a tree pine and in palanquin a bride,
Ugh! One merry Andrew and a lonely gremlin took me for a ride;
To hide the wounds, I strive alone; if heart breaks, I mourn alone!
As the petals fell upon the stem of thorns, a rose in me died alone.
Gee! I lay in the dark - with fang and claw, a lonely serpent stings;
Hickory-dickory dock! A Lonely Mouse runs up the clock with 24 masks.
A cold wind is swinging branches in dark graveyard without light;
Tut-tut! Obscure clouds are overcasting skies in a mournful sight!
I died a death but stayed alive; in phantom's likeness I survive;
Alive, yet dead, I walk alone in rooms with walls as cold as stone.
Gee! I lay in the dark - with fang and claw, a lonely serpent stings;
Hickory-dickory dock! A Lonely Mouse runs up the clock with 24 masks.
poem by Harindhar Reddy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The House of the Scarlet Moon
I fell in love with a Chinese girl
Her name was Chen Xiao Fei,
We worked together in Middle School
In the Province of Anhui,
She'd join me in my apartment when
The working day was done,
But never would take me to home to meet
Her mother, Chen Shaojun.
Xiao Fei was going on thirty, which
Had meant, in Chinese terms,
That she was a spinster, on the shelf,
She had no marriage plans,
I asked her once if she'd marry me
But she laughed and said, 'No way!
My mother would jump from the balcony
If I married an old Yang Wei.'
I called in once to the family home
To win her mother round,
She glared at me as I paced the floor,
Her father sat and frowned,
She wouldn't sit at the table while
I stayed there, under her roof,
But screeched at her daughter, in Chinese,
Some slang that was quite uncouth.
She came one day to say, Xiao Fei,
The wedding date was set,
I asked her who was the lucky man -
But she'd not even met him yet!
Her mother had schemed and arranged it all
To thwart what plans we had,
She cried a bucket of silent tears
But would do as her mother said.
She stayed away for a month or two
To let things settle down,
Then married the man that her mother chose
From a village, out of town.
When a month had passed, I was feeling lost
'Til there came a knock at my door,
It was Chen Xiao Fei in some deep dismay
So I sat with her, down on the floor.
She clung on tight to my shoulder, sobbed,
And cried, wouldn't let me go,
The man she'd married was such a brute
As the marks and the bruises showed,
But worse than that, she looked at me
As her eyes had begun to mist,
'I'm having a child, and I don't quite know
If the baby's yours, or his! '
I sat quite shocked in the evening gloom,
And I felt a sudden chill,
'You'll know as soon as the baby's born, '
I said, but my heart stood still.
If she should deliver a foreign child
She'd be left in a deep disgrace,
And her family then would turn their backs
From the horror of 'losing face'.
Our fears were proven a few months on,
The child was a baby boy,
At first the father and parents danced,
They couldn't conceal their joy,
In China, there is the one child rule,
One chance is all that you get,
So girls go missing there all the time
If the father's mind is set.
For sons are valued as girls are not,
A boy can work on the farm,
A girl will grow to be someone's wife,
Will travel away from home.
So often, just when the child is born
The father will wait outside,
The judge and the executioner,
It's often a question of pride.
A boy is swept up in loving arms,
A girl will wait on the thumb,
If the thumb goes down then the baby drowns
Or is dumped in the cinder drum.
If a boy is born with a fatal flaw,
His fate is the same as hers,
Or he may be sold to a heartless soul,
They call it the Chinese Curse.
The boy was fine 'til he opened his eyes
And they saw that his eyes were blue,
His skin was yellow, his hair was black
But the eyes... the eyes... They knew!
Not even a day had passed before
The baby had paid for our sin,
He was sold to a beggar for ten yuan,
A beggar named Sun Lang Lin.
The birth, already forgotten there
Was marked - 'delivered but dead! '
The Doctor was paid a forgetting fee,
As Xiao Fei cried in her bed,
She told me, when she returned to work,
What they'd done with our beautiful son,
She looked aside, avoided my eyes,
Pretended they'd done nothing wrong.
It took me a month to discover the name
Of the beggar, Sun Lang Lin,
I haunted the areas beggars haunt,
But could find no sign of him,
Then just by chance, a crippled child
Who begged by a streetside bin,
Cowered away when I asked her the way
To the beggar called Sun Lang Lin.
She raised a hand to protect herself
At the sound of his hated name,
She said that he'd kicked and he'd beaten her
Had crippled and brought her to shame,
This child was one of a dozen he had
Who begged for him, night to noon,
She whispered his place of ill-fame in my ear,
'The House of the Scarlet Moon'.
I couldn't find anyone willing to talk about
Where this old Tavern was,
I knew it was out in the countryside,
Beside a deserted Mosque.
I travelled by day and I slept rough at night
As I searched in the dusk and the gloom,
Then finally, there in the distance I spied
The House of the Scarlet Moon.
Sun Lang Lin lay in his dirty rags
On a bed on the floor at the back,
I waited 'til midnight, picked up a rock
And I worked out my plan of attack,
Children were crying in fitful sleep
In a room in that dark old den,
I crept through the dark to the crying there
To look for my blue-eyed son.
Around the walls were earthenware jars
And each with a child within,
He'd jammed them in tight, where nothing could grow,
Their legs would be twisted and thin,
This house of horrors and nightmares kept
Its secrets all wrapped in gloom,
My son lay there on a coverlet,
In the House of the Scarlet Moon.
I seized my son, I smashed the jars,
The children fell to the floor,
They each were maimed and deformed, I knew,
They'd never be able to walk,
They'd spend their lives in the gutters for him,
Set up with a begging bowl,
I wondered how people like Sun Lang Lin
Could open the doors to the soul.
He woke, came running right into the room,
And he pulled out a long, sharp knife,
I laid my son on the coverlet
And prepared to fight for my life,
He lunged just once, I stepped aside,
I hit him just once with the rock,
He fell and he didn't get up again
So I picked up my son, and took off.
Once well away in the undergrowth
I stopped and I turned, to see,
A flame was flickering through the roof
Of the Tavern that used to be.
It all went up with a mighty roar
As I hugged my son in the gloom,
There's no more babies, or cripples made
At the House of the Scarlet Moon.
2 December 2008
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I have only ever read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It's so frightfully good I've never bothered to read another.
quote by Nancy Mitford
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I've been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about short and cheap?
quote by Phyllis Diller
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There is poison in the fang of the serpent, in the mouth of the fly and in the sting of a scorpion; but the wicked man is saturated with it.
Love is A Endless Rainbow? No...
'Our love is a Endless rainbow' i said when i was a stupid little boy...Now that I think of it...It was just that we were on the highest point of the rainbow...Then thinking the rainbow was a full circle...we slid down like a rollercoaster but instead of going back to the top...We hit the ground hard...and lost Everything....Im trying to climb back up...Will you follow me; my one and only Love?
Education is like a double-edged sword. It may be turned to dangerous uses if it is not properly handled.
quote by Wu Ting-Fang
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If every one of those good words — liberty, equality, fraternity, democracy, human rights — has been called "bourgeois", what on earth does that leave for us?
quote by Fang Lizhi
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I read some, and then visited with people involved in this curious, exciting and somewhat misunderstood sub-culture. I met with a fang maker, who offered to fit me for an exquisite pair.
quote by James Patterson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mexican Sunrise
I was watching the sunrise
In Mexico when my horse died beneath me.
I was in Diez Coronas,
On the edge of a cliff,
With only my horse for company.
Stars were scattered across the
Palette of the sky,
Colored silver on indigo.
Past the edge of the cliff
Lay nothing but sandstone and a
Hundred feet of empty air.
My horse whickered and
Pawed the ground impatiently.
I could feel his muscles bulge and relax,
Eager to get on with our journey.
As the sky started to lighten,
I checked my pocket-watch:
Twenty-seven minutes past five.
Just a few more minutes.
Great Kiskadees awoke and
Started to sing from
Unseen nests in the few trees
Around me.
In the distance,
I heard the wildlife stirring,
Getting ready for the new day.
I didn’t even hear a warning growl.
I’ll never know if there was one.
With a feline-like snarl,
A brown and black blur
Snapped at my horse’s legs.
The horse reared,
It’s eyes wide with terror.
I struggled to get my feet
Out of the stirrups.
The bobcat turned back for my horse
And pounced.
I fell from my horse as
The bobcat dug into
Its throat.
I watched as my horse fell
With blood pouring from
Its neck,
His eyes white and wide,
The pupils rolling into his skull.
On my knees,
I reached down into
My leather holster,
Fingers wrapping around cold steel.
I pulled the Colt free,
Its chamber loaded with
Six chances of death,
Each encased in copper.
I cocked back the hammer,
Squeezed the trigger.
The bobcat fell back
From the force of the shot.
I got up and walked towards the dying animal.
It gave cries of pain,
Cries of agony.
“Mercy” is what those cries told me.
“End my suffering, ” they said.
So I did.
The bobcat’s head exploded
In blood and brains.
After it stopped twitching,
I grabbed my knife
And cut into the animal.
As the sun began to rise behind me
In the east,
I cut off the fur,
Gutted it for meat,
And wrenched its fang from the gumline.
Now,
Here I stand in Mexico
With people staring at me funny,
And no wonder.
I’m a gringo with a bobcat’s fang
Hanging around my neck,
Trying to sell a bit of bloodied fur.
But I don’t care.
I need the money.
I need another horse.
Flight of the Naked Hearts
Some had been on sleeves.
For years grieving
With emotions deep.
And taken for granted...
By those who believed them weak,
And soft of spine.
They loved too much...
And too much left behind.
To be found in concern...
For someone who had not learned,
To recognize
Sincere eyes that carried love!
The flight of the naked hearts...
Chose to depart
Instead of dipping into bitterness.
And broken hearts to mend...
To heal and break again!
With arguments to defend...
Why they love!
And love like theirs will never end!
The flight of the naked hearts...
Begins!
And very few...
Who practice spewing venom,
Will come to understand.
Until an unsuspecting fang...
Appears from the mouth of a friend claimed.
Who pierces them to expose
Blood that's sucked!
A loved one they gave up,
Would never have had those thoughts to allow!
Or inflict that kind of pain!
And no unconditional love left comes...
To heal the depth of the drip dropp blood letting,
Felt in this sorrow!
Is left to regain!
All tomorrows...
And the comfort known
From yesterday has gone.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Antoine
Antoine is a Vampire Ghoul,
Barbaric, bloodthirsty and cruel,
With a fang in your throat
He'll suck slowly and gloat
And smile as you whimper and mewl.
poem by Terry O'Leary
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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