In His Own Write Poem by Chen-ou Liu

A Tanka Prose


the mind
is schizophrenic
but the heart
has its own reason:
apoemisnotjustapoem

In a class room where there is pin-drop silence, I tell a small group of high school students, 'Where there is art, there is no madness. My mentor writes freely and will fight against the dictatorship of words if words hold his thoughts captive.'

on his deathbed
my mentor says, I've three lives:
one in dreams,
another during the day
and the last in my poems