Is there no ending this colloquy?
Ms. Lookeast, Ms. Lookeast
What have we accomplished this century?
I take your olive branch deep within me
A white man’s guilt, a white man’s love
Tonight while the stars are shimmering
Bad Date Polytich, Eight Poems
BAD DATE
I won’t say where I went to dinner,
Because my host is a Sado-Scorpio.
He served me Perfume River Ratatouille
From Mrs. Min’s Village Wok video.
He pretended to be well-meaning.
His décor flaunted multicultural—
Two shriveled heads from Borneo,
A cornice from a temple in Kyoto,
Red Mansion sex pics on tusks,
Hirohito’s mangled sword on the mantle.
He squeezed my knee with gusto,
Then, invited me back for tomorrow.
FAMILY RESTAURANT (#1)
Empty Lotus Room, no patrons
Only a telephone rings and rings
Muffled by an adjoining wall
He murmurs to a distant lover
His wife head-bent peeling shrimp
Hums an ancient tune about magpies
His daughter wide-eyed, little fists
Vows to never forgive him
His shadow enters the deep forest
Blackening the shimmering moss
FAMILY RESTAURANT (#2)
The old neon flickers and hums.
The grandmother turns it off.
The boy empties the last of the trash,
Eager to return to the prom.
The grandmother gestures him back,
Fan loy, fan loy, waving both arms.
He curses Goddam old hag,
Rolls up his tux sleeves gingerly,
Sorts out the bones from the glass.
EMPATHY
for Janie
I was in line for rice gruel
You were in line for bread
When I returned for another dollop
I saw a giant ringworm gnawing your head
You were shaved immediately
“Feels much better” you said
But I was the child left scratching
Scratching until I bled.
BLUES ON YELLOW (#3)
No time to cry no time to dwell
Forgive the butchers of Nanking forgive past pogroms
Get out get out of your shell
You’re not the century’s last orphan
Unmat your hair red-lacquer your fingernails
Douse your pussy with lavender
Cheer up cheer up dress up to kill
A dingy yellow wallflower not comely
There’s no decorum in happiness
He’ll bury his wan love deep into your well
FOLK SONG REVISITED
(to the tune of “Her Door Opens to White Waters”)
My friend Mieko Ono bought a condo
Over a brand-new wooden footbridge
In Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
She teaches Japanese to Business Minors
Each night she dims the stone lanterns
She lives there alone without a lover
OHIO/OHIO
for Mieko
There is a spot near your broken heart
Stupid pupils, they’re blind
You teach them the Kanji for love
The tenth stroke is the great aorta
Only one girl saw your terror
Ten thousand in this village, but you’re unloved
Breasts should be kissed
Not lopped
A cold bed of chemo awaits
No sister to hold you, no lover
A surgeon’s knife is not love
That which won’t kill us will maim us
Fifty, you’re still chasing love
Time’s running out, the clock drips regret
Let’s cruise the websites for a savior
SO, YOU FUCKED JOHN DONNE
for MJW
So, you fucked John Donne.
Wasn’t very nice of you.
He was betrothed to God, you know,
a diet of worms for you!
So, you fucked John Keats.
He’s got the sickness, you know.
You took precautions, you say.
So, you fucked him anyway.
John Donne, John Keats,
John Guevara, John Wong,
John Kennedy, Johnny John-John.
The beautiful, the wreckless, the strong.
Poor thang, you had no self-worth then,
you fucked them all for a song.
Identity Poem (#99)
Are you the sky—or the allegory for loneliness?
Are you the only Chinese restaurant in Roseburg, Oregon?
A half-breed war orphan—adopted by proper Christians?
A heathen poidog, a creamy half-and-half?
Are you a dingy vinyl address book? A wrist
Without a corsage? Are you baby’s breath
Faced down on a teenage road in America?
Are you earphones—detached
Left dangling on an airplane jack to diaspora?
Are you doomed to a childhood without music?
Weary of your granny’s one-string, woe-be-gone erhu
Mewling about the past
Are you hate speech or are you a lullaby?
Anecdotes requiring footnotes
An ethnic joke rehashed
How many Chinamen does it take—to screw
How many Chinamen does it take—to screw
A lightbulb?
Are you so poor that you cannot call your mother?
You have less than two dollars on your phonecard
And it’s a long cable to Nirvana
Are you a skylight through which the busgirl sees heaven?
A chopping block stained by the blood of ten thousand innocents
Which daily, the same busgirl must wipe off
Does existence preempt essence?
I “being” what my ancestors were not
Suddenly, you’re a vegan vegetarian!
Restaurant is a facticity and
Getting the hell out—is transcendence
Was the punch line “incandescent”?
Was a nosebleed your last tender memory of her?
Did he say no dogs and Chinawomen?
Are you a rose—or a tattoo of fire?
To Pursue the Limitless
To pursue the limitless
With a hare-brained paramour
To chase a dull husband
With a sharp knife
To speak to Rose
About her thorny sisters
Lock the door behind you
The restaurant is on fire
You are named after
Flower and precious metal
You are touched
By mercury
Your birth-name is Dawning
Your milk-name is Twilight
Your betrothed name is Dusk
To speak in dainty aphorisms
To dither
In monosyllables
Binomes copulating in midair
To teach English as a second
Third, fourth language
You were faithful to the original
You were married to the Chinese paradox
Beautiful words are not truthful
The truth is not beautiful
You have translated “bitter” as “melon”
“Fruit” as “willful absence”
You were mum as an egg
He was brutal as an embryo
Blood-soup will congeal in the refrigerator
You are both naturalized citizens
You have the right to a little ecstasy
To ( ) err is human
To () woo is woman
Mai Buried mother
Mi ma Sold hemp
Mi Boug
ht horse
No, not the tones but the tomes
You said My name is Zhuang Mei
Sturdy Beauty
But he thought you said Shuang Mei
Frosty Plum
He brandished his arc of black hair like a coxcomb
He said Meet me at the airport travelator
His back door was lovelier than his front door
A smear of bile on your dress
Proved his existence
Summer Sonatina
You turn your head and I shall never see you again,
My youth, my summer, lorries passing.
Damask roses, Vivaldi’s 4th season, clichéd and beautiful.
My tongue is glib, I shall tangle the strings of your heart.
My version of history: palanquins, wrists, the red descent of peonies.
Enter the turtle, my mother’s back, take what you desire.
What do I have to lose, sweet immigrant, but everything.
_______
That tintype you embraced, was it not of your father?
That dagguerotype you erased, was it not of your mother?
The opera you lampooned, was it not The Jade Hairpin?
The phoenix broken, her emerald eyes dangle.
You must not sing praise on the same day of mourning.
You must serve the mind and the “doctrine of the mean.”
You must learn to chant the names of birds & beasts & flowers.
_______
Yellow Pearl, I bemoan your preciousness.
They will pluck you from the great chancre.
The soft palette lolls, not quite bilingual.
Don’t tell them, says mother, they will deport you.
Don’t tell them, says father, I was a paperson.
Don’t tell them, says brother, our misery is our own.
Kingdoms come, kingdoms go, but family is forever.
_______
You were splayed on a Cal-Rose sticky-rice bag with a waiter named Damien.
Your hair black as raven, his-—blond as rope.
I thought you were dead, but you were tired from pleasure.
But sister, we’re not supposed to feel until we’ve passed the Bar Exam.
We must not sully our frock behind the pantry, sedge and mallow.
_______
He is so fair you can see the Thames pulsing in his temples.
So fair, he blanched the skies of the suburbs.
You love him anyway, his beauty is all you know.
So fair, you imagine sowing his gray children.
In a parking lot, you say to Marguerite,
“Why must I yearn for his bland porridge?”
We search for the Great Elixir,
manless, childless,
Without a cloud in the sky.
_______
Thank you for your graciousness, a pair of porcelain nags,
Yo-Yo Ma’s lugubrious cello.
Thank you for the CDs of Prince, Ravel and The Time,
for the Cornish game hens at Yaddo.
_______
Necks, gizzards, livers—tucked in the cervix.
Dark meat, white meat, you prefer the white.
Plucked, dressed, they look like important composers.
When you clean the head, don’t forget the eyes.
The soft palette behind the cheeks, extra tender.
The scales scraped backward crackle like ice,
Tiny shattered pupils, we can see our reflections.
_______
Some American poet said to me, The Haiku is dead.
I thought, pink and swollen, something sad about his body.
He said, The Tao is untranslatable and the Haiku is dead.
I thought, pink and swollen, something sad about his body.
_______
The poet guards the conscience of society—no, you’re wrong.
She stands lonely on that hillock observing the pastures.
The world scoffs back with bog and terror.
Fake paradise, imported palmettos,
O Prince, do not lose your soul in the ramparts.
West of Chin’s edge, there are no new friends.
Horseyear
for Jane Cooper
In the margins you roam free
As far as the paddock will take you
The poet has lost her chariot
Stumbling for the orchard in twilight
Your Toyota’s stuck in the mud
Push, push l00 pound girl
Already you’re a millennium late
Your forelock soaked in rain
Who will take that bit?
Your mouth is hard or tender?
Your flesh is deep in your sheath
Who is holding the tether?
The bones of the dead are fragrant
They breathe in lush desire
Joss ticks and peonies ablaze
To secure their eternal fame
When young you learned the flute
When old you taught the zither
Forty, you wrote for love
_______
The eyes of Kuanyin can’t lie
A tear shall fall from heaven
She brought us here on her back
America, our legs are broken
Hack a river in his thigh
Augur from the skull of our beloved
Kiss his bract of hemlock
Hardened in river clay
His soul has been dead for years
His body’s flexion bronze
A midvein pulses blue
The killing floor glistens
Bosnia, a headless wound
Los Angeles, a blistering glans
Rwanda, a whither of blood
The killing floor glistens
Our yokes and goads are broken
Wheel locks in idle wind
We love you from a distant wasteland
Our prayer the blackdrop of sky
_______
We sit alone with our porridge
Whose name is Budget Gourmet
We’ve missed our chance in love
O brief and fallen Orchid
Beautiful, cut-sliced moon
O muse of X-Acto knife and rain
Cocked between dream and window frame
O pale and loitering suitor
Climb the liana of the mansion
Begging bowl in hand
We hunger for love and fame
A piece of the world at sunset
Our pupils will avenge our deaths
Our rivals will fall to disgrace
Jade and gold in their mouths
Plundered over and over
Our hair will grow after death
Our poetry, moss-eaten
Never will we feel fulfilled
Never to reclaim our name
Rhapsody in Plain Yellow
FOR MY LOVE, CHARLES (1938‒2000)
Say:
I love you, I love you, I love you, no matter
your race, your sex, your color. Say:
the world is round and the arctic is cold.
Say: I shall kiss the rondure of your soul’s
living marl. Say: he is beautiful,
serenely beautiful, yet, only ephemerally so.
Say: Her Majesty combs her long black hair for hours.
Say: O rainbows, in his eyes, rainbows.
Say: O frills and fronds, I know you
Mr. Snail Consciousness,
O foot plodding the underside of leaves.
Say: I am nothing without you, nothing,
Ms. Lookeast, Ms. Lookeast,
without you, I am utterly empty.
Say: the small throat of sorrow.
Say: China and France, China and France.
Say: Beauty and loss, the dross of centuries.
Say: Nothing in their feudal antechamber
shall relinquish us of our beauty—
Say: Mimosa�
��this is not a marriage song (epithalamion).
Say: when I was a young girl in Hong Kong
a prince came on a horse, I believe it was piebald.
O dead prince dead dead prince who paid for my ardor.
Say: O foot O ague O warbling oratorio . . .
Say: Darling, use “love” only as a transitive verb
for the first forty years of your life.
Say: I have felt this before, it’s soft, human.
Say: my love is a fragile concertina.
Say: you always love them in the beginning,
then, you take them to slaughter.
O her coarse whispers O her soft bangs.
By their withers, they are emblazoned doppelgangers.
Say: beauty and terror, beauty and terror.
Say: the house is filled with perfume,
dancing sonatinas and pungent flowers.
Say: houses filled with combs combs combs
and the mistress’ wan ankles.
Say: embrace the An Lu Shan ascendancy
and the fantastical diaspora of tears.
Say: down blue margins
my inky love runs. Tearfully,
tearfully, the pearl concubine runs.
There is a tear in his left eye—sadness or debris?