08/08/08 - Olympiad

there's a haze over Beijing tonight

91,000 breaths breathing blue.

i can hear it coming from downstairs

the announcers ignoring beaten souls.

"save us! save us!" they scream

i'm only one boy, barely eighteen.

what do i do? seven thousand miles away

across an ocean, past the great

firewall

those flames lick the edges of my dreams.

but we are not free

information burns slowly

behind the doors of room six-forty-one A.

AT&T are letters, just like NSA

and here we are in our homes

behind these paper walls. 

There's a haze over Beijing tonight

and I'm struggling between my

great pride and great shame.

somewhere out there, we're all watching

and I know we're not so far apart.

Posted by changc on August 08, 2008 12:44 PM | 0 comments | Permalink |

last night (listen!)

I am going to start recording my poems in voice format for easier access.  I hate the way my voice sounds, but I need the practice reading out loud. So here goes!

Listen to this poem

Last night
I had a dream,
the kind where
they stick things in bad places
and there are bright lights
shined in dark spots, crevices
you never knew you had.
They tried to speak my language, saying
"it's okay"
but really it came out more as a
"Jesus Christ what the hell were you thinking?"
And all the bad things came out
the way they should
and it burned between my legs
and I couldn't close my eyes.
No one
was watching
when I found faith by dying.

10/13/2008 chungyen chang

Posted by changc on October 15, 2008 5:45 AM | 1 comment | Permalink |