DRAGON BONES

Chinese oracles of the Shang Dynasty court
requested guidance from the royal ancestors 
by scratching questions on the bones of animals,
then burning the bones, and finding the answers
in the resulting cracks. Farmers unearthed them
later, calling them “dragon bones.”

If I look for dragon bones
to predict a future
better than the past
I know it won’t be easy
Dragons are extinct now
and their bones are scarce

But when it comes to human bones
wherever I go I see monuments
memorials and mass graves
ancestral tombs filled with unclaimed bones
millions in the Great Wall alone
buried in mud, brick, and stone
and cracked with age—
predictions of an auspicious future
in doubt

_______________


THE PALACE OF PEACE AND HARMONY
Yong He Gong or Lama Temple, Beijing

I

All the wooden saints
line up harmoniously
against the temple wall
each in the same pose
each a different color—
all the imaginary colors of man
from pure black to pure white

II

Each succeeding Buddha
is bigger that the one before
You have to crane your next
to see the neck of the last one
and bend over backwards
to see his head banging
against the painted ceiling

III

Framed neatly in the window—
the monk’s wizened bald head,
the Golden Buddha’s head
impeccably coiffed
is the background

IV

In this temple
filled with art
candlelight is the only illumination
You have to return again
and again
for another look

V

NO SMOKING IN THE TEMPLE
Smoke from incense burners
and joss sticks fills the air

Little red buckets
hang on a rack like alarm bells—
the fire brigade is ready

_______________


SILK FACTORY

Scene 1:
cocoons soaking in
steaming hot water baths
and silk weavers extracting threads
with a flick of the wrist,
their fingers shriveling up
like the naked pupae
left behind

Scene 2:
young women embroidering
kitsch and classic motifs
bent over racks of stretched silk,
stitching away
until retirement or blindness
whichever comes first.

_________________

THE I-CHING

I

Flash!
Latest news from China!
I-Ching outlawed!

Maintain vigilance
Re-educate yourselves
Old beliefs are fairy tales
Heavenly intervention is a a myth
Superstition is destructive
Predictions are a waste of time
Destiny is not foretold
by the bumps on one’s forehead
by palm lines or date of birth
by the fall of the fortune sticks

It is wrong to lead the people on
with false hopes
aroused expectations
and dreams of happiness
never to be fulfilled

It’s time to be rational
It’s time for fortune tellers
to join the illegal ghosts underground
while we wise men in our fortress
concoct the elixir of immortality—
even one more year would be a coup

II

The I-Ching outlawed?

After the latest news
an underground gathers:
young, old, rich, poor
sorcerers and soothsayers
princesses in disguise
money frog, qilin
tianlu, phoenix, dragon
woodcutters wielding magic axes
fishermen tossing magic nets
Even immortal Fu Xi,
the half dragon inventor of writing
and the first trigrams,
joins the demonstration

Fu Xi defends his invention—
the representation of reality
with lines short and long
wherever they may fall
whatever they may mean
He doesn’t want humans
creation of Nu Wa, his beloved sister-wife,
to be deprived
abandoned
left without solace,
hope,
wonder

______________________

“SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY”

 revisiting the San Fernando Valley, CA, after 40 years

I

Wally’s dad wrote “Sentimental Journey”
and I sang it
as we drove into the smog
and neon signs
past the old elementary school
and OUR LADY OF GRACE
just a bee bee gun away from the mistletoe tree
and the bad boys in school uniform,
past RALPH’S SUPERMARKET,
now rebuilt, my former refuge,
a treasure house of Classic comics
chained to the tables,
RALPH’S, where I won the sweetest jackpot
at broken M & M machines.

RALPH’S—home away from home!
I roamed the aisles
in search of Our Lady of Free Samples,
her crackers my salvation.
I promised to pass on the good word
for sure.

RALPH’S, the local supermarket,
Escape City
for the original Valley Girl
seeking sanctuary
in a store.

II

A lady watches TV in the bedroom.
I want her to see me watching her
and invite me into the little house
where so many years ago
my best friend, a Jehovah’s witness,
told me Armageddon
was around the corner
and we jumped rope
like there was no tomorrow,
the house where we candled eggs
for the egg route
and made sponge cake
with the bloods and the cracks,
where the FBI visited religiously
asking over and over,
“Do you have anything to tell us?”
where the blood one day
was ulcer thick on the bathroom floor,
and we watched our first TV.

I don’t knock.

III

My sanctuary now:
a house on a hill
where I see the sun and moon
rise and set
and many sides
to every question,
to every mystery and half truth—
no Armageddon, no salvation,
no ideology worth dying for,
no sentimental journeys home.

__________________


AN INCIDENT RECALLED ON READING THE NEWSPAPER

The New York Times
reports that the stereotype,
the man in a coat offering candy to a child—
the garden variety child molester—
is a figment of our imagination,
a myth, a “public legend,”
a tale that turns us on.

Will parents stop repeating that story
now that the truth is out?
There are other perils, plenty of them,
but I did hear that story decades ago,
a cautionary tale, a warning,
and when a man in a coat
pulled up alongside me in his car
and offered me candy, I refused it.
I walked home faster,
back to the rooming house in L.A.
where I waited for my mother
to tell her
I met a kidnapper.

Was the little girl a figment of my imagination?
Or the candy man in the car imaginary?

Afterwards, after school, Raymond,
two years older and also from the rooming house,
was assigned to walk me home past Westlake Park
where imaginary men lurked, driving slowly,
and leaned across car seats
with outstretched hands, offering candy
to imaginary curly-headed, baby-toothed little girls.

The New York Time' story confirmed it—
I can never be sure my life was real.

_____________________


PRE-ELECTION POLL

Just read that flaxseed
ground into meal
will alleviate depression
Should I run out and buy some
so I can get through this season
when people call at all hours
also depressed?
Another four years they say
Another four years of the same
hunger homelessness war
Another four years
of white bread and circuses
and idealists in retreat
debating the latest health food fads
flaxseed for one

The campesinos don’t have beans

___________________


FOR COMET BROUHAHA

You’ll be gone tomorrow
passing me by
like the babies dripping into bedsheet stains
the pheasant and snake I never ate
the unread piles of books
the choices I didn’t make

I recognize loss every night at dusk
looking out over New York Bay
and Elizabeth, New Jersey,
the Statue of Liberty hidden in haze
(I mistook her light for you!)

You speck, you passing flame
I’m almost sorry I ever heard your name
I’ll stick with the moon, full and orange
rising over the earth and tides
seawater blood and paper roofs

Farewell comet, sun grazer comet
At least it wasn’t a complete waste
looking, watching, waiting for you
from a roof over New York
I got a wider view

_________________


INAUGURATION DAY 2009

We needed a ceremony
to prove it really happened—
that prejudice can be overcome
that mothers can tell their children
Be anything you want to be

We needed a ceremony
huddled together in the cold
to share the hope and joy
and cry as though
it were a wedding day

We needed a ceremony
to mark the new road ahead
and its mirage-like oases—
tear tracks shining, then gone
in the cheek-chilling January sun

_____________________

CONCRETELY CELEBRATING THE QUINCENTENNIAL

I

On the islands they're mixing concrete
for monuments and markers
to celebrate fourteen ninety two
when Columbus, sailing off the face of the map,
touched these shores and gave them new names
and proved at last—in the year of heresies,
recantations, lies and burnings at the stake—
the world is round, not flat

II

We appreciate
the science of it all
the accidents
the hand of fate
We celebrate Discovery
not the loose ends
unfurling in its wake
not greed
not power lust
not the flag with a cross

With mixed feelings
we approach the date

III

Progress is a mixed blessing
so let the concrete mixing begin!
A blind man's concrete lighthouse
rises on the shores of Hispaniola
A concrete K-mart in the Virgins
buries an Arawak village
Another concrete hotel
blocks the beach
Here, there, and everywhere
Concrete for Columbus
for capitalists
for consumers
for caudillos
Concrete for the sake of concrete

_________________


DONKEY INVASION

for Richard, Park Ranger

I

The donkeys run loose
in the green hills of St. John
giving birth exponentially.
Do they rule the land now?
No plant or place is sacred.
The donkeys are Kings --
Kings of the Mountain!

II

The counterattack is underway….
Kill the donkeys!
Ten were shot and fed to the sea.
But the people are up in arms.
The donkeys are so cute,
submissive, innocent.
Remember the old days--
the banana man
and his sway-backed donkey?
The retort—sharp as a gun:
This is now, not then.
Donkeys are rapacious,
destructive, threatening,
not even indigenous.
What to do?
Find an uninhabited island
say the lawmakers.
Exile them.

III

Donkey doom
is as inevitable
as unenforced laws.
Castaways, starving slowly
on a denuded island
or instant meat
(tastier than horse),
a feast for sharks
or man—
King of the Mountain again
eating his way out from under
the long eared spoils of war.

_________________


PIGEONBERRY TREES

Two trees in strange proximity
rub against each other in the wind
squeaking, creaking.
The bark is worn
where they’ve rubbed each other
over the years—
the abrasive contact
of two trees in the wind
defining themselves
and flourishing
as they meet and touch
and pull away.

__________________


VISIONS

to David

You notice things around us
double rainbows in the sky
birds collecting cobwebs
dragonfly shadows on the ground
You say it’s your peripheral vision
as opposed to my blinders
my focus on the straight and narrow—
food clothing shelter

You’re the one who noticed
the crystal on the hill
exposed by a newly cut road
crystal reaching up from the blue bit
crystal shining through crusts of volcanic dirt
And I, pickaxing down the mountain vein
rock lover before the New Age
scavenger of the Post Depression
took home as many as I could carry
crystals large and small
so excited I lost my glasses

You notice things I overlook
even when I wear my glasses—
some kinds of vision
have nothing to do with sight

__________________


SURVIVAL

after "Immersion" by Susan Griffin

I

So you're afraid of what lurks
beneath a circling fin
I am too
though I've never seen the movie Jaws
or read the book
whichever came first
cartilage or teeth
I think about sharks
and your heart pulling you down
into the deepest shark infested
dream waters
saved in the nick of time
by the dawn
and I think about the sharks
that killed two brothers
in the Caribbean
for the bloody fish they caught
young men following their heart’s desire—
the deepest water
the biggest fish

II

So you're afraid of the water?
Slow to jump in?
Is it the loss of control,
the weightlessness;
is it the unending expanse
or the unexpected tides;
is it the certainty
that your lungs will give out
if you give in?
The water is so dark at night,
deceptively blue in the morning,
pink and grey when the sun sets
Quick change is suspect
like radical conversions
and magic tricks
No wonder you hesitate
to trust your life
to a reflecting surface

III

Navigating uncharted waters
in your sleep
following the deepest dream
your heart speeds up
slows down
you wake in shock
gasping for air
a beached sea creature
on dry land
The dream was real
but, thank God, it wasn't
No one had to press and blow
life back into you
or bury you at sea
or lose you altogether
presumed eaten
The fear was real but, no,
the waves do not have teeth
What does it mean
all those fears
those dreams?
It's a lifetime occupation
reflecting on fact and fiction
whichever came first
in the mirror
window
sea

IV

The cure for shark fear:
Exchange roles
Circle the table and take a bite
Shark meat is delicious
You'lI never feel the same
about your nemesis
when it's a part of you,
your own blood and bone
The peoples of New Guinea
know these basic facts
You embody a new spirit
Your teeth grow sharper
You reek of elemental waters
Streamlined, swift,
sensitive to the scent of blood,
you are at home now and confident
in the sacrificial sea

____________________