INDEPENDENT EGG

by Albert Hwang

Los Angeles, May 1 (CNA) A U.S.-based coffee association that organizes the World Coffee Championships (WCC) said on Friday that its decision to change the designation of competitors from Taiwan as representing "Chinese Taipei" was in line with international conventions at sporting events. The decision has drawn criticism from Taiwan's coffee community, particularly after the WCC website recently changed references to Taiwanese competitors--including this year's World Latte Art Championship winner Lin Shao-hsing (林紹興) pictured above—as being from "Chinese Taipei" instead of "Taiwan."

We're trying to hatch this island

egg-shaped, that was born already.

Thousand-year-old, incubating

in a standoff, we were born already.

They say to be careful, step-ball-

change what you call yourself,

dance around words like

Taiwanese and Country.

Special administrative,

inner outer autonomous,

hyphenations on a name,

that was born already.

Imagine, standing

on eggshells that spell     I-N-D-E-P-E

N-D-E-N-C-E     trying to take a step.

Birth being brokered, pawned by two

protrusions, jutting into the Pacific. But

we were born     already.

Albert Hwang is a Taiwanese American poet from Illinois. He writes about alienation, distance, and inherited grief in the Asian American experience. He is a 2004 James B. Reston New York Times Gold Key winner (Scholastic Arts & Writing). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Inscape Journal, Unbroken: Prose Poems, Heavy Feather Review, Eunoia Review, Unleash Lit, DIHP, Anxiety Press, Pen Pushers, Longmeadow Literary, and other publications.

BLINKEN IN BEIJING: DATA CALL

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Antony Blinken was greeted by China’s top diplomat on Monday, and will perhaps meet its president, on the final day of a rare visit aimed at trying to resurrect relations between Washington and Beijing from historic lows. —The Guardian, June 18, 2023

Semiconductors
Formosa…Taiwan…
Uigur burial practices
Tesla
Ships passing in the South China Sea
Warships frigates destroyers
Balloon looking down on the American continent
SHOT
Spy station on the island of Cuba
Confucius Institutes everywhere
in the developing world
Plastics, christmas trees, clothes
A massive relationship, two 
superpowers yet distant neighbors  
coming together on climate 
change policies but staying apart 
on so many hot buttons 
including the rights of Man and Woman
Five and a half hours meeting
(extended by an hour)
American and Chinese teams
then strolling
before a working dinner for two hours
Foreign Minister and Secretary of State
Hard at work making   peace.
eating thousand-year-old eggs.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is the newest collection of Indran's own poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

AN EARLY AUDIENCE: JANUARY 23, 2022

by Wu “Sacred Bee” Li

A Chinese PLA Xian H-6 jet bomber. China’s air force flew 34 fighter jets, one bomber, two electronic warfare planes and two intelligence-gathering planes into the Taiwan Strait on Sunday. Photograph: Taiwan Ministry Of National Defense/EPA Helen Davidson in Taipei —The Guardian, January 24, 2022

The Red-capped Cock-man has announced the Coming of the Dong .

The Keeper of the Robes is bringing terror to Taiwan.

The heavenly nine doors re-ve-al thirty-nine aircraft.

The coats of many countries kowtow to the Golden Calf.

Sunlight has entered into the Cheat’s craven carven plans.

Incense and hatred round the Dragon spread to many lands.

The Chengdu J-10 fighters, electronic spotter planes,

and the Shenyang J-16 jets roar out enraged refrains.

The audience hears edicts, blue, black, yellow, red and white,

a Phoenix phalanx sent forth by the Secretariat.

Wu “Sacred Bee” Li is the latest anagrammatic pseudonym of a New Verse News regular. This poem draws on a poem from the Tang dynasty by Wang Wei (王維, 701-761). Dong means East.

BIGGER THAN THE GAME

by Bonnie Naradzay

                           Galileo:  “Eppur si muove,” and yet it moves.

 

An NBA player who shall be unnamed

refuses to have the coronavirus shot

and says this is bigger than the game; 

this was after he'd said the world was flat

but some years later blithely explained

he was big into conspiracy theories then

and said we’ve all been there, right?

Meanwhile an island that's part of Taiwan,

just six miles from mainland China,

has been surrounded by Chinese boats 

fishing for squid; the boats flood the sky 

with lurid green lights to stun the squid, 

deplete all fish, send the islanders into despair.

It’s complicated, it’s covert aggression, 

nothing can be done, it will only get worse, 

like the illegal settlers (during the olive harvest 

with the few trees left) on the West Bank

who beat the limping Palestinian teen,

hung him from a tree, burned his feet,

released him to the Israeli police.

My friend says he doesn’t read the news

to protect himself from being sad

but I think why am I alive, otherwise,

if not to know what’s wrong and right, 

for I believe in Paradise, 

in the separation of church and state,

in the perfidy of pulpits and gerrymandering.

It’s bigger than the game. 

      

            

Bonnie Naradzay leads regular poetry workshops for homeless people and also at a retirement community, both in Washington DC. 

EVER GIVEN

by Kat Frabotta

“Ever Given” by DaveRiver at Deviant Art.

She trudged on, steered towards Rotterdam

The captain’s son called him. Something pestering

The wind. He felt itchy. His grip tightened

He jerked the wooden wheel

Left. Left. How fucking far can you go.

Too far, it seems.

A simple, swift U-Turn will fix things

She had other plans.

Had since leaving Taiwan, but now he spurred her on.

Now it wasn’t just a magical dream of a looming, vast, powerless vessel

He had actively propelled her, set her off, equipped her with the tools needed

To make her mark.

Ever Given,

For decades, Passing various goods to every spot she’s been told

Humans have not moved her.

People shoot Asians, step on the necks of black men,

Buy plastic to put on top of plastic

As the world burns.

Incredulous, she did what she could

With her mass and the blessing of propulsion

She burrowed deep.

She takes to Egypt, ignoring the cries of the Captain

Slowly entrenches herself into the sand of the canal.

And now she sits.

She sits, she blocks. She has no intention of budging.

Why should she?

We don’t budge.

And maybe we need to get stuck for a while right now, she thinks,

Shutting her eyes and making herself comfortable.

Kat Frabotta is a 29 year-old living in New York City. She is currently an advertising student and aspiring creative. In her freetime, she loves cuddling with her orange cat and talking to friends over a bowl of penne alla vodka.