Genny Lim: California Poets Part 10, Two Poems

Genny Lim

April 2nd, 2026

California Poets: Part X

Genny Lim

Two Poems

Deja-vu

The poet is a fly on the wall

You don’t see or hear

The poet’s the loner

Navigating darkness

In search of memories

And dreams unspent

Under moonlit’s shadow past

Formless and intangible

In the wake of revolt

History is sheer terror

Exposing reality and

What may strike

When caught off guard

Beyond hallucination

Citizens collect stamps, baseball cards

Trophies of deer or bears

Or money, the god of all sins

Or guns when men play god

To kill, to loot

One-on-one or enmasse

In blood for oil or occupation

Evil sleeps with a finger on the trigger

Ready to follow the

Ol’ playbook of coups

The subterfuge

The massacre

The Black- ops

With such technical precision

No one could see coming

But the fly on the wall

Nobody is On Time

Nobody ever arrives on time

Because waiting is like watching

a snake moat in the night

Nothing ever arrives because

Waiting is like sitting inside

A freight locker packed like cattle

In search of the El Dorado

Coyotes sell in exchange for gold

Nobody ever arrives because

Time is a cycle of diminishing returns

Packed in a suitcase of dreams

where a desperate breath gasps for air

through a keyhole of light

Death stares, watching

waiting to hand you your papers

When will we arrive? you wonder

as you squeeze a drop of saliva from

your parched throat and churning stomach

If I were you, I would give myself up

Your lonely coffin awaits you

In a world distracted by the 

price of coffee and war

The murmur of freedom

Whispers in your heart

In the river of blood coursing

the Rio Grande to your homeland

In that place where butterflies

make their odyssey north and

where children play on

eternal meadows of Forget-me-nots

You have forgotten to laugh in the way

that only children can laugh

North and south are indistinguishable

to light and shadow

You, in flesh or absence are as

interchangeable as one day and the next

First and last, you will be free because

Nobody ever arrives on time

When heaven calls

Author Bio:

Genny Lim is a second-generation Chinese American born and raised in San Francisco. On September 6th, 2024, Lim was appointed San Francisco's ninth Poet Laureate by Mayor London Breed and is the first Chinese American poet to serve in this role. She is the author of five poetry collections, Winter Place, Child of War, Paper Gods, La Morte Del Tempo, and KRA! Her award-winning play, Paper Angels, set at the Angel Island immigration barracks, was the first Asian American play to air on PBS's American Playhouse in 1985 and was produced throughout the US, Canada, and China. Lim has collaborated with jazz legends Max Roach, Herbie Lewis, and Bay Area musicians Marcus Shelby, John Santos, Francis Wong, Jon Jang, Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra and Del Sol String Quartet. She has also collaborated with Gen Taiko, Lenora Lee Dance on librettos for Within These Walls and Dreams of Flight at the Chinese Immigration Detention Station on Angel Island.