175. Cash or Debit

Time is a shameless
measure:
no returns and
no
exchanges:
final
sale.

Like a
holiday tape wrapping
gift
by
gift,
the holly pattern
always

Sitting on a shelf,
observing
the darkness
of
neglect

A fate
to
pity, of
senseless
indifference

or perhaps to
covet,
eternal and
proudly
beyond,
spinning mutely

We cannot see its
end,
only –
think we
do:

cut short,
it
proceeds –
old gifts and
memories
remain;
undying,
unreturned,
dust-collecting and
sitting unblinking,
unremembering

169. The Sidewalk Restaurant

Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐)

Image Source:
http://www.dianshu119.com/index.php?doc-view-881.html

Cheery chatter,
Mandarin,
surrounds like fumes;
we are
no longer
alone

cigarette smoke
deafens

the air conditioner
whirs,
green Tsingtao
bottles
glimmer,
translucent and
half-drunk

The noisy little
toddler
reaches for his
distracted 爸爸’s
tempting beer, reaches
to his lips

caught
(nearly too late), he is
smartly
rebuked

watching, I smile a
little

the 麻婆豆腐
is excellent

167. 天雅古玩城

Tianya Antiques City, Beijing, China

Image source: Sina

A strangest thing indeed:
round dishes on the roof;
the visitors, like ants,
all enter/leave the feast…

Escalators deceptively slow,
quicken
pace
excitedly as the shop-front
store owners
come to life as
visitors step upon their
domain

Smoke

fills the halls;
NO SMOKING sings
not to be seen
here

Teenagers,
arrogant old
women, and
what appear to be
street urchins also
man these
gates;
well-dressed,
well-versed
suited middle-aged
men and women, and the
exotic, distrustful
eyes of the
Uyghur:

Children eat rice
at the lacquer tables
as their parents
haggle
or discover yet another
childhood
acquaintance –

Some halls are filled
with more
idle
smoke
than others…

At the busiest:
count the tiny
diamonds
lining the precious
green jade
leaflets, glistening in
the
caged
light;
semiprecious stones
set in
much-handled
wedding bands –

How can we know
each
detail?
Each fold of
each leaf?

The grandiose:
purple cut agate a
basketball-player
tall;
jade and marble
slates,
cute in with
intricate tree-leaves,
lined with detailed lines and
anatomically impossible
people larger than the
pagodas on the
shining, speckled,
lithe green
mountains

Tea sets of
smooth
clay of
subtly different shades
of roam chocolate
and caramel feel
sandy to the
touch;
gold Bodhisattvas and
Buddhas line
shelves;
antique, or
not

Fragrant medicinal
wood,
cut
into
small
squares,
promise remedies:
Impossibly smoothed wood
create chairs
exquisitely painful
to sit
upon
(no wonder the
Emperors had
such bad
headaches)

People-sized plates
still sprinkle the
building top like
ribbons, red and
gleaming like a
kindergartner’s
First Day present;
gilt, the buttons
noon read, sprinkled
on the silver
elevators…

161. 6 Cubicles

I.
Dark amber:
disfigured, wilted
chrysanthemums drift
swirling, smiling,
half drunk
in the
half-drunk tea.
(lips still
stain the
porcelain rim
with DNA)

Deep green:
drops rest,
suspended; silent;
strown across
paths to
a docile
pouring spoon:
[BENZODIAZEPINE HYDROCHLORIDE
the dark
words read
upon the
clear white
label canvas;
plastic bottle
mutely glistening

Cheap silver:
chocolate toonies
dollar store
trinkets and
Monopoly
                 pieces

Red & Blazing:
computer logos
company slogans
chant like
mantras on
the forlorn
desktop,
haunting the
lack of
space, the
unoccupied, empty
ergonomic
                chair –

2.

Photos:
Mommy & Me
stuck
all over on
mottled
construction
paper,
grainy
If you pay attention you can
see the pulpy
wood fibres

There is a Mother’s
Day poem pasted on a
pink teapot,
carefully cut by eager fingers of
a five-and-three-quarters-year-old,
pencil markings denoting where
the stencil once
lay -
still intact:

Mom’s hair is
angry purple,
she’s much too
young, she should still
by sipping margaritas
sleepless Friday nights at
the nightclub,
fratboys still buying her
Tequila,
flattered:
I’m 30 ;)

III.
A Family of Five:
Three Noses similar,
distributed as such;
Eyes squinting at the sun
as Florida divides:

The pack of smiling Mice:
The Mom & Son are not;
Oh, 20 hours long
does not bode well for kids –
The Preteen Hormone Price.

Three graduations framed:
One Kindergarten grad,
One junior high, one High;
the Eldest in “That Phase”:
Much Angst, as God Ordained.

IV.

Polish greets:
ł, sz, ć –

Pierogi, Kielbasa,
soups, Zrazy,
cabbage rolls;
recipes in
jargon,
we trust makes
feast
depicted each
month.

reminders of old
country,
Happier
, less? –

5

CATHY
on a brazen blue
background
didn’t have her
sexy Latin
name
I guess

faux license plate
letters raised and white
cacti mixed with
pink desert
flower

sheets and
trinkets: souvenirs
to make a magpie
jealous,
totally

Coconut Palm
Cashmere Sheen,
mmm…
“for silky smooth skin”
glitter shimmers in the
frosty lilac-
musky – dusky –
mauve-ish –
bouteilles

Pictures from the wedding:
Frog Eyes Husband

slightly chunky for the
white wedding
dress,
green grass,
black tux:
everything was just
SOOO perfect,
OMG
espesh
our
Carib
honeymoon
                  getaway

Ooh
Caribou calendar:
fun facts sprinkle
the months like little
taunts

Did you know?
      Did you know?
            Did you know?

Nature,
science,
seasides, and
Canada

Shut up.

VI.

half-abandoned
plant
experiments
yearn toward the
asphalt:

Burrito Nacho Man
with a grayish
Sombrero, action
figures betraying
bad humour and
bad taste

half-eaten
chip bag
partly stale

Mm, sour cream and
onion
flavor

funny
how the mind turns
criminal
in such
stillness

half-
experiments
yearn
towards: - ?

153. Leftover Love

Case for contacts:
plastic,
green and white;

Green absinthe
-tinged
Listerine;

Toothbrush,
orange;
used weekly
only
once:

souvenirs,
promises:

Pedal for an
oft-used Casio
keyboard,

CDs left for private
consumption;
glistening jewel cases
in the
shining
sun:

memories and
traces left
for another
weekend
away:
a life left
closer,
trinkets gathering,
apparent laziness

in fact

the
utmost
care

146. 端午节

Triangles,
banana leaves
wrapped tight
around the
rice and
crunchy egg
yolk:

Drawing no initial parallels
with the
colouring books I
scribbled in as a
child
while
the teams of
rowers
plunged their oars
into the
dragon-mirrored
waters –

Ma
tells me
a poet once
drowned out of
the misery of
exile

and that villagers
filled the lake
with these
triangles
out of
sympathy –

the fish kept away
and the body was
saved;

And on this
strange-appointed
day
I ponder,
perhaps too
much of
such tales.

143. The Sublime

From: Jan Axel's Blog

swarm of vultures,
high in the afternoon
sun;
slow and circular,
like a baby’s
mobile, suspended in morbid
listlessness above the
Florida
flats:

restless,
tension hovers in the
unoccupied molecules
buzzing between the
unfashionably active
fat mosquitoes;

boxed-up fish suppliers and
phony Chinese restaurants;
ghetto Black-men at the
7-11:
tank-top children in the
avenues and
dried-up yellowed
grass
roasting in the
sunburnt air.

115. Strange leaves

Chapped lips and
home-made mitts;
youthful couples in the
crisper air:

Simple pleasures,
sights that cause a smile to
form –

Children gather treats
beneath
advancing winds;
cars lay rampant in
hazy, oil-soaked coffee
lines

To see as sights,
to smell as smells:
never to feel
the warm embrace of
commonality –

winter dawns, and
solitude
shows its weary
head too
prominently
to ignore.

106. Insensatez

So soon forgotten,
nylon strings drift out the other
ear,
scarce registered
by one.

Bathed in the exotic, balmy
air,
sun-soaked and
carefree:
indeed these are sweet nothings,
measured not in single drops of
liquor caressing your
throat, rather
a forgettable nectar,
enigmatic, ephemeral.

It’s Portuguese to you,
it’s all the same lithesome
beauty that is so
foreign, so
unintelligible.

It is what tourists
accept, yet do
not seek,
experience but do not
remember.

I could not expect more:
sitting like Turandot
enshrouded by cross-hatched
palm-leaf shadows.
As one breeze carries my
voice, futile, one shadow
to the next, I am
the only constant,
alone in my
impossible artistry.



Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007D4MMM/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0007D4MMM&linkCode=as2&tag=vogltemp-20

Amazon.ca: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00009QH8D/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=B00009QH8D&linkCode=as2&tag=somturnig-20

87. Striped in Sunlight

Striped in sunlight,
half-awakened from a dreamless sleep,
I have entered another world:
sun feels warm on my naked
legs,
oxygen soft and
still.
Birds are tittering lazily;
I don’t know what they’re saying
either:
children are playing in the park near-
by;

and I am here,
listening to the cars go
by.
There is such a sense of
“now”,
but it is sad also,
knowing such instances
will be remembered forever,
though never occur the same way
twice –

81. Sitting on the Grand Canyon

I have a picture of you,
seated on a precarious ledge
teetering above the Grand Canyon.
You are smiling backwards,
thumbs up –
unabashed,
exhilarated.

I want to reach out to you in this dead, frozen
moment:
you are more alive than you have ever
been;
but I want to warn you, pull you back,
take you into my anxious arms,
and it saddens me:
you are happier here
than you ever were with
me.

Which reassures me
that I made the correct moral
choice,
to relinquish you,
to let you be happy
and dangerous
without
meddling
me.

Why must we love?
Why must we remember,
and never forget?
What makes us continue living
when there is so little
to live
for – ?

65. Oiseaux exotiques

4 slightly restless tourists,
all smiles          gaze around
curiously:
you can tell they are not lost,
but curious.

Aliens:
we do not know how far
they have come
to buy a cup of coffee
and donuts.

In one moment, they are
fascinating, strange
in their foreign movements,
odd costumes;
curiosity fades though
as they fly from sight,
though not from
mind.

64. I cannot know you

Those punishing eyes:
I scarce know where else to look;
unzipping me, up and down,
assessing my foreignness –
suddenly
things seem not so simple,
there are other characters
too.

54. Breakfast Time

Silly things!
Scurrying ‘round in flocks of 2 or 3,
picking at the scraps:
French toast doesn’t remain
on the ground for long!

I can tell the females are
greyish; males maybe brighter brown.
I’m no ornithologist;
I can appreciate a good little bird
though;
these little things are
little wonders,
aren’t they!

Look: this one has a
pink Fruit Loop
stuck round its beak:
if Kellogg knew how convenient
these were for the little birdies,
they would be proud –

How well they fit, like wreaths
around their beaks;
how well they fit down their little throats!
I don’t know if I should be mad,
losing bits of food to them,
or if I should be amused at their excitement, their sugar high;
or just to sit in peace,
regarding them
with such a
watchful eye!

"...daintily picking up a Cheerio..."
Photograph by Kelly Riccetti

Source: Red and the Peanut

45. The Simple Golfer

Your polo shirt in hunter green,
a mochachino in your hand -
relief: a gratefulness descends.
These years of callous bargaining
end here, in mute, indulgent joy.
As sunrise dawns upon the world,
you are the first - you always were -
the green before your eager arms.
And after two divorces rests
the latest conquest in your bed,
in lazy luxury, till noon.
But as you raise the primal swing,
reflect upon the bitter words,
the small regrets, the heartlessness -
but what of that? It all is past.
Oh simple golfer, full of pride,
does such completion satisfy,
this strange avoidance of the truth?
Oh, as you gaze upon the hills,
this just begins the questioning
that haunts the heart, that probes the mind;
but as your stoic, placid mind
alights upon the blazing sun
as if like foam upon your drink -
it rests, forever beckoning
yet too aloof for blinded Men -

25. Little Acorn

Buried in the heart of earthly pleasures:
not a whisper of your soul resounds.
Can I flee in vain forever, thusly?
Rounds of acrid laughter futile peels;
artificial saccharines grow weaker:
Great, immortal seed of sylvan love -
Germinate, and overrule the heavens!
Empty follies cannot bar your path.

12. Farewell, Stones

Discarded pebbles,
ground up by the Scylla and Charybdis
of Ontario:
remnants lay
upon the eternal patch of ground rock
beneath our feet.

White shards roast,
smooth and benevolent,
worn by the seas.
Whatever dangers lied in the broken bottles
evoke no harm,
tamed by unseeing hands,
sultry amber in the
glinting sun.

Shaven bits sift through the toes
as effortlessly as water, though
erosion shall soon make sure
that even those grains of sun-baked rice
will cease to circulate
amongst the naked
toes.
Farewell, stones.

11. Gunshots explode in the sky

as the initial crystals
combust into themselves,
demons and dragons
igniting the night into flames
of quartz, like Christmas presents
implode into strange galaxies
and feats of aerial architecture
in thunderous booms as if the
skies were suddenly falling
and comets were raining from the
ground up
accompanied by whistling snakes
calling out like maddened birds
flaring into the storm of
sparkling starbursts
and fireflies twisting about
only to end in unknown curlicues,
trajectory
undefined

as if we have not enough
Vesuviuses and hurricanes
that we must stuff them into our pockets
and set the night on fire
for beauty, for pleasure
for the sheer
fireworks

6. Christmas in June

Misplaced by degrees,
this ornament will catch your eye
at certain angles –
this stuffed reindeer’s eye
will glint in such a way –

So even if you were not before
you will now

despite the misplacement of
our Christmas in June.
These trinkets, baubles, toys –
will light some sympathy in you

and you will come examine
these exotic fish-out-of-water
and hesitate

but after a few more visits
cannot resist –
succumbing, melting inside –
until the coins pass from
your hands
to ours
and seal
the deal.