Get Your Premium Membership

Best Poems Written by Jimmy Qin

Below are the all-time best Jimmy Qin poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

View ALL Jimmy Qin Poems

Details | Jimmy Qin Poem

Mouth and Ear

Sometimes my mouth
whispers to my ear
without movement; I feel the 
vibrations travel through
my head.

I'd spy on it, clamp it,
but it says vile, shocking
things I never 
would. 

The sound 
resonates within me.
My ears try 
to cut the cord 
but only amplify the screech:
inside me a giant ring 
is ringing and I can't
let others hear it.

Copyright © Jimmy Qin | Year Posted 2016



Details | Jimmy Qin Poem

A Student's Work

Occupations are not 
all useful, like when Sisyphus rolls
and nobody cares. Even Camus
can’t justify my love
of quantum or calculus, when it’s burn-lonely
rolling out the integrals: I integrate
myself into a human
-ist Existentialist here’s the point -ist
theory of why I am why I am
and when I differentiate my parents 
chide me. I gather the pieces again.

Copyright © Jimmy Qin | Year Posted 2016

Details | Jimmy Qin Poem

Gym Fraud

All the gym's a stage
And all the pale boys merely players;
Unconvincing ones, too.

At the theatre entrance 
I part with pride
For a curious form of Vaudeville.

The maxims of inertia invert.
No longer are the masters
Of the ruling class.

To make up for their deficit,
They perform:
Cackle, strut, and prance disgustingly,
Strive insensitively to sound “street,”
To be street.
(Street actors.)

It must be black magic
To float over concrete,
To steer balls
Into circles.

Audience: the girls and I,
But especially
The dark magicians themselves,

Who either sponsor their imitators,
Or disapprove and sneer.

Cheated of my cash again,
I hurry backstage
And recognize the actors
Without their costumes, 
Sporting familiarity: Hollister, Jansport, Abercrombie.

The bell rings; they exit;
The shoe polish
Washes off their faces;
They morph 
Into rich white boys
Once more.

Copyright © Jimmy Qin | Year Posted 2016

Details | Jimmy Qin Poem

Bald and Hairy

"It hurts bald men as much as hairy men to have their hairs pulled out." 
~Seneca

The bald man moans
for his house, rooted up,
dripping above the sewer.
A q tip might plug it. 
Alcohol might fix it for weeks.

The hairy man sues
for his house, shooted up
miles above the hustle.
An underhanded tip will save it.
Alcohol could cover it forever.

Seneca's hair must have covered 
his eyes.

Copyright © Jimmy Qin | Year Posted 2016

Details | Jimmy Qin Poem

Alcohol Closet

In my house
intoxicating liquid
lies unlocked
in a closet.

Subject to the anti-drug
campaign since birth,
I never thought 
to try it.

Why? Fear 
of addiction,
or of drunkenness?

Both are reversible,
and I am young.

The type 
evolves with dad:

First, red Burgundy wine
then a Christmas Heineken
a coworker’s Bahamas rum
a local Bombay Sapphire
Moutai from my uncle.

(Drink intensity
seems to increase
with his anger
Though he's never 
lost.)

Another week, another bottle
he consumes 
with accelerating ferocity.

Either he is losing discipline
or planned this all along
making more
of time remaining.

Surely I’ve inherited
generously lenient genes
and could drink his path,

But if I start
I risk regretting seventeen 
years of abstinence.

Copyright © Jimmy Qin | Year Posted 2016



Details | Jimmy Qin Poem

Cool Running In Rain

Drizzles ice
up when I run
naked
it touches me
through my shirt.

Sweat
is water plus salt.
Sprayed on ice,
I can't tell the difference.

I pass the window of a house
reflection 
I touch it
through my shirt.

Slowmo
my head replays
a side view of me crashing
melting ice.

I need to apologize so
we touch
through my shirt.

Copyright © Jimmy Qin | Year Posted 2016

Details | Jimmy Qin Poem

Waterboarding

Stop the 
waterboarding
of poems. False
confessions fly and 
scarred
they hobble out
bleeding yellow, blue, green
all at once - 
sometimes poems don't know
what you think they do.

Copyright © Jimmy Qin | Year Posted 2016

Details | Jimmy Qin Poem

Types of Poetry

I met a girl who was like free
verse. Nothing good to see - 
Hair frizzed up static; couldn't be
worse. Sung worser than a turkey
but her goodness nearly made me
burst.

I met a girl who was like rhyming 
verse and she didn't make no 
nothing sense because all she did 
was rhyme time and there wasn't
no speeching just singing like in
opera where you go to feel smart
but wouldn't get anything without
watching her and her beautiful braids, 
blonde like Marilyn and probably as
senseless too.

Copyright © Jimmy Qin | Year Posted 2016


Book: Shattered Sighs