RIP 曾火桂 - Poems

棋敬诗

曾日光阴如盘棋
车战炮火逢贵人
百河汉边桂综师
只惜火燕归天榜

Moth Waltz

The moth eggs in my wardrobe have
vanished now. Not long ago, I found
a moth, mistook it for a butterfly
save for its law of attraction to light.

For months, moths of different shades
danced beneath my washroom lamp.
I sense them like ghosts in the shower, 
breaking reverie with water to admire

their soft fluff of wings, steep dive & climb
like lifelines patterned on my wall. That night, 
moths traced a new horizon on your cardio 
monitor. They might've danced over your face

before doctors drew the curtains over it. They
might've retired to waltz their transient waltz
in the shade of ceiling lamps at the void deck,
where you'd burnt the chess tables with
stubs from your cheap cigarettes.

The moths don't lay eggs in my wardrobe anymore.

For Old Fire Who Passed By
R.I.P. 曾火桂

1.
He passed like sparrows knew the wind
knew rough of leaves, knew the still landing
of dead twigs by your feet. He passed
like ghosts lost in corners of the void deck,
chanting & whispering their stories of living,
pushing pawns, puffing cheap rolled cigarettes,
sipping kopi or teh donated by white-haired kakis.

(Ah Gui ah? He never come for two weeks already)
(No one beats him at chess except you, ah boy)

He passed like fire, moths dancing beneath aged
ceiling lamps as old stooges push their last
pawn into foray with their final days: Time

chronicled its passing by tracing one more
line on his face snailing into dark wood
grains on the altar I have not visited.

2.
Joy for him was coffee, cigarette, xiangqi,
and later, teh, after he got worn of coffee.
Kopi-C his choice, humbug mouth soothing
the smoke-foam rising out of thousandth cup;

shaky finger pressing cannon too weak to
squash an ant braving the bombardment
of ceramic pieces on our chessboard.

Most of all his laughter, carefree, cantankerous
as only old men who's beaten cancer know how
to laugh; the dark snakes of his eyes seething
with cunning at slaughtering my other chariot.

Next game, and the next, through years I repaid
the debts of checkmates. They evoke his wild
laugh, that of defying his one more loss, that
of handing his baton of prowess to my youth,

his humbug smile framed at the altar
of memory.