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Best Poems Written by Triny Xiang

Below are the all-time best Triny Xiang poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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When Joy Waltzes In

Joy dances in even to the bereft
She cracks my frown with a tango
Then she leaves my house swept

Joy is a hummingbird trapped indoors
Her iridescence lights up all my grime
Usher her out before I’m enamored

But, happiness is like fish overstayed
His cloying perfume overpowered
He is a rhino to her phoenix raised

Sometimes joy is an elephant
Hiding under a tablecloth snickering
She exits invisibly like an ant 

Sometimes she’s Mary Poppins waltzing
Scrubbing a spot that I cannot dirty
Sprinkling a spoon full of sugar on salt

A lifetime of joy waltzing in wears me out
Then happiness retires to a piece of furniture
I’ll give her a ticket to dance and not pout

Someday when I am old and feeble
Too tired of laying ashes down
I’ll let joy lift my frown with needles

I’ll let her cat sit on my lap untamed
When I’m too demented to sully joy
I’ll let joy feast upon my remains

Till then I’ll leave the door ajar


** Luke 12:36
"Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks."

Details | Triny Xiang Poem

Poetry Keeps a Day

Poetry will not keep you warm
Not like a cat nestled between legs
But, it hunts down manic thoughts
Gnashes the static till the mind gives 
Chases a thought till claws are bloody
Keeps you drenched in sweat
Yes, she mews for attention
Till its cries grate every nerve
Till I feed it words & want 

Poetry keeps me squirming
Caught in a net skimming a deluge
Waiting for words to be hauled
The big catch ever escaping  
Keeps me checking the line
Insisting I jump into cold waters
Foolishly like Ahab chasing a tail
Sadness is my white whale
Mad with promises holey

Poetry is a leaky bucket
Catching the rain of words
Within depression's storm
Coming like a cat with a pail
Impossible and torrential
Ensnaring me for an hour
Keeps me back for seconds
Promising an easy catch
Cold and slippery

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Unclaimed fallen leaves

Spring winds clean winter branches
Leaves billow far from home
A maple tree sheds its own in tune
No one is around to collect them
Flat and perfect to be pressed in a book
Unlike humanity’s tree in March
It sheds its leaves year-round
We gather around its floating remains
We mourn our buds yet unfurled
We cry when our crimson leaves fall
But some are not so lucky
Some are unclaimed and unloved leaves
Like dead leaves blown by Spring winds
Ordinary as the ones that pass you by
No one to press them between leaves
They belong to the careless breeze
Free to disappear from existence
There is a terror in freedom
Adrift and alone
With no one to catch one from falling
As our stems fail and we fall
A human fallen leaf is a sad sight
Sadder when no one catches them
No one to press in a folio
Place a gravestone as a bookmark
A novel with pages forever shut
Never to see the light of day
Isn’t it better to land on the ground
With all the other compost?
All the leaves nameless alike
Under the cruel sunshine
Under the cool moonlight
Rather than a maple leaf loved
Safely tucked in a page
Between nine and infinity?
Those who have no one who loves them
Those maple leaves unclaimed
Make the pages for those who are loved
Like fallen and unloved maple leaves
Still making the soil we tread upon

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Interdependence is extraordinary


An ordinary day begins
Make a cup of coffee
Watch the sun rise
The lonely ticking clock
Watch the minutes make an arc
The extraordinary dismissed
How long till the day is over
Never in history are we this alone
Never knowing vastness
Some never know closeness
Give up togetherness today
Give up even on emptiness
I am the void and avoid
Nowhere to run from me
No choice but to be ordinary
Let loose the lonely demon
Give my chiding angel a break
Let them watch the star with me
The careless sun circumambulates
Around those happy people
Around the lonesome waiting
Without judgment, we all go round
War and peace are ordinary
Pour a glass of wine at dusk
Make a toast to the receding sun
Alone I try to find company in one 
At least the sun and I make two
But, the setting sun leaves me
The moon fails to show up
If only I could be like them
Ordinary like nothing in the universe
All of us special in the vastness
Crowded by simple lives
Me unable to comprehend
Interdependence is
Extraordinary

Details | Triny Xiang Poem

Distance Leads To Temptation

Lord, lead me not into temptation
Away you, I'm not sure, teach me not 
This exercise in longing, I will forget
Your verse of homelessness, as your son 
Illuminate the distance between me, and you 
Forgive me, your garden trespassed, don't
Exile me out into forlorn space again
Heaven and satellites are your art

Here on my moon far from the sun, you 
Lead me to that lonesome capsule, back
Where a stained spacesuit hides me, listen
To the hissing suit sweet-talking me, I go
Wearing that damned suit, pull down the visor
To cover my face from your rays, head
To my own sea of tranquility alone
On the dark side of the moon, far

From your reach, I’ll own my kingdom
From your moondust, build a sand castle of sin 
On the rim of an unholy crater, I’ll declare 
Independence from your colonial rule
I’ll put on this old suit of debauchery again
Until you strip your prodigal child, attempting 
A break from orbit, telling me I have all I need
For a moonshot closing the distance

Deliver me from a solitary capsule, lifeless 
On the cold lunar surface, temptation lives
Stay my evil hand that turns the airlock
Watch me float out the hatch from afar, hiss
Your gravity too heavy to bear, God, watch 
Me bounce to the dark side of the moon 
Though here comes the sun again, coax
Me a sinner unbaptized by midnight

Each revolution, you test my faith 
Turn not distance to despair, rather 
Instill the space between, patience
Turn not my freedom to anarchy, but
Faith in tethered orbits, closer
Turn not my soul into a cancer, hungry
Temptations eating a moon misled
Thy will be undone away from you

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The language of poetry has left me

When the river of poetry has dried
Like parched clouds waiting for warmth
When the rain beats down on emptiness 
The god of rain demands to be penned

I pour myself a glass of wet wine
An offering to Bacchus to entreat
My muse, but she ain’t listening 
Her torrent of words fall on deaf ears

I light two cigarettes as an offering
My sooty lungs are a poor sacrifice
Still my muse refuses to talk sense
The god of ash will not spill beans

Poetry has dried, but I am faithful
I’ll cup my hand in the pouring rain
I’ll bind dissonant words like cold fusion
Marry consonants and vowels online

Anything to rise above the mundane
I offer sooty words to show I’m here
Do poets online get drenched like me
Stumbling in the rain posting virtually?

My eucharist is dipped in whine now  
Comments become sacramental breads
Poetry is a vice best felt in the rain
Washed clean by constant wringing

So I’ve made a poem out of rain
Turned water to prose like Jesus
I’m on Golgotha with Him every day
Extolling in the driving storm

Both of us bleeding or crying
Eli eli lama sabachthani?
God, my gods why have you 
You abandoned me?

You must know it's just a cross
It's me counting rain drops
When the parched clouds part
Let the sunshine be though hard

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Goodbye to hello

Goodbye is a feast finished
The last morsel down the hatch
Improper to ask for seconds
No aperitif to this lonely hunger

For every goodbye must be a hello
Even if no one arrives home
Welcome your darkness, don't go
My mistrusted companion

I forgive your cloying reach
Can you recreate human touch?
Let me be the one to say goodbye
Just to feel my forlorn space

Selfishly you take all the oxygen
Leave the left with a hunger for air
There’s no comfort in goodbyes
Better to say hello to re-gen

Goodbye to time with loved ones
Hello my solitary depression
Revolution brings me back to light
Goodbyes are a global constancy

Even without hands that feed
Goodbyes consume me with it all
A constant depression never satisfied
A hunger feeding on memory

Say goodbye to hello for now
Say goodbye from dusk to dawn
Twighlight is the start of a new day
Depression coming to hello's light

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Prodigal sheep

Jesus, you say bring home my sheep
You say be a shepherd like perfect You
I say my sheep have gone prodigal
They have my credit card, I say resigned
At least they buy cheap wine on my dime
They’ve discovered tobacco, too
They won’t come home, I’ve tried
My mind has escaped me, I bleat
But, my body has returned to the barn
And the mind are homeless sheep
They want to go AWOL at every chance
They know my arms are not open though I try
Nevertheless, the mind and body are one
I am their pen and prodigal sheep
I am the arms closed and deserter
I am the sheep and herder
Isn’t that right, great shepherd?
Ask not what you, Jesus, can do for me
Ask what I can do for my sheep
I don't ask you to return my flock
You say, kindly woo them with contrition
Take them to the bar and pay the tab
Let them drink their fill if need be
Bring the sheep home in a cab
Leave the pen open just in case
If the sheep go prodigal again
Let them know there’s no place like home
Where else can they roam?
Jesus, I’m your lost lamb
I’m waiting at the bar
Come rescue us

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Shame seeks light


Shame loves to hide under a rock
It worries that the rock will be lifted
That pure sunlight will flood in
That darkness of normalcy will flee

Do the beasts and trees know shame?
Do they have their innards exposed?
Do wolves know what nakedness is?  
Do willows blush when they do wrong?

Is there shame without society?
Wouldn’t it  be grand to be an animal
In tune with our natural selves
Shame is in our unique DNA

But, we were expelled from Eden
We with Adam and Eve under a rock
Making pebbles for us to crawl under
Layer upon layer, deeper into shame

Wouldn’t it be nice to feel the sun?
Our shame exposed and warmed
Global warming as our exhaust
Our shame our redemption

What is the mystery of shame?
Shame tells me I’ve gone too far
Or I’ve not gone far enough
To know the difference needs wisdom
Lift my boulder and examine it

Anything secret that will not be known
Will come to light eventually
For nothing is hidden
Forgiveness needs new light

Shame needs darkness
Even in the sunlight it seeks
Shame knows not where it goes
Unless light comes to show the way

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I'll be free of you in time

You were with me when I needed you
You gave my wearied mind a place to rest
You made me rage when I had no courage
Now you took my courage with you
You dissolved the gates of inhibition
Now you hold the key to liberation
You gave me a coat when all seems bare
Now you make me dependent on you
When you are gone, you leave me bare
You make me race home to your warmth
I try to put you into the bottle
You just won’t go in on command
I’ll be free of you someday, but not today
I’ll titrate you out day by month
I’ll give you what you want for a while
I’ll pull out a seat at my table this month
No more scraps at the kid’s table
I won’t be ashamed of you any longer
You are a guest who stayed too long
I’ll remember how you ran me a bath
How you laid out the box cutter
The house will feel empty without company
Without someone to pour me a glass of wine
I want to feel the clean air friendless
If only you would let go of me first
But, that’s not your nature
So, it must be me that must say good-bye
I’ll give you time to pack your belongings
I’ll see you in every bar room and party
In time, I won’t want to take you home
I won’t want to drink you in
I won’t want to inhale your aroma
I’ll have nothing to do but face the day
I won’t use you as a crutch
I’ll be free from you in time
The shame of our tryst will be lifted
I’ll learn to crawl on all fours alone
The monkeys on my back sent packing
But, my lonely arms won't comfort
Like you