Oh, yes, Sun Ping said,
if you are a die-hard Taiwanese separatist,
you can be killed, but not by her personally,
for she is a coward who hides behind verbal boasts and threats.
she is employed by China's Ministry of Public Security,
which is a comedy show for couch potatoes.
a sharp sword of legal action will hang high, she said recently:
no one on mainland China laughed, but Taiwan chuckled.
Sydney, Australia
and the opera houseAnd this time, i followed.
ten minutes on my bicycle is worth more than a week at the Jersey shore walking the sandy beach leaving imprints a good detective could gather hints from how deeply my bare feet sank
with the nearest star filling his eyes with magnificent light,
Stephen Hawking knew it would be impossible to talkbut whatever he did, it was his to choose.
it's easy enough when you know:
playing in fourteen part harmonythe blueberries from Peru
gave my hunger an early morning wink
as i picked up their plump promise
from my kitchen sink.
i offered up my mouth,
and enjoyed a special lap dance
with sweet young things
and it felt like romance
as they slid down my throat
before tumbling away
into my smiling belly;
it felt like foreplay!
and nothing else that i swallowed
had such an personal impact;
i asked them all
if we could reenact
this first bite of each day?
and i'd applaud their blue beauty,
their dancing moves like operatic ballet,
satisfying my appetite
like a lover at a candle lit cabaret.
sure i sat there listening
after my shower with face newly-washed & glistening
feeling somewhat loco
hearing the strange wails of the infamous Yoko
when i grabbed a tobacco-laden pipe
using its' smoke to hide from the sudden sight
of my wandering soul
about to pay the highway toll
to take a ferry ride to Heaven's bar
which i knew couldn't be very far:
i could almost see the bartenders
who were adjusting their spiritual suspenders,
snapping each one in turn,
asking me what i hoped to learn
when it finally became my turn
to sit with God while drinking a cup of sweet tea
and he'd smilingly question me
about the shampoo leftovers in my hair
and how it had ended up there
since i was naked and obviously well-fed,
still sleeping in my own bed,
pretending that i wasn't dead?
so i took another deep drag from my smoking instrument
wondering where Yoko went
while rewinding the 8 track tape
to a metropolitan phone booth and a lonely Superman's cape
where the hanging phone is constantly ringing:
i can hear a black chorus singing
in spite of everything having gone wrong
and i am in awe of their beautiful Freedom Song,
so putting down my pipe and removing the last traces of shampoo
i'm remembering what's important and what I still hope to do,
answering the call is just the beginning and a decent start,
blowing smoke rings as a naked man with his human heart,
watching and waiting, but i'm no longer anticipating
seeing how the twinkling stars in the night skies shine
as they take their celestial seats to align
with all the mysteries carefully written on the hands of time.
i've already been 49
and WILL
soon be 76 years of age
i'm ready for the next page
of astonishing images
representing the human body
and the potty
where yellow isn't the coward
that Noel was
when he slept on a fat mattress
playing electric bass
and meeting experienced people
who kept their pulse
inside a well-seasoned wallet or a stylistic purse
either of which could be found hanging in an art gallery
in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA.
the images i saw in my childhood
include the red-backed sofa in a small living room
underneath which was found
tomato soup spilled like Rothko paints
on the cheap carpet threads
and simple hard beds
and baby peeps unable to fly
dropping fast without a sound to steel steps
descending sharply to the Mediterranean Sea
for their non-stop service to Barcelona
and instead of dead within the hour
they became a white center leading to the Rockefeller Center
and real ice
which for a young explorer was especially nice
shaded from blue to pink
like a jumping rabbit in my neighborhood
holding a rose in his mouth to better think.
i once led a horse by the neck
climbing from the smoking galley to the upper deck
to find the ladies in a brothel
who spoke Vietnamese with a fluent ease
as i kneeled to my knees
and met the massive oversized ears of a girl
who lived in Paris with her lady friend
although she was in constant hiding
like a distorted cube
in shades of muted grey and brown
stripped down and streamlined
an hour glass figure
there in the mix with an accordion
making music with scraps of metal and wood
odds and ends
folds and bends
when this becomes that
the three dancers becoming grotesque
and i could just about recognize myself
ripped apart by a brutal civil war
jagged grief and childless
on the narrow road to a bull fighting studio
where overhead beams and white-washed dreams
provided sanctuary near the French Riviera
on a tall bed
onto which i jumped
to find my hand holding the strongest one of a special friend:
at 85 i will feel
more fully alive
than i ever did at four.
we will lounge on the warm sandy shore
the dove of peace flying like a soft balloon
overhead
without wearing hat pins
and we'll laugh at the sight and our grins
will spread like inviting female legs often do
when welcoming a favorite lover.
and very logically, i thought that he was conceited.
in rhythm and completely unhurried.
Glory to Hong Kong
a wonderful song
banned for listening to
by you know who
sitting on his earthly throne
like a devious gnome
while the 14 who've been in jail
dreaming of their Holy Grail
are being railroaded by a kangaroo court
storming the people's fort
of freedom and democracy:
what has happened to compassion or mercy?
having a voice?
freedom of choice?
Glory to Hong Kong
a wonderful song
which I hum
while I strum
remembering the bravery of the street bands
holding hands
in the face of police brutality.
is this the ultimate finality?
or will the human heart
beat again with a fresh start
and of course it will, with the song
Glory to Hong Kong!!
baby
maybe
i am not offended
that the Vietnam war ended
as it did because for my part
i gave my heart
i danced, had a drink
fell into the Mekong stink
cried, lied
felt terrified
lost my arms and feet
tasted numbness and defeat
it grabbed me by the hair
forced me into a razor-wire chair
laid me bare
until i sat dreaming
& steaming
in the afternoon breeze
muttering please
save me, honey
but i don't need your fucking money
i don't want your morning kiss
i prefer my worn mattress
and the cigarette burns on my polyester suit:
what a hoot!
The recon platoon
was in the bedHe wouldn't listen,
that much was certain.
"Don't you see;
I don't agree!"
he said.
She wailed, and sobbed, and howled,
tossing a soiled rag,
hitting his head.
"You couldn't have put it better," she hissed.
She was obviously pissed.
He was a skinny man with a thin wisp of chin hair,
very Arab skin, with brilliant chocolate eyes, scholarly, and
the nickname of Flash Gordon. He tried to be fast!
She was a heavily built, powerful woman with hair on her face
which ran in her family from the Kingdom of Jordan.
She tried to be slow!
"Ah, I see!", she calmly spat,
"I should write your name on toilet paper and toss it away!"
"Of course," he rapidly said,
while re-lighting his cigarette and blowing smoke in her face, adding,
"You live in a world of dreams."
And that much was true, as most who knew her would say:
former marriages, divorces, old lovers, new lovers,
ball-and-chain relationships, and sudden infatuations mixed with
the current heresay, but she stayed true to herself.
"At least I'm not lost," she remarked in reply,
"And you're still here, and I can only guess why!"
He tugged at his wisp of chin hair, smiling,
but said nothing.
I called myself on the phone:
it was an i phone,
full of apples, mostly, to keep the medical profession
at bay.
and like a leaf in the storm, like a tempest in a teapot,
I heard myself answer
"to whom do you wish to speak?
it was the assertive me,
but the shy me didn't answer.
for he was in a bedroom, applying lipstick,
while humming a song from 1963.
between songs, like a school tease,
I grabbed one of several membership cards
and began to whack away at my infidelities:
Whitman, again, in my head but off in a far corner,
and his multitudes yelling,
'Ship Ahoy!'
my wheel was spinning, like a mammoth spider web, it spun and spun.
I yelled, too, with a chorus of voices,
each a different sound.
but now I finally have control until I lose it,
I'm in the fog, I know, but the sky is clear blue and
the winds calm yellow, like that solitary flag in Philadelphia,
high atop a stone building in the middle of William Penn's city.
dreaming, cowering under my bed, I hold onto my blankie and soft monkey toy.
the monkey looks like me when I am being my silly Self,
so I don't take it personally,
but I do take it with me when I march off wearing combat boots.
my literary Self is nervous about acting childlike
in a war zone, where I think of John Wayne and the tough guys
who spit chewing tobacco juice on the floor without apologizing.
the cleaning lady is watching with her clean white towels.
she could be me or I could be her, as we both push the cart without apologizing.
I am often GI Joe but shop like GI Jayne, looking for bargains in the bins.
and when thinking deeply, I am shallow like a shim of milk over day-old cereal.
acting bravely, I hide like a furry caterpillar inside my newly-spun cocoon.
when I am kicked, I see an angry mule and get angry at those floppy ears.
when I kick in return, I see my anger like a flash of despair over a fragile childhood
spent in puzzled hurt, and
I do wonder if that hurt has completely gone away,
while knowing that it hasn't.
my vulnerabilities can be dunked like a basketball.
I acknowledge the ball rolling across the court of my life,
foul or fair,
as I sit in the second row of the bleachers,
where I am yet a player, but
just wait until I tell mother, I hear my younger sister say.
just wait.
I wait, holding my phone. the seconds pass and a lifetime, too.
a voice finally answers, and I speak normally,
asking how is the weather where you are?
I age and yet am not old, so weather is what it is!
I discuss and listen but sometimes don't really hear.
I entreat and hold my hand to be held, while holding my breath,
hoping to be loved,
seeing the flowers among the weeds.
I love, too, and love and love, and more than love,
I and many Selves:
we steer the ships, and man the sails, and tackle the seas,
plotting our charts,
diagramming our diagrams,
with no particular place to go:
I am the parent and the child,
standing on the shoulders of others who have guided me.
the two new best friends
went marching near the band.
a man holding his rifle watched
as they blew kisses,
fondling the air left hanging between their lips.
a salute without a glass,
yet the glass was half-full somewhere out of sight.
they two were from different countries
but they shared a border and a common enemy,
so it was assumed.
the assumption followed them to the conference table
eventually, to a grand meal:
they digested points of view
they drank in strategies and weapon systems
they regurgitated ideas for world hegemony
they ate lemon meringue pie
they listened to translators
translating
over a fine dinner
with Chinese teacups!
Toasts!!
the hot bravado
was wearing nothing but a bare white chest:
the world listened
ears were bent
sounds fell to the ground quietly
where a damp puddle smothered their good vibrations
and then the dust settled once again.
on the first day of school
Outside on the porch,
overlooking a slow-moving creek,
i see an abundance of spring green,
dotted with large blooms of purple Rhododendron,
and attractive red Azalea.
a busy squirrel is nosing the ground,
soon joined by another,
and they begin wrestling.
i am sipping my hot morning coffee,
while also watching a nearby robin sitting on her nest.
i know the robin is resting on warm, small blue eggs.
her eye are glossy, bright brown, shining with life:
she is alert to every movement and sound!
according to a book i referenced the evening before,
the eggs are due to hatch sometime soon.
the robin must know this, too.
but what she didn't know was that a mob of Israeli settlers
had just blocked a food convoy!
i read this news report between warm sips of my coffee.
it was unsettling, this latest news, but still i had the creek and the green
and the flowers.
the squirrels, too, and the robin with her eggs.
yet my thoughts slipped to a bad place i once visited:
Dachau, near Munich, Germany.
Then, away to the stories of the Warsaw ghetto,
of people being accosted on public streets, beaten.
smashed store front windows. Raised sticks. nighttime flames!
And images of skeletal bodies and, of course, those awful eyes,
shrunken, dark and despairing. Railroad cars.
but the convoy was simply transporting flour and rice and other
needed essentials to a hungry people,
people who were of a different religion from the Israeli settlers.
people who were, according to reports, starving just the same.
this news told of piles of rice and flour that were thrown onto the dirt street,
to the accompaniment of loud cheers and other noises of celebration.
Yes, no food from this particular convoy would be delivered to the hungry mouths,
those waiting with hope just a few miles away.
so i looked again at the robin on her nest.
she was constantly alert!
soon, after hatching, her little babies would bob and weave,
stretching their weak necks skyward,
and their mouths would open cavernously, hugely for so small
a body below, expecting food.
sadly, i sat wondering if an Israeli settler group would block
the mother robin from feeding her babies.
and then my drink turned cold.
Ford Madox Ford.
Ted Hughes!
his old lady
and her oven shoes
writing in their London flat
where she poetically sat
listening to the news
with Ezra Pound
and Dorothy,
who slipped underground:
he to Venice
stressing clarity
& musical words
absent disparity.
Robert Lowell.
Robert Frost!
at St. Elizabeths
at any cost
at any hour
giving the inmate
a special flower.
James Joyce
had no choice:
he always wore glasses
to see
language and brilliant infinity,
while Marianne Moore,
went quietly approaching her door,
but no one was there.
and it didn't seem fair
that Edna St. Vincent Millay,
who kissed all lips,
had the softest fingertips
to write sonnets
which the modernists hated
and constantly berated.
they loved Eliot, though,
especially the flow
of The Waste Land:
Pound for Pound
despair
and
The Burial of the Dead is there
stirring the air.
i slept in the Victoria Hotel
down in old Mexico
