Absurdity, Allegory and China » poem

The Day Health Care Passed: A Poem

jg — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:27:27 +0000

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 were mine, it is not. It is by Dan Masterson and first appeared in the Paris Review, Summer 1976.

To A Doctor Who Would Not See Me

I passed your office six times today
wanting to turn up the broken sidewalk
and slip inside to wait at the coat rack,
hoping your nurse would say: well
as long as you are here I suppose–

But I only looked in, recalling
your leather table and knives, feeling
the lump on my arm, rubbing it
hard to make it go away.

You will find this note when you come
outside and will check the backseat
and floor for me and drive off
in the dark, your mind racing, your wife
alone at homes, miles away.

Picture me now, my breath hot
on your kitchen window, my eyes
sweeping over her like a tongue.

–Dan Masterson
The Paris Review, Issue 66
Summer 1976

Walking on the River Ice

jg — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:44:28 +0000

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 chill temps into the -20s C. range. This seems like a good time to post a short poem by my long ago and favorite teacher, Wendell Berry, a piece that I think could be rendered into Chinese quite effectively.

Walking on the River Ice
A man could be a god
if the ice wouldn’t melt
and he could stand the cold.

The Second Major League Baseball Game in China

jg — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:10:28 +0000

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.

Listen to: The Second Major League Baseball Game in China

The Inauguration Poem No One Asked Me For

jg — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:01:29 +0000

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 enough on his plate.”

Listen to: obama-lama

Anapestic

jg — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:32:31 +0000

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 me started on the iamb,
because I am just trying to breathe.

\”listen\”

A poem from The Book of Buddhist Twitters

jg — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 08:17:25 +0000

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 say,
Wow!”

Globalization

jg — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:52:40 +0000

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

Balance

jg — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:55:20 +0000

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 believe they are. They appear more like something from NASA’s Voyager. The curvilinear complimentary structures appear to be in balancing opposition to the building across the road, perhaps a harmonizing mojo to keep its neighbor from falling over. And that reminds me of a W. S Merwin poem:

How We are Spared

At midsummer before dawn an orange light returns to the
mountains
Like a great weight, and the small birds cry out
And bear it up