Anthony Wong Yiu Ming - Inspiration

Two poems--a diptych, two sides of the same coin, if you will--inspired by Ming Gor in performance.  I tried to capture the dual nature I see when I watch him perform--the intense intellectual curiosity on the one hand (is there anyone else who references Jean Cocteau and Edith Piaf, Albinoni or Massive Attack in their music in HK?) and the sincere heartfelt passion, on the other. 

Anthony Wong Yiu Ming – In Performance

I. Passion

the stream flows

I am caught up

my body feels the gentle caress

as it softly glides over meridians

eddying—first stronger, more forcefully

then delicately, soft as the brush of a butterfly’s wing

before pushing past me

drawing me into the flow

inviting me to surrender

to let the current lift me up and

bear me away

II. Intellect

it all begins in sound

musical notes reconfigure silence

bracing themselves against the denseness of air

the surrounding atmosphere is charged with expectation

the way prepared

lungs expand

breath—life—that precursor of sound fills

your mouth an instant before it erupts

charging the matrix with vital essence, binding

together intelligence—

intellect and will—with corporeal passion,

streaming from your mouth

emanating from your entire being

an aurora borealis visible only to eyes not blinded

by purely physical manifestation

it overflows from hands that touch—vital bodies—a touch

that leaves behind more than it takes away

you—thought, emotion and bodily expression—

create a vortex of pleasure

calling us out of complacent comfort

pricking our self-satisfied certainty

shaking us awake

with inspired dreamings