OCEAN POUNDS One Poem zine 一詩刊

You are just ten years
and two months
ahead
in the year I turn senior
now we can talk
woman to woman
a friend said
I am more than a
die-hard fan
but all I want is
to hold your hand
we don't have to talk

You dive off the rock
into black water
you swim with the mink
play ping pong with panda
suddenly burst out
a big laughter
drive a yellow taxi
hop on a cloud
chat with your neighbour
this is heaven
why wait until next life
you both wonder

No fate could trip you
no illness could harm
your adroit big hands
destined to venture
test, and cross
new frontier
opening tunings
heart and mind
music and words
living and feeding each other
and they can never be hurt
by popularity and profit monger

You are just ten years
and two months
ahead
in the year I turn senior
we can talk
woman to woman
you ain't no saint
but I love you anyways
dear friend
you have tried so hard
and given so much
I am listening

Bad dreams
grand plan
you fell off the rock
into black water
deep sea, bioluminous
howling and glowing
under five hundred metres
you come back with a new hat
cowgirl, Indian look and all that
your little light shines
through your eyes, years
and tears

(2018)

About OCEAN POUNDS One Poem zine

OCEAN POUNDS One Poem zine is released as a column on the OCEANPOUNDS.COM platform. It emerged in early 2026, when I began refining the website.

The title traces back to something quite ordinary and very personal: a vehicle license plate. Since the late 1990s, Holly had been using the plate “OP OP.” In Ontario, you can apply for a personalized plate title if it’s available. We learned that “OP” alone was too short for the system, so we doubled it—“OP OP.” Over time, that small decision accumulated new meaning.

“OP” comes from The Original Photograph Club, which we founded in Hong Kong in 1995. It later became OP Print Program and OP fotogallery, first in Hong Kong and later in Toronto, and was eventually incorporated in Ontario as OCEAN POUNDS. It carries a piece of our shared history.

Holly was always the driving force when it came to poetry. In the late 1970s, it was she who encouraged me to revive Qiu Ying 秋螢詩刊, a poetry zine I had co-founded with Kwan Mum Nam in the early 1970s but had long ceased publication. As a result, Qiu Ying was relaunched in the mid-1980s—first as a poster, then as accordion postcards—and went on to receive wide recognition.

In 2019, Holly and I took a long drive to Napanee to visit Gary Michael Dault. During that two-day visit, amid many conversations, we talked about the idea of co-editing a poetry publication titled DOUBLE DOUBLE, with four editors—Gary, Malgorzata, Holly, and myself. The project didn’t materialize. On second thought, we simply didn’t have the manpower to sustain it.

OCEAN POUNDS One Poem grew directly out of “OP OP,” Holly’s license plate. A one-poem zine felt clearer, lighter, and more manageable. It is also, unmistakably, a remembrance of Holly—a project that continues in the spirit of her poetic energy.

A poetry zine can publish a hundred poems in a single issue; that is one way of doing it. Publishing one poem per issue is another. Here, the focus is on reading one poem—perhaps more slowly, more deeply—or including writings that respond to that single piece. The idea of “zine” here is about momentum: a periodical rhythm, a sense of ongoing presence. For now, it takes the form of a weekly column on OCEANPOUNDS.COM, but it may evolve. In time, it could exist independently, in other forms.

For the first three months, OCEAN POUNDS One Poem zine will focus on selected poems by Holly from her past. In the seasons that follow, my plan is to invite a guest editor each season to curate the poems.

In short, this is an open concept. Let’s see how far this tiny thing can take us.