Ti-Anna Wang

There is a daughter who speaks about her father
As democracy once spoke for the people

Who are not deficient
They are not absent from their freedom

We live for purposes
And dreams like Chinese democracy

We were not born this way
We were moved by the world

To speak about injustice, human rights violations
We witnessed sacrifices for unspeakable courage

We are not martyrs, we are still fathers
Though imprisoned we dwindle in time

That spirit lives on like 1989
Whispers that China will shed One-State party rule

Warnings that the U.S. will reinvent tyranny
We are from both worlds, hospitable and ruthless

Male and female, politics is in everything
There’s no escaping corruption, revolution

Law, and the will for freedom is a will to power
And freedom is never free from inequality

There is no promised land of perfection
Only rudimentary ideas of what should be

There is a daughter who speaks of justice
And I cry for all the ways which we are
Enslaved, imprisoned, not free.

Ti-Anna, you are not a dissident
You are the heir to the new world
And it speaks Mandarin, and it’s free
Free in a patriotism of being global citizens

Free in the hope that our lineage leads
To a place where there are no dissidents
There is no abandonment, only people
Living and loving the only way they know how.

White Nights of Beijing

China, do you hear whispers of the people?
I’ve written down the words
That a country doesn’t dare to speak
But the firewalls are large and heavy

And Hong Kong remains lethargic too
The umbrella revolution didn’t get far
Can students change the world?

Let the leaves rustle and the economy slow
The horn cries and the people do not move
It’s back to the drawing room, I hear
The factories are becoming robotized

You travel an entire day to bring
Your Mother a bouquet of flowers
She has never received one before like this

You came to Canada in idleness and prosperity
But now you realize the years pass silently
In the homeland, while you think of yourself
The people suffer, more miserable than you

I’ve not lit the candles but I know
Which way the wax runs, in times of
Masks worn in dark corners of Beijing

The air is no longer pure, sunsets gloom
With the light of the drunk sounds of
Brainwashing and patriotic outcries
This is not North Korea, but this is control

I speak those words, today, that come
Born of the spirit of history, I know
How the decades go, preserving tradition

Enhancing glory, bright bouquets that press
The people into the streets, without answers
A clavichord of feudalism staining
The times with guilt, that some make it

While the sea of people must go without
I will not belong to a world of inequality
I will not thrive until we can share it.

P.S. A world of nations and patriotism is not a free world. One world, one future.

On the Elite of the Countries & Nations

This world is full of undue significance
Values parodied and profit personified
It’s not sustainable and won’t last

It’s the receipt of doom before
Our last meal, the anarchy has begun
And I don’t even dream anymore

About getting married, having children
In a world like this, of extravagance
Where you or I are replaceable

Only existing to fuel consumerist growth
Art is dead, literature is in denial
The crickets still sing, the sun still sinks

But the world has changed
In bronze and blaze, in false media
And politics ripe with corruption

And leaders whom I can imagine
Have rhetoric of profit and change once again.

The Future Happened while you were Working

The Future Happened while you were Working

Stop all the clocks, the future is now
Silence the sceptics, global warming is real
Species are dying, oceans are wanting
I thought love in a human form

Would last forever, maybe not?
Stop all the clocks, democracy is broken
Silence the masses, your vote means nothing any more
The myth of your freedom

Was conscripted a long time ago
Before you were born, stop all the clocks
You’ve been deceived, false advertising all around
The news is distraction, the elite are hoarding

While the poor grow poorer every day
Stop all the clocks, the stars are not wanted now
Put every state back into the Dream, it’s a heist
Of the takers on the taken, it’s a heist

On the slaves for the masters
Stop all the clocks, no one cares about revolution
We have been conditioned to be good consumers
Bring out the coffins, for a mourning generation

It’s going to be genocide, barking dogs, no juicy bones
Only hollow patriotism, white-washed pockets.

Like Voltaire in a Frenzy

Like Voltaire in a Frenzy

I am in exile from prosperity
I study the downtrodden
Minorities, elderly, disabled, the poor
I’ve become one of them to

Realize what it means to be human
Perfectly happy in struggle and stress
I wonder why this is, for poetry
And prayer, and meditation

It’s the gardening of the spirit
In this culture of materialism
Sometimes to live you need friends
Partners, lovers, inspiration

Cajoling life from festivity
Scolding life from monotony
Screaming life from anonymous cities
Cleverly hoping to civilize

I am in exile from justice
I face discrimination, I would know what it means!
I eat poisonous GMO food
I am becoming obese and with diabetes

I hold religion up as an icon of identity
But I believe in the human spirit
In how to overcome adversity
I’ve met my match in this generation

Too poor to be a father, too poor
To know how to be patient like a peasant
I become my own revolution
And find in society a kind of apathy

That the uncomplaining stars understand
But in my lucid song, I do not
I suffering a martyr and I doubt
The world is a kind or good place.