Chinese Box

The restaurant was a Chinese box.
My order was wrong,
then right,
then wrong again.

The waiters were men,
then women,
then men.

You were angry with me,
then not;
then you weren't you, or at least,
didn't seem to be.

An alchemist came and turned the soup to stone,
the stone to a poem,
together to alone,
despite all assurances printed on the menu card.

Lunch for 2.
Dinner for 4.
In your hand an apple,
then nothing; then a core.

I said, "My love...my love...my love...my love...."
as I dug with my fingers all the way through the world,
to find a hard queen, a woman dissolved
in your eye looking back saying, "Now what, girl?"
_______

For "Play It Again, Toads" at The Imaginary Garden. I was inspired by the image at top, which is by my dear friend Daryl Edelstein, and also by the image below, which was taken by Karin Gustafson.

 Optional--and quite insane--musical accompaniment.
 

Reconsidering Liars

"Let there be light."
Did you think
He had it just lying around?
The sun, the stars....all made up.

Billy Robinson was an upstate New Yorker of Scottish ancestry,
a magician who reinvented himself
as Chung Ling Soo, Chinese conjurer,
ripping off most of his act from another vaudevillian.

His wife Suee Seen was really named "Dot." 
They weren't really married.
She was as American as he was.

Consider this:
"America" is a construct. 
You start with trees, bears and native tribes,
kill most of them, plant a flag and
Voila! America. Something that wasn't there before,
like a rabbit out of a hat.

You'll argue that it was there, just different,
like "your" card, now at the top of the deck every time,
fanned in the illusionist's hands.

Watch and learn, padewon.
Billy Robinson whipped lather in a mug and shaved off his moustache,
used greasepaint to darken his complexion,
threw on some bright Oriental robes,
and started banking the cash from the suckers who came for his act.

God would tell you,
ya gotta have a gimmick,
whether you call it Manifest Destiny or The Ten Commandments.
Billy's was a stunt he called "Condemned to Death by the Boxers."

Marked bullets were loaded into rifles wielded by stooges in costume;
the weapons were rigged not to fire,
but Chung Ling Soo would appear to catch the deadly missiles with a china plate.
However,
the sun and stars are slowly burning themselves out,
and the rifles became worn with cleaning.

Bam! Bam! And down went Billy, right there on stage.
"I've been shot," he said, in astonished perfect English.
You can look on Wikipedia today and find Chung Ling Soo's whole story.
Do you think that if he had stayed Billy,
kept his moustache,
and sold tam o' shanters in a shop all his life,
that anyone would remember him now?

Let there be light,
how ever it is made, and how ever far it has to travel
to get here.
________

Panda

China is so big, such a giant on the map and in physical space,
that a person might fall in love with someone,
go all stupid over someone,
and never see them again, disappearing into the crowd
in a port city
on a bicycle,
ringing the little bell and vanishing.

Pandas eat bamboo shoots, 
so poor in nutrition that they must consume mightily to survive.
They don't know how remarkable they are, they never see a mirror;
they just eat and crap and sleep and have no idea how loved they are
all over the world.

You are twenty miles down the road, 
but I am feeling equators and great walls.
Come back, I'll boil you all the rice you want,
and when I speak it can be in those little characters.

I have a shovel,
and I am digging digging digging.
I am hoping to hit bicycle tire.
I am hoping a big black paw will reach up for me, and pull me through,
or that I'll hear your truck,
the door, your bag hitting the entryway tile.

Opium's for suckers, your face is the only high I need,
so catch the first thing smoking and I will
cancel my expedition, put the kibosh on the dig.
I love you. Don't you know?
Or are you a panda, adorable and clueless,
wandering the bamboo forest 
when I've got something better in mind?
_______

for Hannah's prompt at Real Toads.

4th of July

There were fireworks, but it might have been gunfire.
I'll stand here against the wall with an apple on my head,
just to see if anybody splits it.

Downstairs is the Chinese restaurant where silent waitresses
bring us loaded plates and little cups for tea.
You're Greek and I'm Irish, so naturally the Lucky Dragon is our balancing point.

Moving into the open-window flat upstairs was probably overkill,
but we are desperate like that, all we need is a V-8 '32 Ford and two fedoras.
Bonnie didn't really smoke cigars; reality is just a template we can fuck with.

The grifters and junkies have taken over the park down the street;
they pimp out their girlfriends and sit on the edge of the fountain all day
watching for marks. It used to be nice here. Sort of. Better than now.

With my head on your shoulder, I tell you about the war movie I saw
when I lived over there. Everybody cheered when a Jap plane went down.
Street vendors sold the most delicious warm bread, and the buses allowed chickens.

Maybe it wasn't gunfire. Maybe we're really in love.
Maybe you're not lazier than shit and maybe I'm straight after all.
Here, have an apple. Trust me, it's good for you.

I don't know it now, but I will kick this jones.
You I'll never see again after Ohio four years from now,
and the Lucky Dragon? I'll have left my 20s there. If you hock them, save the ticket.
_____

For the Real Toads mini-challenge: Marilyn Chin.

 

The Neighborhood Babe

Wise man say:
Quit with the pidgin already.
If you can't put together a simple declarative sentence in the English language,
the best I can offer you is a gig with the railroad.

The Neighborhood Babe leaves her rugrats at home for the evening,
and attends a night class.
Pretty soon she can dance like Ginger Rogers
and do her own taxes,
but she needs more, you dig?

Up, up the mountain she goes, that chalk-fingered Babe,
to the tippy top.
Survey says:
Location, location, location,
but there he is anyway,
the Shell Answer Man,
chewing on a Krispy Kreme.

I want to be a poet, she tells him.
He says:
Jot down a bunch of gibberish.
Everybody'll love it and toss roses at your feet,
and even if they don't,
just call your sloppy nonsense poetic license and smile indulgently.
Then come back here and fill in for me;
I need to see a man about a dog.

So the Neighborhood Babe finally arrives back home,
spouting zen koans
and making the rugrats dig a koi pond in the back yard.
At night she dreams of China--
the Great Wall turns into an undulating snake,
and she rides it, waving her hat like a cowgirl and shouting hoo-wee!
Fortune cookie say:
Though shrouded in mists, lofty heights await.
Sometimes she actually knocks her pillow onto the floor.
______

for Hannahballistic's Transforming Friday challenge!