Huai Rou for lunch
Large restaurant post wedding cleanup and the staff
layered throughout the main floor glares and mumbles
and gargles mucous behind brooms and trays of food
plates and glasses at the brightly dressed cacophonous English
squawking Méiguó rén.
We are led up two flights to the end of the hall, the furthest room from other patrons on an empty floor…enormous round table with an equally large lazy Susan. Please and thank you are unspoken trivialities. The fat southern sorority girl whines, contorting her face with an expression like vomit glazing her eyes, nose, lips, scraping dessert from a course plate, Wait, is that all the real food we’re getting? The other seated next to her, The tea tastes like MEDicine. I stand, and throw our teapot of near boiling chrysanthemum into her face…in my mind. I turn to my neighbor, Let me know when the pretend food gets here, I’m going to carve out my eyes with my chopsticks.
Pretend food gets to the table and the kids are spinning the lazy Susan, adults passing plates and bottles. Our ex-pat guide laughs, encouraging more revolution, less passing…there’s a metaphor in there for the group–I’m sure of it. He says again, he doesn’t understand why most Americans prefer the sanitized travel experience and relates his appreciation for my perspective. That strikes to the heart of the issue, the anglo-virus of self-absorption, the expectation of limitless and obstacle free pathways to the accustomed sloth of their own lives…engorged with a pronounced elitist perspective that would ensure security with the lie it represents–audacious benevolence even, when touring the impoverished lives of others in the name of charity. F*cking horror, to think that some of these people help craft the world’s perspective of American life…and as another waiter brings another course to the table, a voice rises, I get angry when I see people who are white, but don’t speak English.
White glow on the state
farm fields of dark green
wheat of the olive river
the Yang shu kiss
upon everything
cement block housing
opens to the ribs of the community
farms, on the road to the Lunar Market
kick a stone
bagged vegetables of early
shoppers, bicycles, brick and rubble
grandmothers in the back of moped-
trikes, mama’s backseat bicycle baskets
thrones of little emperors
staring long
at we walking round-eyes,
before slowly bestowing a four finger wave,
on the road to the Lunar Market
5.14.12 Qing Yun Dian
Blade graffiti in the trees
of the electrical bicycle laden, village road,
polio-slung spine through sections of the village
twisting, the dust and yang shu snowing.
The road, a darkened drunkard stumbling
in its own filth
bares its purpling dark gums and tongue,
homely eyes saturated, turn gray and down,
unfold out–single residents–
into broken doorways and permanent wincing.
Sporadic piles of road litter, feces and refuse,
burning dumpsters and cement block alcoves
belch human movement
where only vermin should stir
yet swirl in the stares–defiant-
even in the midst of this.
How dare we Meiguó rén steal any moment of their
strength in the raw nakedness,
belonging to them.
A splash of autolight
through the sound of a rocky
footstep and the sharp curses of mopeds
and delivery tryke horns,
steal sleeves of pungent open sewers
and partial masks of darkness, smoke…
throb of a cigarette heart
pulsing in the accented phrases of discernment,
flattened vowels slipped to huddled neighbors
like the slow draw and revelation of the street hustler’s
playing card:
four of clubs in the smoldering black ring of street refuse,
six of spades splattered in wash basin waste water thrown
in a tarnished silver crescent,
another card flipped up and over like leaves of the raining
yang shu trees…
and I don’t feel cheated, only ashamed,
a tourist to suffering.
woke myself up
in the cold, dark morning–talking
to you in my in-between sleep
walking–days of night
without your dawn warming
the cold yellow sidewalks
of my walk through the world
silhouettes in backlit
sepia and dull gold doorways
waiting for the storm
fog dampened branches
barren black of their soft fragrant fire–
tomato vine and cinnamon–
wind voice stirring
the dogwood petals
in the surface of puddles
eyes close into my hands
in the purple darkness
seeking quickly
at the walls’ surfaces,
out toward the emptiness
in need of your heart beat
to make it real
but your rhythm is
a run,
snow misted moss in
the gulls’ fleet morning
and strong in my throat
as if I’d kissed it free from your
chest as the mist does
the upturned limbs
dipping into the darkening sky
for stars to form a line
of symmetry
As the ruby heart of the world is laid to rest
in the folds of the sea bassinet,
with all the care of a
father’s hand at child’s crown,
the kingfisher stands atop
the single dock post–
flutter in the salt–
and sound of wake on the breeze;
thigh scratches of sky
bleed through the cirrus
upon the land at dusk in droplets.
How time has taught me,
the passing of intention turned acceptance
of a dream now out of reach–
purchased with the depth of distance–
remembered humbly and free from shame,
how we were with one another,
in motive, word and deed.
The open color of the afternoon
in the highest perch of his childhood,
ascending the throne of the neighborhood
in the greater sunlight,
heavy hearted boy–more pure
in the freedom of true wonder–
in the foliage clarity of a high climb
to a ship of air, sway,
seeking out the absence of some other
so as to define the successful,
unhardened solitude, whole and unspoiled.
His breathing, clean at zenith,
the rustle of leafen parchment,
in envelopes, library pages and brittle scrolls,
spells to give a boy a frog to ride,
to become a dragonfly,
sailing the tolling
waves of dinner-bell skies–
to go on seeking, sailing.
Smooth eyes reopen to the color of the afternoon.
Her little fists grip Maple shoulders,
secure her throne of greater sunlight,
heavy hearted girl–more pure
in the freedom of true wonder–
unspoiled
solitude, whole and unhardened;
felt the river breeze
whisper a shimmer into her being,
her little arms cool in her shade climb,
warm once again in the open color of the afternoon
and the round full scent of the coming rain.
With the swirl of gray at fingertips
painting waves of the larger world,
she tames the eyes of the dragonfly
sending him out to hum his
secret letters,
letters that would one day return
seeking with a heart–more pure–
made heavy for her.
Children’s memory
collage of discovery,
innate
tactile actualization
of grace,
sensory embrace
of the intricate grandeur
of creation-jubilee
of play,
earthen-melody of the Word
in motion:
ether of scattered children’s shadows
and the vascularity of sunshine,
ocean, poetry of first words,
wind, refracting illuminated surface
of the call of morning,
water-speech of tree top glass,
deciduous green and gold.
She amidst thick cold, wide open air,
her head, a brunette vineyard–
deep as the
black branch and pale sky mosaic
it rests against–
turns slowly
to the sound;
light snowfall
around her black stocking legs–
right behind left–
crossed for luck,
her fingers entwined,
held flat to her belly
waiting for a whisper.
The Kings of Convenience spin glistening
in the cool air of the second floor dining room light
ubiquitous at the pale winter window,
outside, flurrying scraps of hospital blankets and the sound of vinyl sheaths-
un-sleeved crest the lyric,
“I don’t want to suffer”.
I feel your absence-quiet
like new city Sundays,
yet-only somewhat myself,
in your inquisitive half lean,
“I could suffer for you.”
I can’t write what I’ve yet to speak
with you so close,
holding the air so empty.
Press your hand,
press your ear to my chest.
Beirut fists
in taut overcoats,
clenched in pockets of keys, lighters and cigarettes…
brisk December kiss
of sleet in the black branch orchard of
temptation.
Lamb voice
in the unrequited confessionary heartbreak
of the stale car heater stench,
where we split
a cigarette in knit-mittens,
cinema smoke slow and lingering across the quiet, compressed air on the auto’s interior,
across the blushing bridge of your nose and china doll cheekbones,
we nipping whiskey and casually kissing away the tears.
Neutral Milk scratching of my head in the city reflection of my Chinatown flat,
pale winter windows of ubiquitous dining room light
recalling ag’ed memories of our Amsterdam dance
you-thin sweater,
striped–as French film vixens–
we within the arms of the song
all our friends
watching, even as it ended for them.
We still though, at waist
holding shoulder and elbow
in the rich cool darkness of the café
the calm
-quiet longing for just a little more.
Grace hung low over us all
the lip-synched words of direction
wrong-incorrect
rather improper it seems,
for all of us to end up so:
for we to be so distant after
sharing so much, each and every day.
All of this in the few seconds previous to
entering through the weathered door–
the off time creak with steps taken across the old wood floor,
the ceiling molding artificial track light cobwebs–
no elbows now upon the large carving scrawl tables
alone in the stale sunlight sheets of dust,
black leather booths
clawed and pitted
burned out chandelier bulbs
and her pink bar counter,
where she first read the relief of my cross
and shown me the story of her own–
over my first grilled cheese.
When a world was a walking distance, we wrote a letter together
through the night and remnants of winter woods–
never sealed, never sent.
perhaps that’s how I have a sense of you here,
though the distance;
we were perfect lovers…
never a possession of the other.
-for Whitman
As I rend, mend my memory,
swollen with warning
in the churning black forever of eternity
the darkened mirror of Heaven’s ethereal envelope
reveals
Fortunate star
solitary
heavenly pitch of oceanic depth;
your graceful waltz
through earthly shrouds–
your garden gown of purple
orchid clouds
affix a line to my eyes,
so all-ever-changing
revolves within
our moonlit luminescent communion.
Full moon cradled in a crucifix
of pale stalactites of light–
wax speech
at the hour of all shadows,
full rounded
pregnant mother of peace,
circle of questions
shifting recollections
in an endless sky,
single light
irrepressibly iridescent,
luminescent angel.
Sadness is sweeter in the heat of summer
where the hours’ summoner
is the call for lunch from a mother
bell through wooded vale
tree castle where faeries regale
sunlight sonnets once unspoken
upon the petals of meadow violets
cattails and the tiny lion’s sun
in time
perhaps a splinter of the day
upon a throne of
white elder totems
wishes blown
take flight toward mosquito heat
to eventually sink
into cool shade reliquaries
the remains of an autumn library–
spells upon the forest floor
heavy scented, thick serpent vines
the length of reading lists of
elders, kings and wizards
And in that singular moment when all had forgotten,
such a unique sound of power, of light and horns then sounded
an incorporeal calling of deep drums-
for all to run toward the sound-
to leave all and give all to the pursuit of the origin of this sound.
Then immediately discovered by those failing to step or move,
the possessions of their heart became their bonds,
in the most flesh of human chains;
Without pause or waning glance
Children ran free from their mothers’ arms and fathers’ hands,
limbs now weight and mass,
heaving hearts of bitterness, of sorrowful recognition,
of the call and hour.
Cries of horror filled the skies,
skies of amorphous dawning color swaths of innocence-
a strength in resonance of compounded voice and tone,
epiphany awfully endowed with the sickening awareness of the new amalgam
of flesh and gold and steel and silver-bone,
and all the metals made most precious by Man
for the sound of all things-in fullness-is felt in a hum,
with the acknowledgment of interconnectedness
As the putrid brokenness
of isolation and despair lifts from the untouchables-
those spirits dispossessed-
in its place flows child heart of jubilation and the fleet energy
of boundless love disintegrating chains of illness, pain and torment;
And those ills unlawfully placed upon these unwanted
come heavy inherited upon the eyes and ears and lips
of those foolish souls
with whom the greatest gifts were wasted,
such that the supreme agony is muffled within the sickly skin of
the once sons and daughters of privilege
allowing for the horrid torment to silently rage within the world internal
As heaps of the pestilent
grind sporadic gaps in the yoke of their connected flesh and possessions,
complete awareness of their new inheritance
chips and crumbles teeth into blood and tears,
snaps bones, tendons, ligaments in futile attempts
to fulfill a desire indescribable to run toward the origin of the call.
The corrupted,
anchored in their earthly lusts,
collapse upon their reward
of rock, of splintered jaw, of bareness,
And through the totality of their reeking forms
feel the intermittent pounding of bare blackened feet swiftly sprinting ahead,
knotted locks and rotted teeth replaced with blessed diadems.
For the call was made for a reversal of fortune,
as it was once foretold,
a warning to a world who rendered the naked and starving to the wilderness,
that the name of the poor would be one and the same
with the supremely blessed,
that the wealthy would be taxed with hostility-
for poverty is injustice’s consequence,
their absence from the great hall and table of hallowed glory
be their recompense,
That the poor would be the name
of the supremely blessed.
Rhinoceros flower petal tea vessel
for Li Po
Has the Poet not been made
more mortal than man?
As age grips the hand
which looses the pen,
word as final breath
observes death obscured;
the living must turn to trees
to hear lost poems of poets,
upon each turning leaf.
Widower
I.
Never more beautiful
these oak and maple
gilded leaflet letters
written in silver autumnal rains
prayers and words unspoken
relinquished to the land
II.
He held her hand from five years away
her death of this world
never from his life
his laugh
his pride
his tears now teeming with anticipation
for the moment outside of night
where morning refrains
for a few fleeting moments
her soul seen in the turning curve of color tones
the sheen across the heavens’ sphere
III.
A new dawn
a swath of pale soft light
cut through the gaunt-
a promise of sight
in a way he once
could have never imagined
throughout the rest of his life
The range is wrapped in featherbedding
coniferous fog over cobalt waters
the City bleeds in busses
trains and traffic lights
brothers and sisters in boots and umbrellas
step into puddles as seconds into minutes
A match is struck, run atop the road,
the warm, tiny flame lights the hearth of a heart-
and nothing would be the same
We walk opposing sides of the road,
the same direction
until the children have gone up ahead.
Today I am much more unhappy than yesterday…
with the happiness I’ve held
I’ve felt lately
there is a tolerable dissatisfaction with
my life-
since the ring.
Patterns of abandonment
abandoning
eachother
for
one another
over
and
over
Decades of waiting for the child hierarchy
to dwindle, falter and fail
as the hand did that bore the ring
bore the brunt promise of separation upon death,
or the cloven Word.
Now at least,
at the loss of
we
agree to walk the same side.
I stoop to tie,
prepare to run
while you stride up, ahead
as if to call the children back,
but falter and fail
as the weight of years absorbs the air
a yawn,
the start of a deep and silent running.
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