SWINE FLU
(the chinese are very worried)
pedal cab rides with promises of nirvana
by the very virtue of tug and pull from an old man’s tired feet
as city streets, wide and olympic, curve into the small
one-story shop fronts, xiao chi (little eats) hu tong -
I rest my feet at Tiananmen []
where radiant Chinese girls in
Levi’s, Calvin Klein’s, Converse’s, Nike’s, American Apparel’s
smile broadfaced into the sun
to be clicked and captured by friends with red red cameras
giggles of good!
and sunburnt country women in Mao sleeves and flowery shirts, days worn
air their old leathery toes, sit beseeching on cement:
——-
popsicles 1 yuan
cold water 1 yuan
wrinkled woman push cart corn 1 yuan
——-
lai! lai! lai! (come come come)
the chinese are sensitive to color:
neutrogena skin whitening cream: 400 yuan
—–
in grand malls with glassy displays
the brown-skinned migrants clean the escalators
here, as in any city, wiping the ascension with water and soap
“are you countryside?” they demand of my american tan, curling their beijing tongues
“no, i am not of of this country’s side” –> incredulous. <–
(Are you my people?)
They pull me around, the men
from HeBei – they smile
and take detours, and suggest locations
I never intended, charging exorbitantly
as soon as they know there is white in me
(more than previously discussed)
back and forth, i must have wasted
a hundred or more yuan a day, in detours! but
all the best journeys require a long way to go a very short distance
the pedal cab breezes make me smile
the danger of in-between cars
and against traffic speedy u-turns
never stopping a second! oh! i am happy! this is happiness! this.
Are you my people?
i ask into the sun,
the girls with their new capri’s and diet teas
and all the middle-aged who still dress like revolutionaries -not
fashionably insensitive but Chinese
all asking:
Are you my people?
i wonder under the tunnel crossings
the uniformed women who scan my bags before subway doors
Are you my people?
i question the waitress, the hotel lobby man
all the Great Wall of money between us
already muffling my speech in oceans
of pre-conceived notions.
Are you my people?
i whispered at the Forbidden
City, in the cold homes of ancient concubines, the majestic
courtyards where masses lined up to welcome
the King, always central.
Bei Jing in the Middle Country
like the number nine
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perfect dragons play in stone clouds
dragged by thousands of unnamed peasants
along icy roads of ingenuity only affordable
to the insanely powerful of old old times
I turn on my audio guide
and walk from palace to palace
with the couple from Seattle and the girl from Scotland
still more comfortable, somehow, with the English, than this language I was born with
why?
we go to the roast duck zone, but i can’t afford the whole duck
i buy the bagged duck in the grocery store next door
staring at my chopsticks, as my spotty Chinese characters blink and blank
through tears of early pinyin, back up to a lonely planet outdated.
————-
JULY 28th ROCK AND ROLL BEIJING
spirit!
I want freedom to FEEL feel
FEEL
and understand
what is utterly
alive in this
world, natural
and untrained.
express
buses weave nowhere
frowns upon frowns of fake
inauthentic NON-human!
stories that march and endure
their banal miseries
like it’s appetizing
I want honesty!
like I want my flesh to sing
forget arbitrated
dreams and fistfulls of — existence
knock liberation into my crazy!
(the selfish is the real)
the cruel and civilized savages
stomp hierarchy and order
into ignorance, to create this sweaty confidence of millions
I drink my blood
and get infected by my being
I have only pure joy to offer me no promises
I dream of him, him adminishing me for choosing banality
we build lives upon sheer trickery!
and crumble
at all the falsehoods possible
do not
doubt my steps
i jump with
my chest pouring
from my nose and fingertips
I live in this bondage to scream in love!
take me, world, that on my crotch
stink the poetry
to imbibe in banquets of mutual suspicion
take my crotch
and give it meaning, yours
i forever maintain my purity
of motion.
