Eileen Chang 1920-1995 pictured a HongKong under colonial influence yet on the verge of a transitional period.

Inspired by the picturesque landscape illustrated within storytelling, “Love After Love” by Chinese author Eileen, depicts how an innocent young school girl gradually submerges into the social games of the HongKong elites, boarding in a mansion dense in the mountains.

A trilogy of poem was written to immerse whoever reading it in the city’s rarer historical and contemporal beauty.

HongKong Calm

Red window sill, colonial green tiles checkerboard with daisy yellow

Reflect shades of Orchid Trees flickering

As the remote figures of building looming within branch tips.

Above, afterglow slowly dyes rolling white clouds

Into cotton candies sweet and doughy, in rising mid-summer heat

A shallow imprint of silver crescent hung overhead.

While strands of water-like night billow flow across skin

Caressing tangled hair cast with flash-by-light spots

Escaped from dancing leaves,

Mirage in the distance seemed more than merely a dream.

HongKong High

Layer upon layer of glimmering neon light

Flash and swoosh

Dazzle and move,

Hyper-exposed billboard contours linger on retina, system overloads.

Smoke swirls through blasting beats

Drunken dreams and fleeting scenes.

Bits and pieces shattered memories, folds

Into distorted lust for your

Lips traced with icy finger tips

On psychotic grins.

Smile widens ruptures larger

On heated cheeks watery eyes flooded with tears of

Joyous beads

More and more

Gulps and gulps

Arms stretched

Puddles splash underfoot

Liquor, water, sprinkle

On that neck which

Suddenly arches facing the slowly descending green prints from the sky.

I want, I dream, I reach, I dawdle

I longed for …

Then I lick, that bitter ink

Flavour contaminates my buds unmercifully,

I love. I grin.

I breathe out the last joy from lungs,

Then, crash, keens bent face down, into that stinking ditch.

HongKong Gloom

Rain drops heavily like pearls being poured rhythmlessly on a drum,

Silence folds, layering on youth, suffocating all.

Humid, dense air blocks nostrils, breathing to be drowned.

Fifty ink blackheads uniformly bend down eyes glued

On ant-like symbols densely packed on neatly cut-edged papers.

Pens move mechanically leaving scribbles only make sense for one’s future.

Clock ticks rhythmically,

Lays steps for destiny.

How, one longed for when looking up at the sky

Sees no concrete cage but luminous days.

Shout like lungs being torn open with car lights flying by,

Hurtle through tunnels as if there’s no tomorrow.

Run for the thrilling sensation brushing on cheeks feeling the speed,

On cliffs shout for echos, glide down with wings.

How I yearn for the hazy open sea.

Interested in more blog posts from @psycheguy? Follow on Substack