Absurdity, Allegory and China

I keep receiving reports from friends around the northern hemisphere complaining about the cold. I am in north China, and I’m complaining about it too. It used to be easier to deal with, but there’s the age chill factor involved with it now. Tomorrow is predicted to be both windy and cold here, dropping wind [...]

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The Second Major League
Baseball Game in China
When I saw Jet Li
throw out the first pitch,
I thought, man, he throws
just like my sister
threw
the night she hurled
the rock at my head
and took out
the living room clock.
I was lucky.
Then,
I kept my mouth shut
too.
© 2009, Jim Gourley
Listen to: The Second Major League Baseball Game in China

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A Poem For the New Presidency
A friend asked me if Obama is a lama.
I said I think he’s more like a Rama.
He fired back, they’re both into dharma!
And all I could add was (comma),
“I don’t know, to me he’s just Obama!
But maybe he really is a lama.
Just don’t try to make him a Brahma.
He’s got [...]

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Meditation Poet
I am in the retreat, day sixteen
and I can’t get my mind off of anapest;
anapestanapestanapest
like an owl swooping down through the dark.
But I know in my heart,
in the deepest, most sanctified center
the word that is driving me crazy
is a fucking dactyl.
dactyldactyldactyl
anapest is a dactyl
and, Jesus, dactyl is a trochee,
but trochaic is an amphibrach.
Don’t get [...]

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I. Novitiate
Just Me & Rinpoche
Rinpoche’s dressed in red again,
I’m full of fidget and sitting pains;
he warns it’s all my former lives in hell.
He knows more than I ever can
about making concrete karmic gains;
I just pray for the ringing of the bell.
“So look! Here I am today
together with the Rinpoche
and this is just a tweet to [...]

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Looking Out My Window
It’s not so much the color
as the setting -
Chinese white tile,
Tuscan pink trim;
killing someone twice.
–Tianjin
January 3, 2009

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At the east end of the Kerry Centre’s office building (xiezi lou) is a recently installed yin-yangish sculpture that allows for an interesting juxtaposition with the dramatic CCTV HQ Bldg across the Third Ring Road. There are several symbols on the sculpture that appear to be characters from an earlier script , though I don’t [...]

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