recipients and Other Poems

By Raymond Chen

recipients

i try to speak,
but when i recognize that i am giving in to my tears:

i hold my voice in;

because i will never let her hear my suffering 

she doesn't deserve to hear it.

recipients: mother and heartbreaker.

o’erwhelm

a statement of somewhat eternal verity: do NOT let music overwhelm the mind

the melodies quietly retract,
and i am, again, left in solitude.
expecting to be overwhelmed 
by a new composition,
the old melodies come back at me
at first, prominently nostalgic, 
but now in multiple interludes,
i decipher all the underlying emotions
behind what the musician is trying to convey.
i think this is the end:
having ascertained the purpose,
all events come to an abrupt stop; however,
the melodies keep hitting me
tearing apart the flesh,
the skull,
and finally, 
the heart within.

-meatless layers of flesh, boneless skull, and an unoccupied heart is what remained in the remains of me

chemistor

"how is it
that your perception of her
is not but twisted unproportionally
so that when you see her
all cynical features are voided.
thus[?]
what is left is much, or the lack thereof:
residue of a chemical reaction
that showcased our lack of chemistry
in this artificial lab."

-the epitome of confusion in love, a prominent constituent (if not all) in this poem is the form of the words characterized by mischief.

Raymond Chen is a beginning poet in Vancouver, Canada. He also writes essays, creative nonfiction, and short stories for publication. His poem “ripples” recently appeared online in the August edition of Goats Milk Magazine.