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Best Poems Written by Su Ben

Below are the all-time best Su Ben poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Su Ben Poem

Surrealist’s funeral is held in the air,
yet, his coffin is not carried by a supersonic speed plane
flying through the open sky—altitude higher than the stratosphere,
gazing at the sun or a blimp drifting away, in the air, in a leisurely way, looking down upon the earth

but on a cloud pulled by an old eyeless pack-horse(1)—
the horse lost his eyes stealing a glance
on a flawless beautiful naked goddess on a moonlit night,
surrounded by a dense fog that makes everyone unable to see
the sky or the earth.

The funeral procession, though no one follows, we hear the wail,
someone must have crept up from underworld or descended from above, they follow the funeral procession.

As the sadness long held in a heart bursts,
the wail becomes louder and when it becomes louder,
furious Zeus frustrated from failing to rape a mortal maiden,
condemns the mourners “why the wail, impudent mortals!”
and casts thunderbolt to pierce the heart of earth, then
the deafening roar grows louder and swallows the mourners’ wail.

As the mourners’ wail die down
dark clouds rush together in the sky,
they pour onto the wilderness and become a torrential rain.

The water rises, the mountain floats, time heaps up high;
a lonely boat passes through between streetlight poles
lower than the river bed; when all the waters
have poured into the sea a rainbow appears,
but it’s odd! only three primary colors hangs on
the mountaintop, as if it wants to say something on its mind.

As rainbow fads away, Apollo hastens through a clear sky
driving his golden chariot chasing game;
I would rather hold my children’s corpses
fallen from Apollo’s merciless arrows in my arms
and become a lifeless rock with the never ceasing tears(2)
than to live long as the weight of a handful of dust
withering, shrinking and decaying under his blessing.(3)

Is that why, the surrealist’s corpse
pulled by old eyeless pack-horse strikingly resembles
a blasphemous artist wearing a pointed-up mustache
with gold-chained melted watch in his vest pocket?(4)

Is that why, though his body is eaten by the worms(5)
not able to obtain Peter’s sanction(6) to enter either paradise or hell?
Is that why, he is wandering in the air(7) surrounded by
a thick cloud holding a piece of saecula saeculorum
with disabled two fingers stripped off from
the mustached artist’s distorted watch?

Note: 1. Tiresias 2. Niobe 3. Cumaean Sibyl 4. Dali 5. Baudelaire 6. Matt 16:19
7. Oedipus

Details | Su Ben Poem

Assassin

An assassin drew his dagger
but hesitated a while for the victim was undecided
at that moment
he saw a shadow passing by

he followed the shadow
and stabbed the back.

The shadow let out a scream
and fell to the ground
at that moment 
an egg 
cracked open to hatch a chick.

Details | Su Ben Poem

Brahma Ii

—Brahma eva idam visvam(1)— 

A life neither has beginning because beginning is Brahma
or end because end is Brahma, it rides on a wagon named Karma(2)
and goes as a wheel whirls.

I came to this very spot becoming a sun, a moon and the stars
following the stream which carries anguish, and one day
I must cross; since it’s impossible to see the past because
there is no beginning or end, I wonder how to manage a day
when everything changes without beginning or end;
I came this far becoming a sun, a moon and the stars
and wandering in a wasteland looking at the bridge
beyond eternity.

In this barren soil:
though flowers bloom, they smell of death 
that tempts to ruin me;
though there is a spring,
it’s bubbling sand seen in a mirage to intensify my thirst;
though there are fruit bearing trees,
the taste of fruit is more bitter than Eden’s forbidden fruit;
though there are snows,
they come as a blizzard and pierce the skin to tear it to pieces.

Since Brahma is on the other side of Elysium 
no matter how much you wander in this boundless barren land,
though it may seems within hand’s reach, you would never be able
to touch; because your anguish, the reality of life is nothing more than 
pursuing a pain, a spinning of a wheel of Karma.

Although my body is worn out 
I have no place to lay my body down;
although my wounded soul is wailing 
no place to bury my soul to rest,
and if this is my Karma to be accepted,
how do I untie these entangled knots of anxiety. 

I exist, therefore my six(3) senses feel and perceive reasons,
then, how do I denounce this Sabba,(4) or deliver from suffering,
for that is the reason I exist.
All phenomena, however, to undergo everyone as Atman(5) 
carrying their own Karma, because Brahma is everything 
and Karma is the footmarks of ever changing mundane world.


1. Brahma eva idam visvam: Brahman, indeed, is this world-all.  2. Karma: destiny.  
3. Six Senses: five basic physical senses plus soul or intellect.  4. Sabba: this world.
5. Atman: soul, ego, or I.

Details | Su Ben Poem

Stone

—The road side thinker—

For ejected by the absolute that is inviolable and unknowable,
alone, only alone the stone; who was born in a gap of rocks
at the unknown foot of a mountain, built a hut named 
oblivion faced to the setting sun by a roadside.

For the solitary homeless wanderer’s sake the stone; neither trihedral, 
nor cubic, nor spherical, nor polyhedral, ever had the glory of monarchical supremacy nor had decay of a reed in the marsh, that necessarily should have been, at least once, for everyone.

The stone; who has no form, now, sits along the roadside 
watching the setting sun, while masticating bitter wormwood’s aroma that alone 
is lofty for a price of annual rings grew from a compelled, unwilling heart.

For all the deplorableness, for all the poverty, the stone; not trihedral, 
not cubic, not spherical, not polyhedral, denies the brilliance of 
a colorful rainbow repudiates the elegance of the nobility 
refuses affection that is to be showed off.

Details | Su Ben Poem

Memoir of An African-American Man, Achievement, Ii

Achievement, 2 of 2
—Time to share—

I cried and bewailed
while staring at mother’s peaceful yet painful face
in the casket she is laying. I cursed the world and swore
to avenge. I joined military to become a man and learn how to kill.
I volunteered to deploy wherever conflict arises. And deployment
to the war-torn-nations made me open my ill-intention-filled eyes
and look at the other side of reality because the scene of war was
nothing but full of ugly and atrocious evil.

From the fields of agonizing cry;
from the ruins,
the mark of evil-minded man
would like to witness the site with a smile;
from misery, the inhumanly plotted spiteful man’s
skillful torture; I learned how to love and forgive
instead of hate and kill.

During military service
I found the time and the way to complete my high school education,
I even advanced to take some college credits while in service,
and with G.I. Bill,
I earned undergraduate degree after discharged from military.
I felt satisfaction in the bachelor’s black gown, I assured
my own will power holding diploma in my hand.

I was proud, though, no one came
and congratulate me on the day of my graduation,
I found the meaning of life, though, I have no siblings
to share my happiness.

As I walked through the arch that separates academia
and workaday world, I was already struggling, however,
how to establish myself as a member of this society.
Should I engage in an entrepreneurial vocation
for immediate economical stability?
Take advanced study in medicine, law, ministry,
or become an academician?

I chose to become a physician
because it was not only my dear mother’s cherished wishes,
is also able to remove or lessen physical pains and mental anguishes
form the sick.

All my effort, not ended in vain, but bear the fruits of promises,
and I became a leading figure of the community. Now I am, standing by the window in my medical office, watching the people come and go, pondering,

should I continue doing what I am doing now and enjoy
my comfortable life with my beautiful family, and esteem
of all the neighbors,
or go to a one of poverty stricken neighborhoods
and help those poor souls without reward.

[After he went over thoroughly with his wife,
since their children were grownups and in college,
they decided to move to a one of poor villages in the remote area
and become a comforter to needy villagers.]

Details | Su Ben Poem

A Thinker Who Is Sitting On a Toilet Seat

A man sitting on a toilet seat giving strength to his belly, 
though resting his chin on his hand imitating the thinker 
who is sitting in front of the gate of hell with deep thoughts, 
naked on the bottom-half because he couldn't get completely naked 
like the thinker, excretes waste from his body.

Although the waste excreted from his body can be flushed out 
it may alleviate him for a while, the belly still is a bit uneasy 
from the accumulated evil thoughts he kept in his body for years, 
won't be able to flush out. 

That's why the toilet seat starts to crack, 
and because overly abusing the lower body 
the pain creeps up from the bottom of the pit,
and that would be the entrance to the little hell. 

If you see it from another angle, you can say that
the water from the toilet is the water of Lethe, which
will merge into Elysium, and therefore it may be Utopia;
then why squat down on the toilet seat troubled.

It's rather interesting to watch life,
since he is unable to filter the root of the larger hell 
that is lurking somewhere in his body, though, 
he fell into own dodge, condemning the lower belly, 
unable to leave the toilet.

You are a weary wanderer going after a soul that drifted away; 
you are a befogged soul facing hell but turning away from it, 
and anchored the weight of your mind to the hell that is 
on the other side of the world, sniffing a nauseous smell of sulfur 
bubbling up from the bottom of the deep sea. 

You are a wounded charger dashing aimlessly through the midst 
of the smoke of battle and the rain of bullets, therefore, though 
you have a mane you are unable to rise or call the wind, yet carrying 
a self-conceited pedant who favors the use of unfamiliar words and 
invents odd phrases to show-off on your back. 

Why don't you, instead of pacing in hell,
swallow a handful of powder to help loosen the bowels excrete 
the layer after layers of evil thoughts and the heaps of wastes 
accumulated in the body for decades.

Details | Su Ben Poem

Kwanzaa

We lost our “UMOJA”, the basic concept and core value of our being “We, therefore, I am”, at the time of our history that began some 300 years ago. We didn’t step on the soil of New World with a dream like many others, but hauled on the ground like a cargo as merchandise. We were each treated individually as a unit but not tied as a family or group bonded together by the same dialect.

Misery was the food we’d been feeding to fill our empty stomach, agony was the water we’d been drinking to quench our thirst, depth of our footmarks were the weights we’d been carrying, our lives were trial after trial of thorny path. No matter how hard we worked, our baskets were empty. No matter how much we labored, returns of our toils were unbearable lashes. No matter how humbly we begged and ardently prayed, God always turned His face away from us.

But all those detestable days are gone as second millennium faded away. Shackles of curse are removed from our neck and wrists. Our burdens are removed from our back. The reward of our day’s of labor is reasonable wage. Why don’t we embrace one another with joy because only thing remain is our determination.

As daybreak sun is rising from yonder horizon, our darkest day has passed; for daybreak light is brighter than ever and pleasant as spring breath, we have good reason to celebrate for a moment. Nevertheless, don’t prolong the time of festival because it may make you stray from reality and to dwell in farfetched world.

As long as you don’t fold the wings but spread wide and keep flapping them, though sometimes encountering high wind, you can fly higher than the highest ridges of a mountain. If you keep swimming upstream, though you may confront falls and rapids, you’ll come to your old home where your parents risked their lives to spawn and enable you to hatch from an egg one day, and rejoice overflowing water in the ocean to gladden your life. If you dart with a swift gallop not abandoning tomorrow’s dream, no matter how immeasurably vast is the wilderness, you’ll reach the horizon before sun sinks into the other side of the world.

It’s the time to restore our “UMOJA” a laudable custom once we lost during our darkest days, recover “UMOJA” our ancestral heritage the good moral standard to sustain “I as us.”

Best Poems Written by Su Ben

Who Am I and Who Are You

Brahma I

A Woman In the Rain

Funeral of a Surrealist

Assassin

Brahma Ii

Stone

Memoir of An African-American Man, Achievement, Ii

A Thinker Who Is Sitting On a Toilet Seat

Kwanzaa