Introduction: Reading Chen Kehua — Sailing Toward the Far Sea of Poetry Across a Long Creative Life

“A Love Letter to the Gatekeeper of Hell”

Waiting

Waiting
sometimes is only faint. You
can barely feel
that you are waiting. No impatience,
no agitation, or pacing in place——

and also the question
you have finally given up——
and also the person you have long been searching for
that faintly visible
yet indistinct face——
that road which seems as if you chose it
but was in fact predestined——
at last, you meet the fulfillment of a dream
or else, you continue spinning in place

until death
death cuts off your waiting
heaven and earth fall silent
empty of any answer

but your waiting
that posture
itself is a kind of beauty——
like celestial sound
piercing through everything
heard by all people

all people are in fact also waiting
that beauty becomes a sentence:
your waiting

will
not be wasted in vain.
2024, 4, 17

“Labeling”

——“You can casually label others…” The World Between Us

how could labels possibly hurt people
a label is nothing more than a piece of paper
with glue painted on its back——

we are merely used to
placing labels on others
this is nothing more than a universal necessity

we have not not thought about it
what if
once a label
can never be torn off again

if at that moment we still insist on tearing it off
then it must be necessary
to rip it off together with skin and flesh
2019, 4, 23

“Rain That Is About to Fall but Does Not Fall”

the rain keeps being about to fall but not falling
I keep wanting to go out
just as I am about to leave
I discover my umbrella is missing

——I go step by step
recollecting the itinerary before I entered home
I cannot remember where
the umbrella might have been lost

——then the heavy rain finally pours down
a torrential downpour
I return home already soaked through
but I remember
myself
where I was lost

2024, 5, 2

“The Dream Interpreter”

a dream stands downstairs
at your home building

it presses the intercom twice
and says: hello? can I come in?

a peaceful day. traffic flows endlessly on the road
you see on the screen
the dream’s expressionless unfamiliar face

: “Are you here
to sell
the truth of waking? I currently do not need it…..”
you hesitate

looking behind the dream
the flood of reality
has already risen to the dream’s neck

in the distant yellow waters
dots of birds, beasts, insects, and fish emerge
a snake enters through the dream’s mouth into the crack of the door
2016, 12, 28 in Taipei

“Biography”

he unexpectedly
finds a biography of himself
in a secondhand market

a paperback with faded cover, vulgar design, inferior paper
careless printing——so cheap it is unimaginable

yes
after casually flipping only a few pages
he confirms it is about him——that kind of life

formed by prying gazes and direct flashes of light
a penetrating, merciless sunlight stabs the eyes

what is reflected in it
he is shocked in his autobiography
that he actually looks like this

that he actually lives in such a world
that he actually passed through life like this——

the author even uses such indifferent and mocking tone
to narrate his pain and falling

embarrassment and injury
and in moments that should have been silent
endless whispering and murmuring

of course there are secrets
secrets he intended to take into the coffin
casually twisted and engraved on the epitaph:

“what—so I am judged like this after being sealed in the coffin?…
but I am not dead yet——”

he cannot help secretly reading the final pages
and finally must admit it is a hastily written
dull
distorted book

just like his seemingly magnificent
yet in truth
utterly despairing life.
2022, 7, 4

“We Cannot Be Easily Completed”

time is limited
we
meet in haste
almost exhausting tonight’s darkness

the moon shaped like a hook, the night cool like water
we both feel tonight
seems as if something should be completed

but do not quite understand
what can be completed
anything at all——anything——but

we can only be completed
yet we cannot be easily completed——
only depart, continuously depart again and again

we only possess the joy of a bumpy journey
the fear of turning corners
and the confusion when lost——

we even keep practicing falling
spinning, missing the only night train
heading toward the destination——

dawn is almost arriving
our pain is not completed, happiness not completed
flying not completed, embracing also not completed

we insist
that nothing is easy——
we are not the kind of people who can be easily completed.

2019, 9, 5

“Shut Down and Restart”

Life’s small matters are elevated into life allegories.

The printer can:
“shut down and restart.”

However:
“When a human encounters difficulty… it is not very possible
to shut down and restart.”

Technology and life form a sharp contrast.
The poem is extremely short,
yet leaves a profound sense of helplessness about life.

“Gazing into the Distance”

This poem possesses both the characteristics of landscape poetry and life poetry.

Opening:
“The wind sounds like a flute, the mountains like drums”

Hearing and vision are interwoven.

In the middle:
“A river winds across the plain before the eyes
Yes, we are currently in the midstream of the vast and desolate life”

Natural scenery is directly transformed into a position within life.

Ending:
“I must be one of them
speeding away, heading straight toward the horizon”

Completes the poem’s movement from gazing into distance to setting out on a journey.

“Synonyms”

This is a very delicate love poem.

The most beautiful line is:
“Love
searching for the synonym of love.”

Love is no longer a noun.
It becomes a process of continuously searching for its own definition.

The whole poem reads like linguistic philosophy,
and also like a declaration of love.

“Hastily”

This poem elevates travel into a life allegory.

Especially:
“Here are the most expansive eyes in the world”

The lake immediately becomes the eye of heaven and earth.

At the end the boatman says:
“No rush, no rush, no rush to avoid the human world…”

A line filled with comforting power.

Finally:
“No one
is
pre-prepared…”

The three-line fragmentation allows the impermanence of life to naturally emerge,
and it becomes the most powerful concluding statement of the poem.

Conclusion — Aesthetic Features of Chen Kehua’s Recent Works

Reading this set of recent works, one can clearly see that Chen Kehua’s recent poetry has gradually formed a distinct and mature aesthetic style.

First, it is allegorized everyday writing. He often begins from extremely ordinary objects in life—such as umbrellas, labels, printers, rivers, biographies, and waiting—and then, through the final few lines, completes a reversal of meaning, causing the ordinary to suddenly gain philosophical depth. Readers first enter everyday situations, but eventually arrive at existential reflection.

Second, it is high-density thought within extremely minimal language. His language becomes increasingly restrained, not pursuing elaborate imagery, but allowing each line to carry maximum semantic tension. The most striking moments often concentrate in the final one to three lines, creating an “epiphany-like ending” effect.

Third, it is a fusion of existential philosophy and life allegory. Themes such as waiting, completion, self, dreams, death, destiny, and love repeatedly appear and intertwine, forming a poetic system that continuously asks “how human beings exist.” These poems do not provide answers; instead, they open new understandings of life through questioning.

Finally, it is a highly restrained yet lingering lyrical aesthetics. Chen Kehua’s recent works rarely display intense emotional outbursts; instead, they operate through calmness, restraint, and blankness, allowing emotion to slowly ferment within linguistic control. Precisely because of this, the works often leave a resonance that lingers long after reading.

Overall, these works fully demonstrate the artistic maturity of a poet after long-term creative accumulation: using the simplest language to carry the deepest life experience, reflecting the widest philosophical vision through the most ordinary daily life, and completing a uniquely identifiable modern poetic aesthetics of Chen Kehua through repeated subtle yet precise semantic reversals.