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…

150. Com’è bello!

Unassuming,
silently presuming –
Two arachnids
tranquilly enslumbered:

Victim huntress,
paused the murderesses;
gentle yearning,
mute the Mother doting:

Golden doubles,
resting, still as marble:
Eight-fold digits
still and softly sun-gilt.

Se il destassi?

In the noontime daybeams
Venetian spun,
Gemini lay, Roman.

56. POTSMOKERS

Astringent as the chill,
the smoke ascends
and smites the bleary eyes
from yonder hill:

Draw closer, frightened one;
the footsteps speed
from curiosity
into a run -

In horror, prim and stern,
the scene unfolds,
my gawking scolding what
the smell confirms;

Oh, tardy truants thus!
So comatose,
in view of all the street,
euphonious!

I feel it is my right,
my duty!  Yes -
to reprimand "this sort",
to set them right;

And yet - no words will come,
for out of shock
my bleak hypocrisy *
turns mute and numb.

We grudging brethren are
and share one tongue;
though speaking dialects,
seem not so far:

Escaping in his way
is bolder fun -
but my rebellion speaks
far past the day -

a little farther, still!

* This does not mean I smoke pot.

51. Beneath the Summer Stars

The noisy filibustering
had thrust me out of doors;
there: tucked amidst the silenced hills,
the gypsy toiled away.

Her headdress marked with ancient signs,
magnetic, drew the crowds
exotic eyes aloof and dark,
aflame with prophecy.

And as I took my place by her,
a chill swept through my soul;
the Magyar sat across from me –
our eyes gazed potently.

She swept her skilful hands across,
the Tarok cards alight,
their cryptic symbols wild and strange:
and so she read my fate.

And as you watched me tacitly
the bitter breeze grew sharp,
tormenting my unready skin;
yet how I burned within!

Yes, as the gypsy’s tale had ceased,
I burnt with such a fire,
ignited by my destiny,
in fevered ecstasy.

As night wore on, I sat by you
and stole each glance I could
from those intense Uralic eyes;
they glanced at me so brief –

Despite the coldness of the moon,
which spilled across the steppes
and lit the gypsy’s secret craft,
bright hope had sprung in me;

but though I leapt into the flames,
the Fates could not be moved:
forever am I doomed to live,
recounting such a loss.

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 -

44. From the Ruins

The progeny of artisans
Is carefully reviewed
Before the goods are shipped before
The future's eager eyes.
Such ancient architecture bears
The toils of their craft;
The remnants were preserved with care
And visit, vividly.
Though packaged in the finest silks
The ravages of time
Prove coldly ever-damaging -
The fragments tantalize;
We die, the secret on our lips -
The guess is yours to take.
Forever coy, forever mute,
The sleeping artist smiles.

43. Rasputin

Eyes of the strange and the solemnest
stared at me; stirred in me mystery:
wonderfully, tenderly, pensively;

Searching, imploring you silently,
mounting obsession enraptures me:
steadfastly, easily, purposely;

Cold and unseeing, discarding me,
glanced at my longing and loneliness
fleetingly, vacantly, terribly.

42. O magnum mysterium

Spin fragrantly
in sweet oblivion:
the dancers blush
amidst the swirling bees -

In clearest day,
the lilting petals judge,
unseeing leaves
incapable to say;

Naive, demure,
assent to every whim
so pliantly,
the next the merrier:

Such faces mute
in unrequited bliss,
their secret art
an enigmatic tune -

My feeble wiles
to such a riddle fail:
Their silence is
a stronger stuff than smiles.

41. Dearest

Tell me,
the sun – could it be thus explained
to blind men?
Scarce well-adjusted to its light,
I doubt so;
such brilliance, such vibrancy:
I fail here –

Dearest,
I cannot tell you such I know;
I shield you.
I hardly know the rules myself
but hope that –
the art transcends the feeble means
and reaches -
                       here:

40. A Moment

Enveloped in some distant thought,
you turned to me;
still lost in muddled reverie
distracted blinked,
as if awakened from a dream
to dream again:
a smile whipped upon those lips –
and caught my breath;
this spontaneity, this joy -
alarmed me so,
such recognition undeserved:
it startled me,
this unrepentant chivalry –
oh! had I thought
such isolation and resolve
could save me too,
could render me immune to this?

Instead, that smile -
had pressed its ultimatum thus,
enticing, rare;
how such a small acknowledgement
could turn me mute!
and though a thousand storms of thought
so futile fought,
I - hesitant, confused – collapsed,
surrendering,
still blinking my bewildered eyes,
and unprepared
was forced to see the blinding sun
and wordless, smiled!

37. Electrons Dance

For out of fear,
I stay concealed,
a little sly,
but much too shy.
Across the room,
oblivious,
you’re restless too.
I pack away
my furtive glance,
re-focussing.

You’ve seen me now:
I catch your gaze;
a startling smile
bewitches me.
I, cautious, smile;
electrons dance
and you draw near –

36. Le plus doux rêve

You gave me something more than friendship
- so I thought,
and I, my youthful self, so foolish,
followed close -
through sunlit paths as daylight faltered,
heedlessly.
Such radiance seemed otherworldly:
in such light,
I was illuminated by you,
loved and praised.
We watched the leaves twirl, golden-dusted,
rains had danced;
the dying autumn sang its prayers.
Wrung of words,
I watched you say goodbye one final,
final time –
oh, just for one more fleeting day in friendship
such as this:
a thousand grand, exotic operas
could not know
the simple happiness you gave me,
my sweetest dream.

35. So sang the silence

Photograph By: Christian Hanner

Arrested in the sun –
as photons stripe your wings:
could death be lovelier?
Unseeing eyes ablaze,
as if too undeserved
of such a masterwork.
Upon a tender branch,
the paragon of dawn:
did one such mulberry
obstruct your jeweled throat
upon the blinding sight
of lethal loveliness?;
so as you gasped, it struck –
so swiftly, fatally?
In serving such an art,
an art oneself becomes –
in still serenity
entombed in oxygen:
the sentinel of Truth
remains forever mute –

31. Model-Girl

for my dearest T.D.

Each freckle sparks a new debate;
your measurements are public spectacle.
What hair and wardrobe can create
is this Immortal, some Olympian.

Removing trivial worldly flaws,
the Human sheds her life, becomes a doll,
a canvas – on which genius draws:
Dior, McQueen, Herrera, Calvin Klein.

Descended from unearthly lands,
gargantuan tresses mount the blazing skies;
ethereal gemstones kiss your hands –
the architecture wraps your painted corpse.

One day a limp and lifeless page –
another, stepping out into the world;
you walk from paper into cage,
transforming always – modern sorceress.

Aquarius in sunny May,
you walk, each gesture stillborn works of art.
A deity in every way:
the artist breathes her truest legacy.

30. The Summer Dies

As sunlight draws its coronets
the trees present themselves as royalty.
Unearthly twilight dyes the world
and every leaf appears as if a god.

Your face, angelic, rose to me,
enchanted, stirring in me tender love.
Illuminated in such light,
could any mortal eye be thus deceived?