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277 · Aug 2017
Wonderful Sleep (10w)
Yitkbel Aug 2017
I'd love to sleep

the Wonderful Sleep

Unawakened by life.





#2

So it was actually

the Silence

that woke the dreamer.
275 · Dec 2017
Your Footsteps
Yitkbel Dec 2017
Sometimes
When I walk on empty streets
I can feel your footsteps
Wavering, hesitant
Perhaps wondering
Where I was
As I look for you too
In the past, in the invisible
In your absence.
Inspired by Jamadhi
275 · Mar 2018
Fear Life with Me
Yitkbel Mar 2018
Did you hide your soul
Behind glass and window panes
Behind trench coats and disdain
Behind little words and a miniature screen
Behind the fear of everything

Are you always leaving
Never letting life to get too close
To be breathe in

Are you always watching
But feel too lonely to experience
Every little thing

Too meaningless in the grand scheme of things
Too much potential for pain
Too many promises no longer promising
Too much silence, that's all you are ever hearing

You won't let me in
For fear of leaving
For fear of changing
For fear of losing
The part of yourself you've open up to pain
Even though you've already lost it
And that's why you are hurting

But you can't lose something
You're no longer possessing

I am all of you that you are fearing
I am all of the lost things you still fear
Losing
Changing
Hurting

I am all of that you can never lose
As you have already lost them
I am only that which you can take back
A fragile soul still loving
Through all of the transparent suffering
275 · Sep 2017
Dust in the wind
Yitkbel Sep 2017
I won't cross the line
I won't get too close
But I will be here
Waiting
Waiting for you
In the familiar distance
Until you come back around
Until I am nothing
But the dust in the wind.

Perhaps then,
I can finally caress you
Caress your coat
Caress your shadow
Caress your smile
Caress your soul
Fierce and eternally.
272 · Sep 2017
Art of Life
Yitkbel Sep 2017
I have a childlike outlook
A hand drawn interpretation of life
But it is your warm and reassuring love
That adds all the color to my blank coloring book
270 · Jul 2017
Child
Yitkbel Jul 2017
I am not a poet,
Or any wise man of the sort.
I am just a child in love,
Lost within words.
264 · Sep 2017
Gale of Time
Yitkbel Sep 2017
I thought I could be the keeper of time
Holding onto the most precious things
Like a handful of sugar squeezed tightly into a child's stubborn fist
Refusing to let go

I let everything around me change
They turned sour, became bitter
Withered and faded
Till nothing was the same
Till no sweetness remained

I thought it didn't matter
I thought I kept what I loved safe

But when I finally opened my palm
To savor what I held most dear
I realized, in horror,
That almost all of it has slipped away
Save only for a few seeds of memories
That the gale of time might
At any unexpecting moment,
Steal them all away.
263 · Jan 2018
Lost
Yitkbel Jan 2018
I feel permanently lost on this road that leads straight to the meaningless end.
262 · Aug 2017
Things fall apart
Yitkbel Aug 2017
Everything has been a little broken lately:
The screens
The lights
The coffee machine
Me
Other people
The hours...
Well, mostly me.

Everyday,
I used to look forward to you coming by,
and pay for your orders with your reassuring smile.
But, ever since you left,
Ever since you stopped coming by,
Things fell apart.
Nobody smiles anymore,
Nobody wants to be here anymore.
Especially me.
But, I am still here
Waiting,
Waiting to catch up to the past,
that abruptly slipped away from me:
Those days that were truly happy,
because I knew you’d always be there,
Not matter how momentarily.
261 · Sep 2017
Childish Love
Yitkbel Sep 2017
Draw me with a pencil
Erase me when you've been lured by the next leaf

Color me with chalks
Wash me away when you've been longed by your keep

Hum me with a mindless tune
Forget me when you flirt with your keys

Build me with dust and rain
Break me when you are needed by the warmth and heat

But never ever leave
Those things only love you so casually
But, me
Without you,
I'd cease to be.
259 · Aug 2017
Nowhere
Yitkbel Aug 2017
I see you everywhere, but you are nowhere to be found.
Yitkbel Oct 2019
Time in each realm is a ‘living entity’

The collective consciousness

Branching into streams for each being

Or rather, each SOUL



For it is TIME

The consciousness  

The awareness of change

Atrophy, ‘death’ and ultimately loss

That binds us to Envy, Fear, Grief

And

Even Desires for possession



What remains is the eternal

The everlasting

Love without loss

Hope without fear



In Etahphh, the entity of time

As cliche as it is, is

Literally a river

And the streams of consciousness

Literally streams



Perhaps

It would be far more interesting

For us explore the planet Tarphah

Where the whole realm itself

Is a gargantuan elastic fabric

And it is in itself

Time, space and

All of its living souls



Or the perpetual

Self-devouring serpent

Of the Twin Neutron Stars

Where time and all events

Are in eternal repetition



But those are for another day

For time is dying in Etahphh

The eight side diamond shaped

Sandy planet of golden palaces

And crystal blue

River of Time and

Streams of Consciousness
Chronothánatos
By: Yue Xing **** (Yitkbel)
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
--=
I wrote this quite spontaneously, and heavily influenced by Doctor Who and Fringe, if you're a fan of the two shows.
I composed the entire nine page poem in one day, and:

I have come to wanting to ‘disown’ this piece of narrative poetry. The poem is completely original of course, in some parts you can’t even find lines identical to it; it came to me in an uninterrupted stream of consciousness. I wrote it within one day, edited mere letters within it, left it alone, and was satisfied. But the ideas within it, or even the narrative structure, and the storyline is far from original. In fact, I could say, it is quite cliched. I was heavily, heavily influenced by what little science fiction, and popular astrophysics for the layman books I have read or watched: from  books by Stephen Hawkings to Kip Thorne, from HG Wells, to countless Doctor Who novels, and as for television and film, from Doctor Who itself, to Fringe, to even Interstellar. It troubles me to think the poem is merely the result of recycled ideas, for it is still thoroughly my creation, however unoriginal the core ideas and symbolisms within are. Like all that suffers from imposter syndrome, I have a deep rooted insecurity of being seen as a fraud, a mere thief of ideas. Thus, I must explain myself, explain all the thoughts that flowed through my mind when composing this piece of poetry:
(I am not a student of science, so please excuse the possible complete nonsense of this work, if it is not fit to be a science fiction poem, then please view it as a fantasy.)

Through thought experiments, before reading up on it, I have concluded that the illusion of time stems from the awareness of it, from our consciousness. Apparently St.Augustine was the first to ever question the entity of time, and resolve on time being of the mind and not of the physical. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-temporal/)

Thus, the creation of the land in my poem of the river of time, river of conscious awareness of the passing and coming of change. Time is conscious awareness, as is birth, as is death. Therefore the river divides into streams of consciousness.

What is then core to the story of the death of time, is that, although the length of the circulation of time never changes; time, being a body of water, alters its viscosity. Time slows down, time freezes over, time stops, and time dies in a sense. (In my mind, this started as a metaphorically attempt to explain the differences in ages of human beings in the bible.)

When time mets its ultimate end, what comes of us?  Do we rejoice in eternity for the end of loss and sorrow? Or do we become the ghosts of ennui, ever away from true everlasting joy that must only exist beyond the threshold, unable to be reached without divine intervention.
253 · Jul 2017
Lingering
Yitkbel Jul 2017
My love is a wordless tune,
a mindless memory,
lingering at the back of your mind.
252 · Apr 2019
Love
Yitkbel Apr 2019
I spoke your soul into words.
Yitkbel Apr 2018
You don't have to speak
               I hear you loud and clearly
Your hesitance, your doubts and needs
Your precious crystal heart so prone to
               breaking
Your fear echoeing when the silence is speaking
Your immeasurably beautiful soul worth keeping
               Hidden and untouched

I heard all these things
         And translated your silence into love
              Love, that, with my ceaseless praises,
                                    I will be protecting
251 · Nov 2017
In the Morning (2015)
Yitkbel Nov 2017
In the morning he was born:
Innocence, an inexperienced child

He lifted his head
He crawled, he stood
He fell, he understood
That the promised dream is nothing
But a Dream within a Dream

So before the dawn of dusk
And before the dusk of dawn
In the morning,
He left the Earth, and headed for the moon
Leaving me in despair
Yearning for the inevitable doom.
250 · Oct 2017
Never Trust Time
Yitkbel Oct 2017
Time unapologetically cheats us
Going fast and slow like a playful child
While claiming otherwise
When we notice the anomaly

Still
Like a kid that's too wise
For his unknowning parents
What is discarded down the stream
Into the past can never be retrieved
And tried in its infant form

So
We accept it
Accept the deception
As self evident truth
While
Deep down inside
Remain forever
Skeptical
248 · Jan 2018
My Unrequited Truth
Yitkbel Jan 2018
I have fallen
For an unreachable sweet lonely moon
Among a sky full of milk

My starless cup of tea,
Now has you
My milk and honey.
248 · Apr 2018
Boundless
Yitkbel Apr 2018
I love your silence because I can hear everything.
247 · Sep 2017
Craving Paradise
Yitkbel Sep 2017
Craving Paradise
By: Lucian Huw Benedict

I built a paradise out of despair too desperate
Too empty, too silent, I only hear the echoing
Reveries, Fantasies, The Angels are singing
As if so near yet so distant



I built a cathedral with my desires
Above all creations, through the windows forever higher
I am burning, drowning in warmth that's not there
Yet I am letting it heal the pain, pouring down Gilded Rain



I crave heaven, snowflakes and stardust of heavens
Yet, I am burning in hell, as
A sinning believer kneeling in the spotlight of Benevolence
Gazing at the white dove, my sight follows it to heaven
Leaving me at lost
My shadows escape, running in two directions
"Are you heading to the quiet paradise?"
"Or to pay your debt in hell, My Conscience”



I saw the angel's innocence with my mind’s eye
Too blurry, too abstract, a mirage's city reigns
Begging, For the Fortune Wheel's Turning Tides
I used my illusions to reverse back the flown kite,
And went back to a Dreamer's night



I wrote rhapsody with a fantasia
A Silent Solo, I can't hear the melancholia
Silent Melancholia
Peaceful, *******, I take off the camouflage
And Play the last desperate tune
Between Heaven and Earth, Up and Down



I crave heaven, lights and warmth of paradise
But am simmering in hell, like the
Sinner in Purgatory aflame in a ray of righteousness
The most sorrowful thunder roars in turmoil among the raging clouds
Just a flight of solitary plight
He spreads open different wings
Crimson light and White shines
Tears him between the Inferno and Paradise
An oldie written with a pseudonym from years ago that I just found. Very different from my minimalist style now but I like it. Just wanted to share.
247 · Aug 2017
Suffer
Yitkbel Aug 2017
I shouldn’t have just said that
Your presence makes me happy,
but that
your absence makes me suffer.
That way,
perhaps you'd be happier.
246 · Nov 2017
Last Leaf
Yitkbel Nov 2017
I can never be your shielding oak
But I will be your last leaf.
246 · Nov 2017
Guided by Nausea
Yitkbel Nov 2017
I have been struck down
With a sickness
A sort of Nausea
That can only be cured by action
And reaction:

It guides my every move.
246 · Jul 2017
Absence
Yitkbel Jul 2017
I loved you more in your absence
Than I ever did in your presence
I learned to love you in moderation
And not give in to my obsession
And whereas I only felt limited happiness
Never fulfilled, never content
Always craving more and more
I now struggle tirelessly within a dark void of emptiness to hold on to even just a vision of you.
I miss you dearly, and I spent every waking, and slumbering moment thinking of you, in happiness, in sorrow, in regret.
When you were still here, you were my purpose, you were what made life bearable and worth looking forward to.
Now that you are gone, I still remain, not for my longing of this world.
But, because I am afraid one day, if and when the world turns its back on you, there is still a speckle of light wanting to light up your entire world.
246 · Dec 2017
The Dream
Yitkbel Dec 2017
In the Woods

For all I know, I could be in a dream right now, no beginnings, no once upon a time, no long long ago; and perhaps no endings, no happily ever after, no the-end, and no non-arbitrary answer to the question. Of course, no one wants to read that, no one wants to be told that all they’ve ever believed in is a lie, what it is in the end, is what it was in the beginning, hopeless.

Everything is trivial, at least at the moment, at least that’s what I feel, well, I am who I am, is that not correct, or am I suppose to be someone else, or feel like someone else, the other I do not understand, the other I do not care for or about, the other I would never want to be, or the other that embodies, mimics, and mocks, all the sources and ends to my yielding to the scorns of life. No, I am only ME. That’s all I will be. Except, at the moment, and as

The Girl

Sitting in the subway, taking a stroll around the lake, all that time away from actually writing, your entire purpose of existence will-not rush to your mind-but simply all make sense.

Whether or not that is actually constructive is again, trivial at the moment.  Whether or not the fact that the absentmindedness afterwards undermines all that insightfulness that had came before it makes the entire conversation unworthy of being discussed by its entirety, is not important, or just not interesting enough for me to ignore the fact that I am, at this very moment, running through a endless territory of barely anything other than stripes of forests away from the occasional darkness that most would call night.

If there were anything beyond the soft grip of the crisp emerald fields of molds and fungus, the soft shower of the gleaming silver moonlight, the tanning hides of the shading elms, an occasional joy of a little wilder beast, and the deadly silence, it is not within my sight, and I must be heading towards it. Yes, there must be something else.

Something beyond this stillness, this stock-still, never fleeting moment in time; there must be an end that is not an end for all this seeking of the seeker. There must be a meaning in all the seemingly meaningless continuation of a standstill.

There must be a gift, a present, well just a difference, to be the spark in the storyline, but what is it? I could guess, but that’s expectation.

Expectation, the tail of the tale you will be chasing after that exists not, because, all that you would have believed in only exist within your mind.

Anyway,


The Tree

One of my branches caught beneath the cape, and scratched at her ankle. I shook, and she did too, but only so slightly. Perhaps it was the wind, well, for me, but for her, I would rather, it was the instinct sensing of pain, or may be just a itch. Whatever it was, it was to be felt; she felt it, and so did I.

She did not, however, respond in anyway, and quietly she passed on. This is a disappointment to me, sadly. Actually, it was more than that, I felt a downing of emotions, from the curiosity of a child to the most slight, yet the most intimate pinch at the heart, a sharp pain.

What did I expect, was she to stop and grant me a part in her story, in the flight of the has-been worldly, and leave everything behind.

Have I forgotten, once more, that I am a tree, the ultimate metaphor for permanence? Even at that, the fact that I cannot move is not the question, what should be asked is what more could be there for a tree; yes, will I always remain, when all have passed on, the response as always, is probably yes.

What is there then, to all this, why do I still remain? As a tree, where did I get a hope that there is a hope, and what exactly is this hope. Perhaps I just always tell myself to wait and see, yes, maybe that is it. I’ll wait and see.

I turn around, or I just turns my attention back around, expecting to see her vanishing into the distance, however, she had not yet passed me. This time, one of my other branches caught at the cape, threatening to tear off the shield, I tried to stop them, but again, I cannot move. As she defends, the instrument of disguise, also known as the mask, almost yields, and unveils the mystery.

She quickly stations it back in place, nonetheless, although my appearance is as still as stillness can be, with my quick wits, I stole a look beneath the golden disguise, and I was surprised, yet not so much as I was delighted.

She was gifted with a natural pureness in her features, plain, yet, upright, proud, and inherently, and elegantly innocent. The nobleness draws the most fear, shame, and sorrow.

If I could, I would, lower down my gaze, and the crown-how ironic-of my tree, not in admiration,  but in shame, the despicable, inevitable taunts of my conscience.

It is only now, that I have noticed as she had passed my way, that there is another player in this game, another character in this story. On her shoulder, sits the stereotypical shape of a petite and bright star. The light, lights my veiled blush of humiliation; she seems even more innocent, even more careless and naive, even more happy.

What is it, what is she smiling about; what is she thinking about?

YES, WHAT IS SHE THINKING ABOUT?

The Star

Well, I am her, so I would, or just, I should know.

The dreadful thing is, her identity is still a mystery; it doesn’t matter how close you gets to her, whether or not she is a princess, a ordinary farm girl, a boring city child, a dangerous assassin, or whatever she is, doesn’t just suddenly hop out in the clear for you. However, you can still sense from the baseline of our so called humanity, the little insanity our souls call intuition, an indecipherable comfort of our inner most consciousness, and subconsciousness.

I can see my own reflection from the back of her mask, funny how I can’t still see Her. Does it matter if I see myself, if all that’s ever going to change is my consciousness. Perhaps not, perhaps all I need was a sense of being, a sense of existence, to feel that extra undecipherable sense of bliss by mere proximity, I am with her, feels her existence, and that is all I needed.
244 · Feb 7
[Yisselakh] Scarab
Yitkbel Feb 7
Scarab

By: Yisselakh

Intro:

The beetle climbs the wall of reality
Rolling the sun into place, into the sky of dreams

Verse:

So the beetle rolls around the Sun
Like in dust, our soul rolls around
And they say we're guided by the stars
Or is it our hearts
Or is it our hearts
Is it our hearts

Bridge:

Is this just poetry, is this just art
Is it really the truth of what we are
I'll never truly know
You'll never truly know
We'll never truly know

Pre-Chorus:

What the wise men say
The fools will never follow
If you say so if you say so
That's how they always go
That's how they always go

Chorus:

But when her heart of gold
Shines warmly on your mold
On countless fateful noons
Your heart and your soul
Your shell like sun upon the moon

Post-Chorus:

You'll know
You'll know
You'll know
And you'll believe
And you'll believe

CODA Verse:

So the beetle rolls around the Sun
Like in dust, our soul rolls around
Like they say we're guided by the stars
And all of our hearts
And all of our hearts
All of our hearts
Reading Fabre's Book of Insects by Jean-Henri Fabre
Written: June 18, 2024
244 · Oct 2017
The Knotted Heart
Yitkbel Oct 2017
Time forges the rivulets of my heart
In their contorted paths
Till I know not their ways

I always thought they would lead me
To new beginnings
Open roads to another heart
From a knotted birth

Till I have exhausted
Enough of them
To realize that
Though they may seem
To be traveling towards
Other turning threads
Of enigmatic goals

They will always wind back
To their core
To the nothingness
Of a hollow
End.
Yitkbel Jan 2020
The Beginning and the End

(Introduction and Conclusion):


The withering maples, the fallen skylark
The plagued leaves, the forsaken bees
Are warning us that we are not only
Losing our depth, but also our earth
The sun, and our ways
When love is great, greater than the sea
We fear it the most, afraid to be lost in the waves

It shall not fade away, the eternity will always stay
Yet, Yet we build our haven with materialistic bricks
To hide away from the fear of losing
And look down upon culture and souls as a foolish faith
Not realizing, all that can be weathered away
Will be weathered away, broken down, to decay
Then, swept away, by the temporal waves

And those that belong in the eternal place
And those that seek for truth within this maze
If they ever find it or are found by it
They will shine, shine under the sun of everlasting rays

If all these endless roads are only for the incomer
To prepare for the end of the road, the end of our ways
Telling them that within this cycle of brevity
The road will end just a few short steps away
Would it be more rational to not arrive, or stay
Surely, we seek truth to find guidance to the pave
And continue our lives
In that painless, lossless
Place


Verse:


When we are still combating evil
With our guns and metals of empathy
Another far more vicious and shapeless foe
Has suddenly and quietly sneaked up behind us  
So that on our search for the truth
We are being suffocated by the abundance

It seems like we are being surrounded
By two different but equally hideous enemies
But are we the only innocent ones?
Are we innocent?
The sky is veiled by the autumn shade of change
Perhaps, we couldn’t see clearly who’s who
Behind the mask of foliage
Couldn’t see what is truly happening
To this new age

Pre-Chorus:

The red leaves gently fall
Covering their visages
Till we are deluded by the illusion
A fool with dusty tattered cloaks, scythe in hand
A knight shimmering like gold, staff in command
But what hides behind this nature’s disguise
Which of them is our friend which is the foe
Is one warm in clothes but cold in his soul?
The humble one cherishes his blades for harvesting
The boastful crushes with his plenty, baton of pain

Bridge:

All hungry and thirsty souls
All bodies filled with emptiness
Just want to be filled, filled with whatever will stay
And stay, peaceful without the prospect of abandonment and fading away

Chorus:

We wish, we pray, we
Won’t be washed away
Be forgotten, perish away
Why climb for the summit
If we must fall to a nameless grace?
Why can’t we just stay unborn?
If we can’t bear life’s lightness or weight?
Perhaps, I’ll never understand my place
But within the pondering and hopelessness

I woke up
And realize that truly:
Only Love transcends time and space
The embrace between two condensed hearts
Of pure longing could exert
The gravity
And gravitational time dilation
Of such self-forgetful density
That would wrap entire fabrics of reality
Around us, immersing us, with brief
Merciful revelations and trials
Of the unfathomable
Eternity

Verse:

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
Should not have been for us so near and dire
Only a couple of generations, only a couple of decades
We are already lost between unrest and the barren
The wavelength of boom and bust becoming exponentially shorter
So that before a man has fully dug himself out of the mud
He is already returning to ashes and dust

Within the ocean of impermanence and uncertainty
We quickly raise the good lumber
And then just as efficiently push it back down
Till we are more like volcanic rocks
With so many holes floating, to ask to be filled
And when fulfilled, drown as we fill, purposeless
And empty  

Pre-Chorus

Hungry or at peace is sometimes the same
We are equally empty and anxious
We aren’t necessarily searching for more
Like Milan Kundera said,
What we can bear the least is
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being”

The children joyously rush towards the summit
And pushes down the monolith that crushed them
Without realizing an invisible rope connects all
So that all who wishes to reach the top
Must also fall through and brace the ground

Bridge:

All hungry and thirsty souls
All bodies filled with emptiness
Just want to be filled, filled with whatever will stay
And stay, peaceful without the prospect of abandonment and fading away

Chorus:

We wish, we pray, we
Won’t be washed away
Be forgotten, perish away
Why climb for the summit
If we must fall to a nameless grace?
Why can’t we just stay unborn?
If we can’t bear life’s lightness or weight?
Perhaps, I’ll never understand my place
But within the pondering and hopelessness
I woke up
And realize that truly:
Only Love transcends time and space
The embrace between two condensed hearts
Of pure longing could exert
The gravity
And gravitational time dilation
Of such self-forgetful density
That would wrap entire fabrics of reality
Around us, immersing us, with brief
Merciful revelations and trials
Of the unfathomable
Eternity

The Beginning and the End
(Introduction and Conclusion)

The withering maples, the fallen skylark
The plagued leaves, the forsaken bees
Are warning us that we are not only
Losing our depth, but also our earth
The sun, and our ways
When love is great, greater than the sea
We fear it the most, afraid to be lost in the waves

It shall not fade away, the eternity will always stay
Yet, Yet we build our haven with materialistic bricks
To hide away from the fear of losing
And look down upon culture and souls as a foolish faith
Not realizing, all that can be weathered away
Will be weathered away, broken down, to decay
Then, swept away, by the temporal waves

And those that belong in the eternal place
And those that seek for truth within this maze
If they ever find it or are found by it
They will shine, shine under the sun of everlasting rays
Repost:

For all hungry and thirsty soul searching for eternity.


By: Yitkbel Yue Xing ****


Translated from original Chinese Lyric that was originally translated and adapted from my English poem: “Terror of Good, Emptiness of Plenty”

Original date of Chinese version: November 3, 2019 18:55

Date of New English translation: November 5, 2019 15:04
240 · Aug 2017
Dust to Dust
Yitkbel Aug 2017
If only I can be
An ordinary seed in the heap
My soul content and roots deep
Forever present in your keep.

But when my time is up and have to leave,
Please a dust let me keep,
So that, wherever you may be
I will guard you in The Sleep.
Yitkbel Apr 2018
If you were never silent
          I'd never have searched your soul
                           And loved you so profoundly.
Yitkbel Nov 2017
You are just my fragile dream
My butterfly dream
My dandelion love
The elusive hummingbird among
Twigs and leaves
The illusive flower within the
Murano glass
That can only be reached when
Shattering

Not to be chased
Not to be touched
Not to be caught
Without escaping
Without breaking
Without losing

Still I tried to chase it
Tried to caress it
Tried to catch it
Tried to love it
All the while losing it
Losing myself
Running towards
This mirage of a love
As I get blown away
By the wind of impossible things
And storms of self-deceiving affections
Till I am merely a handful of stardust
Breaking
Escaping
Eventually blending in
Seamlessly
Within
The Desert of Lost Dreams
239 · Sep 2017
Clay
Yitkbel Sep 2017
I was that empty little pail
With a hole in my heart
Draining my life away
and
You were that piece of clay
that allowed all of the water to stay.

Except, the water that stayed
Didn't watch its way
Overflowed and washed away the clay
Now
Once again
Broken and in decay
The soul in me drained away
239 · May 2020
The Dreamer
Yitkbel May 2020
The dreamer must be sheltered

By the loudest silence

To be kept from the harm of waking

Yet, how I long to embrace your voice

Even knowing that I could cease to be.
238 · Aug 2017
Indian Summer
Yitkbel Aug 2017
As the leaves are falling
this Indian Summer day
I search through the fallen
Looking for your trace
For a leftover warmth
of your long unfelt touch.

Having found none
I plunder through
Attempting to kiss your beloved earth
What your presence might have blessed

You have said you loved autumn
You have said you adored the leaves
So I asked them if you have been here
Or, whether you would come soon.

Having found no answers
I begin to pick up all the leaves
Writing only one word on each
A puzzle of my undying love to you  
and then
Letting them all fall back to earth

Let them rot and be gone with the wind
Perhaps one day, when you finally happen by
A word, a phrase, a sentence, here and there,
Catching you by surprise
You might finally understand,
What I meant to you.
237 · Nov 2017
Insomniac Cafe
Yitkbel Nov 2017
I dreamt of living
Above the Insomniac Cafe
With mirror cakes of midnight blue
In the shape of the moon
A cup of starless espresso
Among quietly shimmering candles
Of light
That's disquietingly low
And every being asleep
Silent and smothered
Except for me
Fully awake with
An exceedingly loud soul.
236 · May 2020
The Answer
Yitkbel May 2020
I don’t know if you’re the ocean or the sky
I don’t know if I’m a fish or a bird
All the same as I swim or drift hopelessly
In your lofty invisible love
Do you caress me back intuitively
Or is this just the ebbing of my own tides
All the same as the panging waves take over
Burying me in the silence.
Yitkbel
March 28, 2020
233 · May 2020
The Songbird
Yitkbel May 2020
Larks must not seek the sky for songs

But this soul still foolishly dreams

For the lofty silence to cease her sleep

For my wings of weariness and longing to

Steady and never meet-


So that

Parted only by the dawn of obscurity

And

Embraced by the dusk of clarity

The songbird and his heavens

Could finally caress in thundering harmony

By the mercy

Of ceaseless fleeting shadows

Granted by the night’s awakenings

And my fall

Till Eternity

- Yitkbel, Monday, May 4, 2020
232 · Nov 2017
Your Scythe
Yitkbel Nov 2017
The curvature of your smile
Is a scythe or a dagger to my heart
When it's straight
It stabs me with fierce and merciless
Fear and sorrow
When it's a summer night's crescent
Moon
It still wounds me with
A hollowing absence
Of its breathtakingly
short reign.

Still
I embrace it
I rush right in
And let your scythe pierce
My soul again and again
Because without it
Without your smile
I'd be numb
I'd be empty
And brimming
With nothing
But pain.
Yitkbel May 2020
The river of time ages
The river of time sighs
In the same distance of life
There used to be a thousand waves
There used to be a thousand sighs

Now that the river is senile
In its movement through space
In its movement through time
In the same distance of life
There are only a hundred waves
There are only a hundred sighs

For
The river of time ages
As the river of time sighs
And
The river of time sighs
As the river of time dies-

It once lived for our existence
It once lived for our lives
Now we await its death
Now we await its perishing
To repay the debts-

All the plunder of lost love
All the plunder of lost lives
All the plunder of lost souls
All the plunder of lost minds

All the plunder of lost hearts
Recovered, healed, shattered, and repeat
Till only what is truly within remains

Love,
Without pain.
230 · Jul 2017
The Bird
Yitkbel Jul 2017
I love the bird
Not because you loved him
But because he loved you too.

I loved the sky
Not for its colour and hue,
But because across it the bird flew.
Bringing with him your pilgrim soul.

I fell in love with flying,
Not to see a world anew.
But to relive a world you once knew,
and once knew you.

Through them, I could touch again,
every raindrop, every dew,
Every heartbeat, throbbing new
Bursting from this dead heart,
Your leaving killed.
229 · Sep 2017
Muse
Yitkbel Sep 2017
You are my untouchable muse, yet I have felt all of life through you.
229 · Oct 2017
Lost in Orbit without You
Yitkbel Oct 2017
If the Earth vanishes
The sun still rises
But, what about the moon;
I am lost in orbit without you
Fringes away from
Drifting further and further deep
into the dark abyss unknown.
Still, I struggle to remain close to you
(Or where you were)
Pulled by the elusive sight of the light that once
Dawned and dusked on
Both me and you
Savouring whatever sweet traces that's left of you
Embracing the illusive presence of you
Hoping one day you would unexpectedly return in place
And your leaving had brought me ever closer to
You.
229 · Sep 2017
The Time Keeper
Yitkbel Sep 2017
The Time Keeper
By: Yidhna

I am the keeper of time,
Holding onto the PAST
Mindlessly
Senselessly
Unyieldingly
So that, one day
In the FUTURE
We can seamlessly meld back into the
PRESENT
Once again.
(The PRESENT
Of which you still remain)
226 · Sep 2017
Completely
Yitkbel Sep 2017
You are the full moon in my starless night
As I look for the light lost on the way to my safe keep

You are the tender whispering among the sharp laughters of mockery that grips my soul so softly and loudly

You are the warm tears rolling down my wintry cheeks I kept bare so long and
So numbly

You are the intoxicating reverie in my tumultuously violent and destructive thoughts oceans deep

You are the warm cup of tea
I hold in my stubborn hands as I freeze in the cold running to thee

You are
You are...

You are all that I wanted to keep  
Everlastingly

But only come once in awhile so
Unexpectedly

Still,  I grip onto you tightly
In shattering broken pieces

Just so I can be drenched in those orgastic moments bare and
Completely
Yitkbel Sep 2024
If eternity left a door open for you, would you let curiosity take hold of you, step out, and rush into the storm of time, of humanity?

And would you be back?


I knew neither the moon nor the sun
And night never showed his face.

1.

The day was the keeper of this place;
Keeping the dome clean and round,
So not a speck of star can be found.
Of course, this is me speaking in the future
Of the past;
Unlike in Time, this is a fertile pasture
Only of earth and not dust:

---

I wouldn't have known the moon,
I wouldn't have known the stars,
If not for the gate at the end of the path.

2.

So how should I describe the color of the sky,
That sunless, endless shimmering domed light
If the brilliance of opal, and mother of pearl
Magnified a thousand, a million, a billion times
It's soft pink, mystic green, royal blue and purple
Melt into the beauty of life, erase all sorrow
And leaving only a dreamy field of coral

---

As you float
As you float
Ever away
Ever away
From the shores of troubles

3.

“If there's no night, is there morrow?”
“Is there sleep, are there dreams?”
You seem to wonder about these things
What's a dream to someone who's within?
The peace never cease, therefore never change
So weariness would seem rather strange
It'd be hard to fathom these feelings

---

If not for me experiencing
If not for me experiencing
Before my wandering

4.

Wandering from my garden
My garden of love
My home: my oak tree with canopy high above
My fruit of life, my sweetest peach grove-
Except for my ever following dove-
My four fields of sunflowers, lilies, aster, barley
My four rivers of this little valley of plenty

---

These things I have left behind
To wander beyond the desert
Into the labyrinth of time

5.

The gate has always been open
So when did I get curious, and why
Was it always ajar, curiosity wide
There has always been spiritful wind
But in the garden never with rain
Softly singing and never howling
And I didn't understand the darkness I was seeing

---

Like a stranger on strange tides
Here's what I remember
Here's what I could define

6.

The paved crystals end at the divide
There's only dull stones on the other side
Barefoot I naively and confidently stride
That's when I learned what sand feels like
Are stars innumerable as sand
Or sand innumerable as the universe is grand?
It's as if I stepped on the planets then galaxy’s bend

---

So much dust
So much dust
Would I be buried alive?

7.

My home I have left far behind
Leaving a small window of light
Would I remember what it was like
Would I ever return with or without a guide
When the sand have blanketed over
All traces, all paths and even the light
Everything of mine is getting heavier it seems like

---

As it rains
As dust and sand seep into my veins
I am learning of discomfort and pain

8.

Even though this was a storm of sand,
Still the least strange of this wonderland,
Now that I have seen the brightest and darkness
Of emptiness and shadows
The barest barren and greenest meadows
Summit of stones, pines, snow capped might
Still the golden dunes I most like

---

Like heaps of stars below the sky
Like heaps of stars above the sky
You have see it to know what it's like

9.

The desert never seems to have an end
I wondered if this was going to be my land
My untillable land of moonlight, stars, dust and sand
And I hungered, I hungered
For my home as I knew not this oasis of man
So I walked and walked,
I knew not what else I can-

---

As I wandered on
As I rambled on
I saw something on the horizon

10.

Preserved by a crown of rosemary and thyme
A little wooden sign wrote Pasture of Time
What beautiful and leisurely grass to remind
Remind me of my home, my Garden of Love and Life
There are no true residents here, only travelers
Well maybe except for the sky’s butlers
Three archers playing below the curve

---

Red cape for the soaring clouds of day
Yellow toga to curb the fierce noon rays
Blue dress accentuate the moon’s grace

11.

These three, guarded the wanderers of a thousand faces
They are always changing and I wondered if I am the same
As the dust piled on me, some stayed
Some fell, some shifted in place
And I'm being directed to head in one way
The tour would end at the faraway gate

---

Even through all these plights
My dove never took flight beyond my sight
Ever faithful, darkness or light

12.

Since I'd probably be here for a while
I wouldn't mind these miles of trials
If the tame have never known the wild
Would he know if he's at peace or in denial
I'm just afraid of falling in love with what I can't keep
When I leave this plain
I want leave the pain

---

And not fall for some illusions beyond belief
That'll dissipate when I leave
That'll dissipate together with me when I keep
Emulating the transient things
And I become one with the wrong dream

13.

And all you strangers, you who roam
So very different from my friends at home
Why do your faces keep changing
Why are you always on route to leaving
Could one of you walk with me a little longer
So whatever changes I can at least remember
That's when I suddenly noticed her

---

But I'm not ready to cross the threshold of hurt
Give it all to human nature
What would it be like, to be any other:

i.

The Eagle:

When the sky was low
I never envied the eagle
And still, though it floats
High above the bees, the ants
The earth, the dust, and sand
The dandelions, the foxtails, fig trees
In the meadows

It'll just take the emperor’s new clothes
Of praises and wear it proud with illusive boasts
But what's the use when we all know
It'll never traverse more free
Through immaterial dreams
Nor soar above the stars
Nor bring news from the future or the past

The eagle is still just like us
The eagle is still just as lost

ii.

The Bees

And what about the bee that never asks
What's at the end of work, end of the path
The queen bee was born to be
Not something to be dreamed
So it restlessly toils away
We are already here, might as well stay
So they reason, and so they agree

But what do some say
About the honey they make
They don't believe in that changeless place
I've retained in my mind however vague
They say, they say
They are for whoever will replace
All of us at the end of our days

If not for a journey faraway
When we escape this maze
If we will cease, only dust stays
It'll surely be a waste
So then what's the point of bees and being
What's the point of bees and being
Anyways

iii.

The Ants

What's the vast to an ant
If we barely brace the land
We count the stars thousands times as grand
As brilliant beach of unreachable cosmic sands
We see the lights that dot the sky
As not much different than high flying fireflies
These are the white lies of white nights

When ants can't see the truth of the sky
When ants can't see the starry sky
And think of ourselves kings of everything in flight
And think of ourselves kings of life
When only to dust and shadows can we say we're bright

The existent non-existence is the ant's plight
It's our plight
So we endure gladly, only few understand why

iv.

Meadows

When we are pushed along a path
By false ambition, fate or lust
Even if we're never lost
What happens when we reach the top
A cliff always has a drop
If only there aren't such a curvature
To what we hold dear and yearn

If love is “truly patient and never boast”
How fertile and green would be its
Eternal meadow
The beauty of an endless plateau
Fields of purple irises and marigolds
If this lasts forever, where would it hide,
The shadow loving woes

Never in the meadow
Where the sun would expose
These dark and gloomy foes

v.

Dandelions in the Morning

Such fragile dreams in the youth of being
Such lofty wings in the youth of dreams
It comes and goes on a whim
So easily broken
Yet so resiliently woven
So you would think it went with the wind
Never to return and never again seen

And one day,
So suddenly
All you hear are the yellow flowers singing
In that field you never found promising
Now blanketed with snowing dancing wings

The dandelions of youthful dreams
The dandelions of youthful dreams
The dandelions of youthful dreams

vi.

Reeds at the Dusk

So you are, at the end of your path
The sky is veiled by a dusky mask
And the threads of reed sewn across
Obscure where you're going
And where you are
Would you be lost
To the waves or to the dust

But there is a compass in your heart
And you have been there before in the past
So have faith you'll find your home at
That timeless hut
Beyond the reeds at dusk
Beyond the reeds at dusk
Beyond the reeds at dusk

vii.

Fig Trees of Midnight

I see so faintly the shape
Through midnight’s blue drape
The contour of a fig tree
So I believe I have sown
But the flowering we can't always see
So would I be reaping the fruits of a dream
Or would I be reaping the futility of a dream

Oh, have faith
Have faith
When you can't see it
Doesn't mean it isn't flowering
When the sun is hid
The moon is still reflecting
You can't forsake before you've gone all the way

You never know
How it'll go
Figs of Midnight
Figs of Midnight
Might taste just as sweet

14.

What a lovely scene nature paints
But these are such transient things
I'm afraid I can't bring
Them back to my cabin
Back to my little plain
Would my faith dove remain
The only one following

---

Ever following
Ever following
Ever following

15.

I was so speaking
When I saw a light, a dream
What a wonder of a being
I have never seen smiles of lightning
Eyes shaped like crescent moons
Within which a billion stars pool
Is this why I was destined to arrive in time

*

To bring your soul with mine, my dove by my side
Back to my Garden of Love and Life
My Garden of Love and Life
Because clearly you are and you're meant to be,
So thinly veiled by the dust of temporary things
A being, even in this earth plane,
Helplessly shimmering with light
Written on: June 2, 2024
Concept inspired by the short story,
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
By Dostoyevsky



Eagle - Ego and ambition
Bees - Humble work
Ant - Inferiority
Meadow - Life of Leisure
Dandelions at Dawn
Common reed at Dusk
Fig Leaves of Midnight
225 · Nov 2017
The Loss of You
Yitkbel Nov 2017
I just want to hide
To move with inaction
To be a dot within the line
An insignificant point in time
I just want to be an eternal witness
That never moves the story forward
A ghost among the timely passerby
A shadowed shape among dotted lines

If I only saw
But never spoke
Never moved
I could have remained forever
Within the fringe of
The maelstrom
The cataracts
Of loss and ceaseless decay
And
Never be broken
By the loss of
You
224 · Feb 9
Silence
Yitkbel Feb 9
I know I can't love you with words.
Sending out tattered lines into the waves,
In green lit bottles fit for the drunken sea,
Wrapped with hope stained rags of my soul,
Never to be seen again.

Shall I try loving you with silence?
Perhaps then you can finally
Hear your heart's whispers,
Scattered among the stars,
Singing with the cicadas.
When they've reached the moon-
The wisps of their forgetful voices-
They'll float back down,
In the silver beams of time softened light,
As seeds of dust sown,
For another dream.
Written: January 3, 2025
Yitkbel May 2023
Written and translated by: Yue Xing **** Yitkbel

Originally in Chinese as lyrics on:

August 19, 2020

Translated into English on:

August 22, 2020


I


The wise man in the desert

Watches over the child

In the fields of gold.

The child in the fields of gold

Gazes at the zealous youth

At the foot of the mountain,

Climbing, climbing, climbing.

Wanting to bask untamed

Right beneath the fiery sun,

Wanting to tame the quiet moon

Crush it beneath his feet.

The feat of man.

The support and brace

Of morality and faith

To them are shackles

That must be freed.


II


As they roared:

Be reborn, nature!

Nature of man!

As they bellowed:

Go rebel, desires!

Desires of the self!

“Doesn’t the world cease to exist

Without the observer who is ‘I’”?

“I close my eyes and all living

To me met their timely demise”.


REFRAIN:


The wise man said nothing,

And the child wondered:

You who perceive yourselves

Collectively no less than Zeus,

Why gift yourselves the fate

Of Sisyphus?

Don’t you know that even time

Must melt away?

And yet there you are worshiping,

Keeping in dust as your

Salvation and eternal faith.

The rolling stone you’ll never eternally own.


III


Like ants upon an anthill,

At the crossroad of humanity,

Under the gas lamps still,

Quenched the humble fire with vanity,

Enlightened by tungsten’s burst,

Inaugurated Man “King of the Universe”.


REFRAIN:


The philosopher hovered away.

The poet sighed but stayed.

You all perceive yourselves

Collectively no less than Zeus,

Yet gave yourselves the punishment

Of Sisyphus!

Don’t you know that even time

Must melt away?

And yet there you are worshiping,

Keeping in dust as your

Salvation and eternal faith.

The rolling stone you don’t eternally own.


IV


Time grew, aged and will soon melt away!

The world leap or falter illusions must fade.

As the rolling snow boulder melts away,

Did you lose or gain in the spring days?


-Those who climbed the snowy peaks

Are now losing losing all in the decay;

Those who sown in the eternal pasture

Are now reaping reaping joyfully away.-


REFRAIN:


The kings wail and weep,

The believers rejoice in the days.

With great irony the Zeus of today,

Confined themselves to Sisyphus’ fate.

They don’t believe that even time

Must melt away,

So they worship and praise,

Keep in dust as all the

Salvation and faith,

The rolling stone they want to eternally own.


V


What hope we used to keep!

Humbly cradled in the eternal dream!

Yet we were lured to think ourselves wise;

A cluster of ants fighting to be lords of flies.

Perceiving dust as above unseeable souls,

Willingly, our rotting stones up a steep hill roll.

Boasting our strength, status, height of place,

While mocking modesty’s unseeming grace.

Unaware of the coming crushing weight,

As the uphill stone tumbles back to base.


Ever evading us,

Ever escaping us,

Ever the ennui


Of “Man: Controller of the Universe”

Ever confined to mere dust and earth.

Self-imposed exile, had the wayward son forgot,

The once great purpose? Now all for naught?


“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

“We are headed to nowhere!”

When the stranger to strange tides,

Kills, hides, and pretends to be the guide.


REFRAIN:


Matter ever shifts,

The soul never ceases.

With great irony the Zeus of Man’s beginning,

Brought themselves to Sisyphus’ end.

They don’t believe that even time

Must melt away,

So they worship and praise,

Keep in dust as all the

Salvation and faith,

The rolling stone they think they eternally own.


VI


Sweeping beneath the fog

Of the overturning dusk,

Endless, ceaseless dust

Engulfed the roller till naught.

Only the dreamer in the fields

To the invisible eternal yields.


Bewildered by the shadows,

Darkness of humanity’s days,

Only those who never forgot the hidden light

Can find the gate above without fear or fright.


Everlasting in the decay.

Peaceful in the destruction.

Must not be bound,

Must not be bound,

Must not be bound,

By a boulder of dust,

By a mountain of mud.

The invisible never caused me alarm.

So they have mounts of gold without end.

So they keep the sands of time within hands.

So they must ever dread and fear as it slips away,

Dust to dust without a trace.


VII


But we, we melt away the mockery with faith,

And lead the way with bolts of love and grace,

Back home to Eternity’s Gate!
Just popping in to update some poems written after I last posted.
224 · Sep 2017
Broken Earth with New Dust
Yitkbel Sep 2017
We are not all born from the light of a thousand spotless suns.
And in the darkness, we wronged, asked for
forgiveness but could not amend the past.
Eventually, we bloom, with learned righteousness, and shined with a new light.

Yet, sometimes, we still wondered, if it is too
late, if we are forever condemned to our childish sins, and naïve hatred, and in the light of those better than us, will we ever be blessed with glad acceptance, or will we be forever segregated for
our past inevitable faults.

We can’t change the past, yet hold on to them,
until the dream of afterlife relieves us from
these mortal coils.
We can build the future, but sometimes only to hide our spectres and cover our tracks.
Will time truly heal the broken Earth with new dust, and tarnish the scars we inflicted upon each other?
In the end, what is our end? For what do we
strive, when all have exhausted, there’s nothing to remember us with, except for-from dust to dust-the words in the wind.

And so, we have to find our happiness in the
living, the moment, and for once, not haunted by the past, and fear for our future. For once, we
want to be content in the present, for the "now" is no longer unkept promises, and successful failures; fading hopefulness, and endless waiting for the beginning of the tale, when there is no story.

We started the search in our past, but the answer will forever be in the present, and our future, forever in the moment.
218 · Sep 2017
Scattered
Yitkbel Sep 2017
My words are scattered
Scattered in the woods
In dews and fallen leaves

My words are scattered
Scattered in your tea
In the milk and honey

My words are scattered
Scattered in unseen places
In the shadows and behind window panes

My words are scattered
Scattered between lips
In laughter and mockery

But what do my words say
They speak of love
They speak of love only for you
But they are for the universe to keep
(Hidden, omnipresent, and eternally)
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