Absurdity, Allegory and China

For anyone who has lived without health care and knows the fear, the agitation, the overwhelming anxiety that comes with being unable to afford to be seen, here is a small poem of terror that I’ve had tucked away on my bookshelf for more than three decades. Although I wish I could say that it [...]

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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. © [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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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