TEXT poetry

Christopher (Kit) Kelen

hear the bowl-beating monk
his night chant
fragrant as spring

the sutras are like ice in my hands
the vanishing truth of the world

the body knows the pains of hell
yes poetry is pure, it's bliss
but give me a pension - I'm too old for this

Christopher (Kit) Kelen's most recent volumes of poetry are Dredging the Delta (a book of Macao poems and sketches), published in 2007 by Cinnamon Press (UK) and After Meng Jiao: Responses to the Tang Poet, published in 2008 by VAC (Chicago, IL). Kelen has taught Literature and Creative Writing for the last nine years at the University of Macau in south China.