Dongjing

.
writing from down
the sink,

where "elevated
levels of ammonia,
nitrogen, and permanganate, a
chemical
used in metal cleaning,
tanning
and bleaching"

has the waterworks churning red
the flowing foamy
Han tributary
turning to ruby
ink

industrial wasteland
pumping the bloodflow
into the Dongjing
like Sanzu, like the Styx

200,000
in Hubei province
fallen short with
nothing
left
to
drink

***

writing from up
the waterworks

where Emerald City's
Department of Water
municipal water
is prize winning water
water to grace your tap
in L.A.

"Take Back the Tap" they say,
less plastic waste that way,

call a green rainbow so
rivers could all go
recover their old
transparent non-
colors

Pristina

.

in

interesting times

that „for

reasons

of culture,

geography

and history,”

we must all

live

in,

an emerging

state

from a

state

of emergency

declared itself

instantly

pristinely clean

in these

interesting

and

otherwise blood-

stained

times.

out here,

the anglosphere

echoes

a lot

with all

the reports

you

hear,

like

the BBC

on how Belgrade

belligerently

"did fairly represent

the

feelings

of the vast

majority

of the Serb

people",

specifically

a thousand

or so

rock-flinging

and sign-

wrenching

rioteers,

"football

hooligans."

now,

having seen our

share

of local

hooligans,

we

must say

today:

a big

F

U

to that

"majority",

we know

who

and what

you be,

independence

will have

its

own

extatic

way,

„committed

to confront

the pain-

ful legacy

of

the recent

past

in a spirit of

re-

conciliation and

forgiveness,”

the

independent

declarators

say,

„Dedicated to

protecting, promoting and

honouring

the diversity

of our

people,”

a new

beginning

and

hope.

frustrating?

yes,

no doubt

„to channel

unrest

and anger”

at

Ahtisaari and

his Ahtisaari

plan

is what some

other

democratic

European

leaders do

at best.

for

reasons of poetry

we

will have none of

Kostunica

pledging tyranny

against

the people,

or

the orthodox

bishop

Artemije

denouncing the army

for doing

nothing

and

saying Serbia

should buy arms

from Russia

to fight.

F

U

to his

holiness

and

his own

mad

majority,

and to all

those murderous

carreer

diplomats

the world

over,

most dis-

respec-

tively.

Kosovo

is born

again

pristine

again

and

free.


***

is that

not

the way

we all

want to

become,

remain,

to

be

?

Okinawa

.

sweet in black and white the oriental

chocolate nation butterfly battalions

ten million strong the honmei choco amorous

wingbeating powdertinted pant progressing

to view the cherry blossom front

survey sakura zensen all

along the parks the shrines and temples

parading as the flowerstalks stalk and stall

stealing guerilla garden pots into this lovers’ paradise

where every day is Valentine’s

concrete

wrapped carefully in silk

the paper birds

crackle in the wind

the women creaseless suppin

look on them look

hanami look into

the flower: cherry, lotus, plum.

a spring onslaught of Eastern flowers, each

chocolate-scented blossom torn between

the giri and the honmei, the form

and emotion,

from Valentine’s Yin Cycle

1958

till White Day and Yang

counter-confectionary

1973

***

they would by Mao’s State of Grace

have kissed Kissinger crumbling

into invading feminine flood disaster

„giving birth to too many

children,” giving and giving

all living „blossoming places in this

most densely populated area.”

Pacific Garbage Sprawl

.
"My poor old island's still un-rediscovered",
poor old Crusoe's lament! Not even you
would ever survive being shipwrecked here,
washed up on this sterile folly continent
with no life-support, just syringes,
cigarette lighters, toothbrushes. Marooned,
no genius might civilize such a profuse
gyrating vortex, mostly plastic refuse,
nurdles and whatnot, hurled off ships and land.

Step on shore sailor, try imagining the tree,
or through those narrowed pupils, just a shade of green
shadowing the hueless epicenter. Could you squeeze
a few weak baby-steps against the hundreds of
nautical miles past Hawaii, almost to Japan,
trudging these final, fatal seconds, as the folds
of bin-liners, footballs, credit-cards drag you down
like quicksand? Try to breathe.

The Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage
Patches are two linked continents of swirling junk
translucently submerged, a hemisphere's leftover gunk
joined in a sloshing soup. "Every little piece
of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years
that made it to the ocean is still out there
somewhere," says Tony Andrady, a chemist.

***

Nothing, or a little malice? Death
of a million seabirds, a hundred thousand marine mammals
every year. Plastic Atlantis rising
becomes a predatory animal itself. Crusoe's reduced
to scavenge from the heartless, inorganic, barren sprawl.
And Man Friday? Perhaps a mangled Ken-doll.