PandaPoetics by CJ Gryffène

we’ve seemed to let our fields lay fallow
the earth is packed hard with winter’s frost
and the sun shines half-hearted in the sky
like through broken window shutters on the soil below
I can’t bear to wait for the spring thaws
that will come with the breeze to warm our fields
and let us love again

in a wasteland

automatons.
I see you with flit fingers flying
over grey keyboards and spreadsheets
robots.
that live on ratios and equations
unable to find the fundamental function of
life.
why am I here, so obviously organic, my roots
stab into the ground, searching in vain for
water.
water that nourishes my branches
while my once verdant leaves
fade.
I wither here amongst you
transplanted in this desert void of
love.

heartbreak
doesn’t come from harsh words
or dramatic acts of devotional defiance
it comes from hard liquor and cigarettes
smoking in the ashtray
it happens night after night
through reliving what went wrong
and what just couldn’t go right
it comes from poor circumstance
a misalignment of the stars
and at the end of the night
(or beginning of the morning)
it makes its way on a page
and tears you up with every line

relapse

I’ve been sober and clean
for over a year and a half
I still imagine the taste on my lips
and I fear I might relapse

Thinking of that endless high
Standing tall above the world
The roar of the eternal buzz
The scent of flowers unfurled

I want, I want, I want it now
It’s been too long, I won’t lie
But know that if I fall in love again
I will fall and surely die

I remember the days we watched sunsets
that drowned under the crests of golden hills
as blue dimmed to violet the night fell silent
and we like sitting statues fell silent too

where have our summers gone?
the passion of the dusk floats from our grasp
like dust in the wind memories are forgotten
gone from the hands that will never clasp

xihu, west lake

thousands of years of romance
lap lazily against the misty shore
while the lily and lotus sleepily bob
on the surface of the silent mirror

I would like to think
that through Qin to Qing
you and I met at Xihu
to swear love in this life and the next

I want to taste the skin of your neck
and drain the blood from your veins
as you collapse lifeless in my arms
I’ll make you sigh with fatal ecstasy

can’t run from the rain

wilted bamboo and magnolia
sulk in silent lamentation
as the rain falls.

the steam slowly wafts
from the porcelain cup
as the rain falls.

you furrow your brow
watching out the window
as the rain falls.

the patter on the pavement
drums on the doorstep of my conscience
and no matter where I go
the rain falls
the rain falls
the rain always falls.

the words you spun are a heroine lattice
catching me in a web of woes that is only
reiterated by the pounding of the Shanghai rain
on pavement littered with cigarette butts and discarded dreams