To: Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Mr.Mustache
By:Yue Xing Yitkbel ****
Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Mackintosh, sir
Under the shades of the Willow Tree
I picked up the flower
Your Pink Rose
A nouveau time, nouveau mean
Lights shines through
The minimal window panes
I see, the marriage, renaissance
The White Rose and the Red one too
Blue, Scottish blues
Now, the pedals broken, they flew
Leaving only
My violet soul

Our Naked Souls
Written by: Yue Xing Yitkbel ****
Friday, April 10, 2015

I like to lay beside warm bodies
Never too used to the cold
But my love is for naught
but a dream within a dream

I still want to be with you
Through the tulips and willow
But I don't know, don't know
If my memories still withhold
Within, within you

Because
You left me caressing the air
Breath what's not there through
Me and my naked soul
My naked soul
My naked soul

Swimming through the wind
I saw shadows but nothing to hold
I kept my memories of old
and a silent story to be told

But
Your absence stripped me bare
and left me in the cold
Me and my naked soul
My naked soul
My naked soul
I sat under the willow shade
Peeled at the pink rose
and thought of you
But nothing's clear

Since
You left me here
With another muddled affair
I can only feel
Us and our naked souls
Our naked souls
Our naked souls

A Scar
By: Yue **** Yitkbel

I walk slow
Light-feeted and soft
So as not to disturb the sentiments

I walk silently
Traceless like the wind
So as not to leave a scar

The Ritual
By: Yue **** Yitkbel
Friday, July 17, 2015
I gently slit open the front zippers
Of the charcoal stained book bag
And reached in with the precision of a surgeon
Taking out an army green box
The heart of this unrequited tale:

The box squealed a pointless yelp
But, as always, I never responded
And, so I proceed
Taking out the red blue Murano quill

It was never yours, and always mine
But through these regretful years
I always kept it dear
It was the last
Token of our silently syncing heartbeat
Now slowly failing over time
Then, here and there
Alive once again, catching me by surprise.

I touch along its length
Like a dear old friend
Like a familiar and faithful patient
Check his health, wish it well, and
Send him back to his paper home

Like a ritual
I turn it around
And stealthily place it back upside down
For, that is how I remember her
The back of her hair, the back of her coat, the back of her heels
Standing stoically and unmoved
Against the curtain of the Venetian Rain

Momentary Insanity
By: Yue Xing Yitkbel ****, Tuesday, December 27, 2011 12:26PM
The enchantment
Of the ecstasy
Of the suffocation
Of the subjective notion of
Acceptable obsession and love
Curtains
More or less:
The deafening poison of the air,
Imprisoning the suffocating soul
In the imprisonment of the sinful flesh,
Never letting a breath of dominance
Of inner actuality;
The ignorance
To the boundless autonomy
Of the ever present
Communication
Among each grain of spirit,
Each grain of the soul;
The helpless,
Useless,
Caged wandering,
Wondering,
Of the seeking aspiration
That which would have been contented
With a flight of spirituality;
Instead,
We are confined to the sin,
Peeking out of the darkness
Only through our momentary
"Insanity"

A ****** of Crows
By: Yitkbel
10/15/2013
10:29AM
A muffled nosing
The crow calls at its cradling twilight
The crinkling of the raven’s vigorous grin
Invites a palpitation even from beneath the ledger
Thud, Thud, Thud
Nearer and Nearer
Storm or thunder
Thud, Thud, Thud
Nigh or Yonder
Fear and Wonder
Thud, Thud, Thud
Who’s there
Answer me mister!
Are you a messenger of the night?
Are you a angel of divinity’s right?
Thud, Thud, Thud,
Even louder!
“Come hither, come hither”
Who calls, in that lustful whisper
Only us,
The Mistresses of death,
You?
A flock of crows?
No,
A ******
A ****** of crows.

By: Yue **** Yitkbel

What I adore the least about
The Love of Men
Is but the conditions of our human condition
The endless ends and means unsatisfied
The ceaseless desires to be loved
While Love is never given without condition

If only, it were
-Even if just a mimic-
More akin to the affections of canines
A mere shadow, silhouette
Against the backdrop of the setting sun
Awaiting the return of yours truly
Wagging tails, without fail, holding on to
A silent, not promise, but natural instinct
To be loyal and
Forever consistent with its lordly love

It is love, that if bartered, bartered only with itself
Not taxed with useless decors
As possessions and gains
But only
Love for Love's sake

The Death of the Poet
By: Yue Xing Yitkbel ****
9:38PM
10/21/2013 TO, ON

Part 1 Down the Rabbit Hole:

He had faith in exceptions
He was optimistic
He "believed in six impossible things just before breakfast"
and had his cake.
He mused of the bunny farm
and fought the jabberwocky in his dreams.
These things failed him.
He woke up, and was crushed with the mice
In a snap of revelation
and
Under the weight of truth.
He was shattered, along with the coral corpses
Of the paperweight

Part 2 The Paper Weight:

A coral in the glass paperweight
A hummingbird shielded by twigs
The fragile illusion
A naive illusion
"The beautiful illusion"
Quoth Marlow, our dear friend Charlie.
Through the looking glass
His world, the Poet's world,
was shattered,
Not by "a sea of trouble"
Nor by words of a mature revelation
but by Silence.

Part 3 The Horror, The Horror:

The wrath and sorrow of the composers
Were expressed
In the requiem of silence.
The conductor threw his hand open
In the final flight of the dove
For the poet, the dreamer,
Who, and whose ballads and odes
Were silenced on the battlefronts of the nouveau era.
No one followed when he chased the seagulls.
No one answered his pleads and screams of wrath and sorrow.
In the end, there was only silence
For the poet, and his poetry.
To this he whispered:
"The Horror, the Horror"
And then
Nothing more.

Oh love, how I should

To be able to sleep soundly

The Wonderful Sleep

Unawakened by life - Yue Yitkbel ****

Transformation
-Yue Xing Yitkbel ****
Senile, Fragile
The old man struggled with his nervously useless last breath
And
Yields.
Accompanied by insignificant drops of tears
Always unnoticeably present with the passage of “time”
He goes away too
Miraculously shrinking, rotting and decaying
And
“Eventually” blends in with the rest of the wise drool dusts
Transforming to almost frightening
Subtly dark and sane flowers
Impatient to invade
And conquer those stepping her upon the foolishly stupid “ground”
Yes, I am, in all “contradicting” frustration
Announcing my impurity as human flesh.
His helpless soul is hopefully gone
To the Godly realm,
Where, divinely, with ecstasy, unknown, sets all the earthly rules with ease
And without necessity

The Fall
By: Yue **** Yitkbel

I still want to hold your hand
Ask where you'd want to go
And follow you there

Give up all these city lights
Lights, camera, pretty faces, and real estate
Give up all these price tags
Insecurities, and compensations

I still dream of looking for you
And finds these dreams the sweetest
For even a mention of you
Brings warmth to my soul

Except, you would never remember me
Since, I never truly met you
For you were but a nameless, wordless
Silent image
Rushed by me in the breeze
Now buried in the past
Slowly fading,
And here and there,
Picked up again by the turbulence in time
And pulling me back

I am still waiting
Looking for
And walking towards the edge of the Earth
Hoping to be caught by a monolith before the fall
Yet, knowing full well to have past it long ago
Knowing full well the terror of the imminent drop
But, unable to stop
Unable to do nothing, but keep on walking
Looking
and Waiting
For nothing but the fall.

Waiting
-Yitkbel, June 11, 2016, Shalang

Waiting,

To see you pass by

Without saying hi

But your eyes smile

And I know why

That’s all I need from your love:

To hold you within my sight

To let your appearance catch me by surprise.

I’d forego death and finality

For an eternity of just standing by your side

By: Yitkbel

My wintry complexion
and Summer soul
Cannot kiss your Autumn lips

Your affections may blossom
One day, abruptly in the April rains
But, by then, traceless I'd be
In your belated reminiscing.

Or perhaps, you will remember me
Though doubtfully
As empty your heart may be
Its shallow depth
Will hardly anything keep.

To Be Forgotten
By:Yitkbel
You love her.
To you, she is the flawless angelic presence graced
With the warm rays of a thousand spotless suns
But you are the devil
Surviving on nothing but the appetite of the dark abyss
Your strange and rare affection
Became your conscience
You begin to fear
That you will never be purged of
The stains of past bloodshed
And
Never be able to
Banish the rivulets of your inferno flesh
Nonetheless, your new found conscience gave you
A new set of wings, albeit it has now been
Stripped to its bare and charred bones
By the heat of your wrath
You still aim for the sky
And spread them for flight.
Even if you fall to your Eternal Rest
You would be content just to bath
In her light.
You don't crave paradise
You are just in love with the angel.
With a goddess divine
You crave for redemption,
For the purge
Just to vanquish the ****** flames
So as not to scorch her touch
Sometimes, you know
Your desperate desires
Are naught but asinine reveries
But a devil with a conscience
Can be burned by his own fury
So you long for the chill of heaven
Yet, when the suffocating silence
Is the only answer to your futile pleas
You understand Her Beauty is not
Yours to destroy
So, you let your own flames
Consume you
And let your ashes meld with the Earth
Far away from Paradise
So as not to shadow her privileged sunshines
Not to dim her light
At the end
You don't want a Requiem of Mourning
Befitting a hero's Heroic death
At the end
You bask in the silence
At the end
You don't wish for her to forget you
Because she was never aware of your existence
At the end
You only wish
To consign to oblivion
To be forgotten
Not by all
But by yourself
By time

Larks must not seek the sky for songs

But this soul still foolishly dreams

For the lofty silence to cease her sleep

For my wings of weariness and longing to

Steady and never meet-


So that

Parted only by the dawn of obscurity

And

Embraced by the dusk of clarity

The songbird and his heavens

Could finally caress in thundering harmony

By the mercy

Of ceaseless fleeting shadows

Granted by the night’s awakenings

And my fall

Till Eternity

- Yitkbel, Monday, May 4, 2020

Originally written in Chinese, and translated to English by:

Yitkbel ****

Date of Original Chinese Version: March 25, 2021

Date of Translation: April 4, 2021 Easter Sunday



I.


Sailing upon new waves,

Post Modernity's Wake,

The 'wise men' arrive upon the Isle,

Isle of the Children Faithful and Wild,

Ascend the Peaks of Antiquity,

With a thousand coats of obscurity,

With New Clothes and New Shades,

Conceal the eternal Splendid rays.


They say,

'This is the Dusk of Illusion!'

'The Dawn of Disillusion!'

'Gone with the Ageless Eternity,

Behold the Age of Humanity!'


Stealing light with a sleight of hand,

As shadow disembark upon the land,


They say,

'The Sun is dead,'

'Go back to bed,'

'And dream about nothing,'

'That's all there will be remaining.'


The long night arrives,

Lingering, while daylight

Dissipates.


II.


Dreaming in the New Cave,

Never to the sun, awake,

The young fog stolen away

The old path and old ways.

Darkness roars, Ennui soars.

The Songs of Seeds cease.

Lost without light's embrace.

A thousand crows' throats brace,

Wings replace the sky's face,

So the children forget its grace.


They sing:


'The naive cannot comprehend.'

'The fools will not understand.'


They sing:


'Existence is meaningless.'

'Humanity is purposeless.'


How many youth heard?

How many within the herd?

How many youth lost,

And at what cost?

Except for us!

Except for us!

Except for us!


Within the Darkness of "Depth",

Disbelievers of 'The Sun's Death',

We abide the mockery,

With Truth's memory,

Peering beyond the seamless clouds,

Lone souls among prodigal crowds,

To nothing else we will ever yield!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!


III.


The 'wise men',

With a thousand coats of obscurity,

Finally taught the 'wayward child'-

'Too naive' 'Too faithful' 'Too wild'-

To gaze upon their shadow beneath,

Beneath their feet,

And say:

'That's all there is,

All there will be.'


Way above,

Above the fog, above the clouds,

Above the stars, above it all,

Manifolds of souls witnessing,

These wise men standing tall,

With their boastful clarion call,

Upon a speck of dust, believing,

It to be everything and nothing

Else.


They turn back, back to the Waiting

Of the Death of Time, Of the Death of Time,

As the crows carry on with their carrion rhyme.

They carry on, they carry on, singing:


'The Sun is dead,'

'Go back to bed,'

'And dream about nothing,'

'That's all there will be remaining.'


They carry on, they carry on singing:


'The naive cannot comprehend.'

'The fools will not understand.'


They carry on, they carry on singing:


'Existence is meaningless.'

'Humanity is purposeless.'


They carry on, they carry on singing:


'Gaze upon your shadow beneath your feet!'

'That's all there is, And all there will be.'



How many youth heard?

How many within the herd?

How many youth lost,

And at what cost?

Except for us!

Except for us!

Except for us!


Within the Darkness of 'Depth',

Disbelievers of 'The Sun's Death',

We abide the mockery,

With Truth's memory,

Peering beyond the seamless clouds,

Lone souls among prodigal crowds,

To nothing else we will ever yield!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!



Forever Children of Sunflower Field!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!

Forever Children of Sunflower Field!

Ant Farm of Forever Encased in Ember

By: Yitkbel


Written: Sunday, February 16, 2025


Ant Farm of Forever

I.

It's getting early and it's getting late,
Far from midnight and closer to day.
You're wide awake, always the same,
Your soul drenched in love and fear,
Or dread as they say.

1.

You're daydreaming with your heart again,
Of all the ifs and whens.
And all the dearest whom, and where too.
They were faster travelers than you;
I guess they had to go.
But where to?
You ask, and it's no use.
You're standing in the vastness
Of an empty field.
There's no one to answer you.
Are they traceless,
Except for the traces of memories,
And all the pains of love
Clinging by threads of regret to you?
"Could I trace my way back to them,
Or would these traces leave me too? "
I wish I knew,
I too, am standing in the vastness
Of an empty field.

2.

Have we wandered off too far,
And crossed the threshold?
I can still feel the cold,
But this is a sight to behold.
This is a place devoid of time,
But definitely not life:

See, the barley runs up to the sky,
Waltzing between the old oaks,
Rushing to reach the light.
The pink and blue light,
Swirling about,
Curtaining the shadows,
Behind the clouds.

Have we been left behind?
You know we can fly,
When we're not reality-bind,
Could we reach them in time?
Would I
Would I
Be always left behind?
The child in me cried.
As our feet begin to hover,
And leave the land behind.

3.

It didn't take long to reach the divide,
And when you pushed what felt like
A curtain of cotton aside.
I saw the lines.
These must be the shadows
From your dream of dreams,
And dream of life.
You searched and searched
For a familiar face,
And familiar eyes.
But this place is too vast,
This place to wide.
They are innumerable,
And only one of each,
Of you and I.

So we remain,
Strangers in this strange tide.
Wondering why.
What is the purpose
Of this winding line,
When someone, somewhere,
After some time-
If you can say that
In place it isn't defined-
Handed down a gift
To every him and her,
An ant farm of forever,
Encased in ember.
Did you see the glint in the center?
Illuminating some ant inside.
Whose eyes is it reflecting off
I wonder?
It's rather familiar, I gather,
Is it yours? Is it mine? Is it his?
Is it hers?
Is it…
Don't you remember?
This is all of your time enclosed in ember!
Where your soul may freely wander!

II.

Those swarms of forgotten fireflies
Under that bike stand lights,
Those violet skies pulsating with
A unshakable fear of the unknown
In your naive mind,
Those galactic rides that you never questioned,
Whether they existed beyond the orange city lights,
Those callous hands and wizened eyes,
You were so afraid to be hopeful of seeing
Again
Beyond time, are
There,
At the end of the winding line,
And here,
In your hands,
In this Ant Farm of Forever,
Encased in Ember,
For you to freely wander-
All the choices you have made,
All the love you have loved,
That refuse to fade,
All the senseless days,
You wondered why you must face,
When you thought they will never stay,
Anyway.
Yet, here they are,
Basking in the sun rays.
Glistening with unobscured light.
Just like those same old,
Timeless times.
When the most earthly beings
When the most earthly things,
Were perfectly divine.

Written and translated by: Yue Xing **** Yitkbel

Originally in Chinese as lyrics on:

August 19, 2020

Translated into English on:

August 22, 2020


I


The wise man in the desert

Watches over the child

In the fields of gold.

The child in the fields of gold

Gazes at the zealous youth

At the foot of the mountain,

Climbing, climbing, climbing.

Wanting to bask untamed

Right beneath the fiery sun,

Wanting to tame the quiet moon

Crush it beneath his feet.

The feat of man.

The support and brace

Of morality and faith

To them are shackles

That must be freed.


II


As they roared:

Be reborn, nature!

Nature of man!

As they bellowed:

Go rebel, desires!

Desires of the self!

“Doesn’t the world cease to exist

Without the observer who is ‘I’”?

“I close my eyes and all living

To me met their timely demise”.


REFRAIN:


The wise man said nothing,

And the child wondered:

You who perceive yourselves

Collectively no less than Zeus,

Why gift yourselves the fate

Of Sisyphus?

Don’t you know that even time

Must melt away?

And yet there you are worshiping,

Keeping in dust as your

Salvation and eternal faith.

The rolling stone you’ll never eternally own.


III


Like ants upon an anthill,

At the crossroad of humanity,

Under the gas lamps still,

Quenched the humble fire with vanity,

Enlightened by tungsten’s burst,

Inaugurated Man “King of the Universe”.


REFRAIN:


The philosopher hovered away.

The poet sighed but stayed.

You all perceive yourselves

Collectively no less than Zeus,

Yet gave yourselves the punishment

Of Sisyphus!

Don’t you know that even time

Must melt away?

And yet there you are worshiping,

Keeping in dust as your

Salvation and eternal faith.

The rolling stone you don’t eternally own.


IV


Time grew, aged and will soon melt away!

The world leap or falter illusions must fade.

As the rolling snow boulder melts away,

Did you lose or gain in the spring days?


-Those who climbed the snowy peaks

Are now losing losing all in the decay;

Those who sown in the eternal pasture

Are now reaping reaping joyfully away.-


REFRAIN:


The kings wail and weep,

The believers rejoice in the days.

With great irony the Zeus of today,

Confined themselves to Sisyphus’ fate.

They don’t believe that even time

Must melt away,

So they worship and praise,

Keep in dust as all the

Salvation and faith,

The rolling stone they want to eternally own.


V


What hope we used to keep!

Humbly cradled in the eternal dream!

Yet we were lured to think ourselves wise;

A cluster of ants fighting to be lords of flies.

Perceiving dust as above unseeable souls,

Willingly, our rotting stones up a steep hill roll.

Boasting our strength, status, height of place,

While mocking modesty’s unseeming grace.

Unaware of the coming crushing weight,

As the uphill stone tumbles back to base.


Ever evading us,

Ever escaping us,

Ever the ennui


Of “Man: Controller of the Universe”

Ever confined to mere dust and earth.

Self-imposed exile, had the wayward son forgot,

The once great purpose? Now all for naught?


“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

“We are headed to nowhere!”

When the stranger to strange tides,

Kills, hides, and pretends to be the guide.


REFRAIN:


Matter ever shifts,

The soul never ceases.

With great irony the Zeus of Man’s beginning,

Brought themselves to Sisyphus’ end.

They don’t believe that even time

Must melt away,

So they worship and praise,

Keep in dust as all the

Salvation and faith,

The rolling stone they think they eternally own.


VI


Sweeping beneath the fog

Of the overturning dusk,

Endless, ceaseless dust

Engulfed the roller till naught.

Only the dreamer in the fields

To the invisible eternal yields.


Bewildered by the shadows,

Darkness of humanity’s days,

Only those who never forgot the hidden light

Can find the gate above without fear or fright.


Everlasting in the decay.

Peaceful in the destruction.

Must not be bound,

Must not be bound,

Must not be bound,

By a boulder of dust,

By a mountain of mud.

The invisible never caused me alarm.

So they have mounts of gold without end.

So they keep the sands of time within hands.

So they must ever dread and fear as it slips away,

Dust to dust without a trace.


VII


But we, we melt away the mockery with faith,

And lead the way with bolts of love and grace,

Back home to Eternity’s Gate!