Snapshots for 20th June 2007

China, I am packing up little pieces of you
ready to leave your sures and doubts,

ready to look over my shoulder with
a postscript wave and wonder.

China, it is dark under this tree and the moon
cannot penetrate your greedy industrial smoke.

I'm waiting to see how much poetry is in
the Dragon Boat Festival – Does it _always_

have to be about food, China? It's Qu Yuan's
death that's important, yesterday and today.

Can we learn from history, Big Panda?
If you go out on a weak limb, it will break.

China, too much America is not good for you.
Follow your own Confucius-Marx mix.

China, where's your Green Card?
Where's your Green Party?

Let them learn Mandarin, China –
you've got enough people to swing it.

Don't let them seduce you with their beads
and mirrors. You're worth more than that.

I buy your trinkets and Good Luck charms
but I don't buy your Western ways.

This world is a hall of mirrors,
keep your eyes peeled.

It's not just currency that's counterfeit.

dawn foils in a feather's approach:
through a tree
through a window.

orange pale a reflection
in the leafy branch stem,
the foliage all amix―the window's
imperfections.

only hours earlier
out walking
the brook pooled light over a rock,
its current a white unstruck flame,
its bubbles thinning to foam
its smoke.

back then, walking,
dawn surged yet
an unseen shepherd's track
& the sky leaped lax cloudy
with end-of-evening;
serving as a window phenomenon, then,
was the moon
& a star
through the leaves of a thicket.

this is me sitting here dull―
others make music, strife, & offhand loves.
nothing so re-placed, or parsing,
or passing.

The ice pooled
           on the table
                      as though offence
had given mouth
           to some vulgar thought
                      now resounding
slipping sideways
           leaking a nervous hum
                      a lopsided leer
looking to slide
           from the sheets
                      melt into night

daddy gotta snap mommy    snap
on me and you    snap
who when how why where what snap
snip snip    cut out that snap
too hip to be happenin' by the hair
of my chinny chin chin snap     take that
chip off your shoulder flip young or older
snap-a-daisy     don't be lazy lad or lass
alas    be glad
snap off in the sad scoff of another
poor sap's banal snap
this ain't no grand canal crap
y'all lap up in your dog bowls
nectar of the clods    snooker snap
for whom the flip snap tolls

ccommodatin
ac um
ewly-grow les
athtu aitin
(hic a ecom ddicte)
ffec
lood ntermission
etwee erformance.

1. Lung Powder
2. Writer's Block
3. Scythians
4. Mes Yeux Ne Sont Jamais Ouverts et Mes Cils Ne Sont Pas Bleux.
5. The Awakening
6. !Andalé, Oberos!
7. They Were Too Young, Too Young, Only Too Young.
8. Mirabile Dictu
9. Red Wheelbarrows, Pink Windows
10. Penelope’s Loopy Loom
11. Directional Microwave Antennas
12. Because I Could Not Stop
13. Widening the Gyre: Beasts and Wicked Raptors
14. Silliman the Abecedarian
15. The Fourteen: Coda and Request for Extension
16. Humus
17. What Is To Be Done?

What did I get
for my seventieth?
Two sweet emails and two
phone calls from New Zealand,
my loved home country.
A book voucher worth
rather more than I am,
still burning my pocket.
Silk ties from Thailand,
from my globetrotting son;
gloves and scarves from Italy,
from my globetrotting
daughter and son-in-law;
all just back home - there's
a gift - safe and sound.

Two desired recent
books from New Zealand,
fiction and verse,
both by C.K.Stead,
who taught me in '62 -
from our mutual friend.

A big party at our place
with dozens of smiling faces.
Bottles of good red wine
in bright wrappers,
one of scotch, and one (historic)
of Pimms Number One Cup.
A vroom-vroom toy car
made of coca-cola tin.

A statuette by my friend
titled 'The Storyteller'
but his face is featureless,
I'll be tempted to add
eyes and a smile.

Graphic art by two other friends,
one satirical of bookshops
and their patrons like me,
one of Beijing dogs on Beijing paper,
with advice on how to frame it
(not cheap), and an offer
to do our pup's portrait -
it would take two days.

An hour of songs sung by
Kate and Ruth, in tune with
their guitars and banjo
(see their website for their
range and quality),
their 'Boots of Spanish Leather'
unaccompanied lovely-sad.

A Lebanese banquet from
Dunyazad in nearby Greythorn,
much relished by every guest
(scarcely sampled by me
so busy talking).

A round of offerings
musical and poetical:
starting with a song about me
adapted from 'Mac the Knife';
a wicked Tom Lehrer song
sensational for those
too young first time round;

a prolonged skirl on the Scottish pipes
which most wished longer;
a Chopin mazurka with soul
on our little-used piano.
Three earnest poems from
three earnest poets, including me.

'John Anderson my Jo' sung
by Scotland's exported Burns expert;
Theodorakis on CD, playing
while our Greek friends
brewed up a happy cyclone
drawing us in to Zorba
the dancing Greek.

To mention only a few.

he awoke
full of thoughts
his room was
packed with them
some were very large
dark and menacing
others were a sort of
a medium friendly
small ones played
skittishly

but on his
hands and knees
armed with a
strong magnifying glass
in a panic
he was desperately
trying to find
the minute lost
brilliant one