The Best Show Ever

The poetry scene in Hong Kong might not be massive, but if it were, it wouldn't be as cool. Poetry OutLoud is located at the Cabaret Theatre of the Fringe Club, the first Wednesday of every month. Some poetry readings, drinks, and an atmosphere one usually doesn't find in Hong Kong.

I banged out the following poem (if it qualifies as such) yesterday for the open mic section of the evening. The room was more packed that I expected, really, and the honestly intimidating thing was that everyone seemed to know each other but us. We found out later that was because most are regulars at "Joyce Is Not Here", where they gather the other Wednesdays of the month, something more cozy, more crazy, and more poetry.

My reading and my friends' came right at the end, almost forgotten, when most people had already left. I explained that we'd agreed to compose based on the prompt, "time travel", but that my muse took over and started writing about reading. That the outside perception of literature as a useless subject inspired this response:

The Best Show Ever

There's a show going on out there, but my light's still on

Because there's only one song I know:

"An inch of time, an inch of gold, but

An inch of gold can't buy an inch of time,"

My grandma used to say.

I can't dance or sing, drink or socialize.

But I know what the world smells like under the truth.

No, don't look under it. Look above it. 

There's a greater truth:

We part the Seas,

Break Earth's chains,

Make Mountains bow.

We're obsessed with control,

Addicted to power.

But time is a force 

Beyond comprehension.

That is why, my light's still on:

Under the truth that's only reality,

Seeds of creation! Power 

Beyond measure.

The sound of a tree 

Falling in empty woods

Is the sound of flowers 

Blooming under uncurtained light.

My light, still on, strikes black ink on white, 

Reaches my eyes, and all of a sudden- 

My eyes reach the show out there, 

The hall and the stairs, 

Open, smog-filled star-less air, 

And my eyes reach the wild 'Merican west, gunslinging and rugged individualism; 

My eyes reach a Japanese palace, tea, seiza and igo 

'Gainst the honor code and flashing steel of Samurai; 

They reach a myth'cal battlefield at the gates of a Greek city-state; 

Reach the holy city, all domes and columns, 

When the crusaders conquered it, 

Cross in one hand, sword in the other, 

Christianity or death.

I can't dance or sing, drink or socialize.

But I possess immeas'rable power

To comprehend a force

Beyond comprehension.

There's a show going on out there, but my light's still on

For something richer than gold.

I travel where fantasy dare not;

I travel through reality.

- - - - - - - - - -

At the end of the evening, it was confessed to me with a laugh that admitting to writing about time travel was "so cringe!"

I thought this, but didn't say it – I wished I'd said it on stage: The silly ideas are the best ideas, because they take you where you never would have thought to go.