BLUE MOON IN BEIJING
by K.Takara
Fuzzy full moon
Creates storms of bright shadows
Dark corners of emotion
Hiding secrets of undiscovered possibilities
Lights in Beijing
Advertise the city
Tower 5 stories atop still empty skyscrapers
Housing rationalizations of inflation
Moon struggles to shine
Amidst the blazing speculation
Reflecting an eeriliy lit sky
Through thick dust and smog.
Light beams on unfamiliar edges
Births inertia to explore
Bold expectations trapped
By self conscious difference.
My color stands out
Like an orchid in winter
The moon says break out
Let go, explore inner fears.
I listen to smiles
I taste the new friends
The full moon brews confidence
The blue moon charts a new chance.
Tourist Sketch
At No 9 Qi Dong Lu
A tall leafy tree towers above the belfrey next door
Between the church and the 3 story apartment building
Where the choir practices daily
on the other side of the Kwan Yin wall
Drowning out the weekly arhu lessons of the young girl.
Qingdao provides:
Nests for the birds
A pool for the carp
Excellent conditions for growing
The bright blue hydrangeas and plate size red roses
Next to the tea plants and bamboo
Shade, seafood, Laoshan water and beer
For the friends. Residents, foreigners, and tourists to enjoy
Always smartly dressed for work and socializing.
A secular fog horn blows in the nearby harbor
Remind of the trips to and from Golden Beach.
DELETORIOUS TIME
Hierarchy of deaf angels
Leave us with a terror of living and dying.
Our temporary home on earth
A few memories or many
Exposes habits and expectations
Moments of light laughter.
Dark sobbing
Foggy days, starless nights
Delete the vision
Cast downward to the rubble of earth.
Springtime flies away so quickly
A piano concert heard
A soaring song
A flowering tree
A lover’s embrace
A tranquil sea.
And then
We wake up
Our fate of emptiness exposed.
Abandoned by parents
Love, logic,
Time gnaws at our bodies
Brains
Beauty
Youth.
A desolate unknown
Stretches like a coffin
In a lugubrious procession of time.
QINGDAO MORNING
The morning mist lifts her veil
The face of Qingdao brightens
Reveals a small oasis
Hidden at the heel of Qingdao University
The lake is inside the gate
Surrounded by 100 willows
Leaning to the glassy water.
The small lake is a magnet
For iridescent dragon flies
And small playful water birds
They dip and dart
Skip and splash upon the sleek surface
Seeking small insects.
The lake is a mirror
Shimmers with the tender breath
of a summer breeze
Reflects the short buildings
dwarfed by new skyscrapers 40 stories tall.
The lake muffles sounds of
Laughing students,
Lingering lovers,
Serious scholars discussing concepts
Bustling traffic
Taxis, buses, cars, cycles,
Motor carts with towering bundles and heavy loads.
Unveiled
Beyond the gate
Qingdao becomes a typical Chinese city
8 million strong.
BIG BIRDS
Orioles on high roofs
Survey the scene of quiet lake
Squawk black and white at the stranger.
ALONE AT THE PAGODA
A white butterfly flits by
A blue black iridescent species
dances behind.
Do souls become butterflies
seeking a new reincanation?
A thought flashes a garuda bird
A golden orb reflects the sun on still water.
A fresh mood breaks through the Qingdao mist
A new moon in China.
Shimmering bright friend
A wedding of Psyche’s inspiration.
SCHOOL GIRLS
A noisy group of laughing girls
Taking pictures of each other
one by one
Posing their round faces
close to an old willow tree.
Two other girls walk down the steep steps
To the lake
Quietly holding hands
They pass slowly and stare
Smile shyly at the silent foreigner.
Disappear beyond the gate.
JADE BUTTERFLY
I sent you away
You whom I dreamed of
I could not face a future
With or without you.
I closed my jade door
When I wanted your love
The taste of your imminent absence
Obscured our green present.
I ignored your calling
Even as I fought my butterfly feelings
I wanted to hold and be held by you
To enjoy your touching.
I feared the future
With and without you.
STYMIED IN SUNLIGHT
Summer radiance
perilous to the veiled soul
Dare we show ourselves?
Our pampered gardens
Pale imitations of heaven's ethereal splendor
Why bother with dirt?
Winters of emotion
Storm through and dessicate possibilities
Stymy our efforts of regeneration.
The thousand petaled lotus of light
blooms in the mud.
WHERE GOEST THE JOY?
Where flows the smile of contentment
when all we cherish evaporates like dew
on the lawn of morning's dream?
Where goes the hug of spring
when those we love disappear like steam
from a fresh cooked favorite dish?
Where flies the soft and perfect skin of summer
the easy movement of laughter, the light of hope?
Where settles the harvest of wisdom
when Winter dims the sight, and sucks the life away?
The joy may be in the surprise
of the unknown promise.
RIDDLE
I
Why try to succeed
when we see ourselves
fade into a mere trace
of infinite and unfamiliar space,
shimmering dust on a dim and polluted path?
Why try again?
II
But for those we love
is it enough to try to capture
that fleeting sensation of joy
that unutterable hope
of another tomorrow?
HIDDEN SPLENDOR
I
At the pagoda
In the abandoned rock garden
Peach tree leaves shadow dance
on the cracked cement floor
Moving sculpture enchants.
Unfamiliar swallows
joyfully flit and hide in colorul Chinese rafters.
Honey bees
Souls of nymphs
Buzz and taste purple nectar
Morning glory delight.
Orange and white butterflies
Curious large orioles
Observe the writer
Share a space of silence and noise
in the overgrown rock garden.
II
Ragged hedge of mock orange blossoms
Leads to the place of 2 pagodas
Where fragrance wafts along untended rock pathways
And stone sculptures.
III
30 foot tall stone sculpture
Sits in the middle of a dirty pool
Filled with weeds and neglect.
Surprise: crimson lotus flowers
bloom bodaceously
Bounty hidden from easy view.
ALONE AND FREE
A lone leaf
half yellow half brown
blows haplessly in the morning breeze
unconsciously knowing freedom.
CELESTIAL INFLUENCE
New moon energy
Mercury retrograde now
Magnetic trouble!
REINCARNATED SOULS
Birds sing
Incessant sounds thrill in tiny songs
cheery chirps
caws and squawks
They rustle trees
Move the bushes and air
Sacred feathers in morning ceremonies.
WRITING CALLS
Through the barred windows of the computer room
Across the busy road,
Beyond the blaring currents
Horns, squeaking gears, students' laughter
The round pointed top of a pagoda catches my eye
Symmetrical and serene space
Silently calling me to come
To compose a poem.
AFTER WORK
At dusk
millions of bodies
ordinary citizens
move and surge like a swollen river
along the streets of Qingdao.
They ebb and flow
past the 100,000 street vendors.
Some stop to buy, to bargain, to bet
Others visit the specialty shops,
practice taiqi and ballroom dancing
incongruous in the crowded squares.
The women sparkle sophistication
fashionable pants, sparkling shirts,
summer dresses and smart shoes
mainly heels
adorned with sequins and rhinestones
common as the colorful silk scarves
they walk up and down the cobbled hills of Qingdao
on the smooth newly paved streets
defying and dodging the speeding cars
the throngs of new drivers with no driving lessons.
Some walk their miniature dogs and chat with friends
The men look more casual in jeans or slacks
Basic neutral colors,
occasionally shirtless, if the heat is extreme
Small and large groups play checkers, cards and majong
on portable plyboard tables,
use small folding stools
Others stop and watch the games
Engrossed by a favorite game, player, or move
The party guys pause and drink at the stalls
With bawdy vendors
of famous fresh Qingdao draft beer.
The men cough and spit, laugh and talk loudly,
while away the summer evenings until 9:30 or 10:00
when they amble home late to frowning wives
and turn in early.
PASSING TIME
Between the Catholic Church
And the 3 story apartment building
At 9 Qi Dong Lu
In the tropical seeming back garden
We sit together
Sipping beer, savoring friendship
Listening to the sounds of birdsong
Fog horns from the harbor
Church bells announcing the hour.
OBSERVATIONS (On the Train to Beijing)
Hurtling through the Northeast China countryside
On a muted silver day after a big rain
Orange tile roofs flash by
Everywhere industry, agriculture
Hundreds of cranes tower above passing villages/towns/cities
Beijing alone has 6000 cranes for towering buildings
All to be completed by the 2008 Olympics!
Tree farms and orchards of 10,000 plums, peaches, apricots, poplars
And other unfamiliar varieties,
spindly trunks supporting heavy spring leaves
New brick villages, old gray hutongs
houses plastered gray over red bricks
Fresh paint on all public thorough fares
Likely to be seen by the foreigners traveling around in China
Spacious rectangles of green, brown and blackened wheat fields
As far as the eye can see
across the flat land
Some fields lay fallow, others recently burned
Ready for the second planting
Solitary farmers or small groups work large plots
Bounded by rows of trees, corn, eggplant, beans, melons, asparagus
Parsley and 100s of unfamiliar fruits and vegetables
Wheat harvest mostly over,
Apricot season in full swing
Rain puddles, yellow wildflowers
Ponds and rivers cleaner than in the past 12 years
Of algae, chemical waste and other debris
Railroad tracks criss cross, intersect, or pass over each other
Revealing the complex networks of transportation
And rapidly expanding urban and industrial zones
Across the north east of the middle country.
Occasional country grave yards, tombstones irregularly spaced
Awkwardly placed, leaning like giant ghosts
Wet highways, slippery roads and muddy ponds do not deter the farmers
Who must be happy not to have to carry
endless buckets of water
to moisten each plant.
GIANTS
Towering electric poles
March across the horizon in Northeast China
Support glimmering straight lines in the sunlight
Connect cables to shining towns and cities
Sending light and energy
To terminals of technology
To hundreds of millions of people.
EVERYWHERE
New red brick village dwellings
Hemmed in by perfect straight roads
Suprise the stranger
Spying from the rapidly passing train.
Four to five story apartment blocks
Spring up to replace the ancient hutongs
and generational communities behind walls
Trees and gardens
In Shangdong Province.
ANOTHER PRIME DEVELOPMENT
On the road to Laoshan
Two-story villas
Hastily constructed for billionaires
Replace the humble huntongs of generations of fishermen
Such elegance provides vacation homes and speculative property
Where wealthy businessmen, high government and military officials
Buy and sell
Come to stay for a few weeks a year.
Otherwise, the residences remain empty
Not rented out.
Where are the fisherman and their families living
After the power and prestige moved in?
ARMIES OF WORKERS
Construction everywhere
Railroad tracks, roads, bridges, buildings
Push to clean up pollution, debris, trash and poisons
Rush to outshine American and Europe
Modernize China and 1.4 billion people
In thirty frantic years 。 。 。
one tenth the time it took to build America!
BING-le (Sick)
Chills, many sneezes
Summer solstice, heavy rains
Cheerless cold conquers.
COUNTRY LIFE, China Style
2, 5, 10, 20 km per hour
Common speeds on rural ways
Bicycles, mules and horse drawn carts,
Motorized 3-wheel wagons
Adult tricycles of every shape and design imaginable
Barely a car on the enpty roads
Near peasants’ villages and fertile fields.
SEASON OF SUN AND PLENTY
Tall as Amazons
Mounds of golden wheat harvest
Waiting to be threshed.
.
GATHERING STORM
Sunny flatlands yield to darkening hills
Charcoal mountains, shapes soft as a woman’s curves
Illusion of safety.
Flat fields yield to charcoal hills
Soft and smooth illusion
Like a jealous woman’s curves.
BY THE RAILROAD TRACKS
On the speeding train Number 26
White stones
Etched on the hillside like roman arches
Sculpted passages
Entertain the passengers
Daydreaming at the lace curtained windows.
.
POWER DRAIN
20-Story tall
Natural gas towers
Wide like 2 trailor trucks end to end
Supply large cities
Fuel to cook 1000’s of Chinese dishes
For millions of people.
Coal furnaces
shaped like an Amazon’s torso
belch bogs of billowing white smoke
Heat,energy, and food for the masses
Justifiable homicide.
EASY
Everywhere sprouting
In any direction
Construction 24/7
Each new community
10,000 buildings, 5 stories tall
7-10 units each floor
Each new city
Hundreds of moving cranes
Armies of young men from the country
Building, welding, hauling
Wheelbarrows of cement, breaking down with sledge hammers
Young muscles strining, tendons popping, old at 30
To feed the families in the countryside, left behind.
New housing for the investors
Nouveau riche, the displaced,
The technology and industry workers
Even the farmers
All over China.
NEAR WEI FENG
Tear down the old!
Build the new
Pay off the officials, watch dogs, planners, permit givers.
The new China
Develop the economic zones!
Every architect’s dream come true – especially 20 stories tall and more.
Exotic shapes, styles
Glass windows outweigh the cement structures
Gorgeous transparencies, magical reflections
Arranged geometrically in blues, greens, golds, navy
And occasional reds
Buildings tall and statuesque like obeliques
Short and round, shaped like mushrooms
Hotels, insurance companies, office buildings, company headquarters
Condos for the wealthy.
Brass and red calligraphy adorns the tops, the sides
The fronts of buildings
7-12 meters tall at times!
Lights on the roof tops and 5 stories below
Announce to all
The spectacular presence
Of post modern China and extravagant architecture.
CHINA’S FOOD
Farmers bend low to weed, cultivate and cut
Lean forward to hoe
Kneel to plant and transplant
Use their strong backs, legs, arms and rough hands.
Sometimes one can see two people work together
In tandem with the plow,
one pulls like a horse, mule or ox
and the other guides.
Men and women work,
young and old.
Nearby on the edge of a collective hectar
Bright yellow backhoes and tractors sit idle
In the new China
Who gets to use them?
RED FLAG ZONE
Toward Beijing
Miles and miles of agriculture
Intensive production
1000s of hectars of low green houses
Covered with white tranaslucent plastic
Topped with red flags
Housing unimaginable rows of fruits and vegetables
Sprinklers and pesticides
Food for millions and millions
After Jinan and before Tianjin.
Camouflaged gardens
Stretch as far as the eye can see
On both sides of the speeding train
Interrupted only by small clusters of trees
Houses with red tile roofs
Fertilizer factories
All in the name of food supply and production.
Where does the water come from?
Where are the bees?
CEMENT CONSTRUCTION
Cement and brick buildings
highways and bridges
Everywhere present
Built to endure.
Next week
The same is torn up, broken down, rebuilt
Another building, another road, another need
Bigger, stronger, better.
THREE HOURS FROM QINGDAO
The rainstorm follows the speeding trains
Hurtling toward Beijing
With thousands of passengers
Crisscrossing the countryside.
Hundreds of coal cars heavily laden
To and from the industrial zones,
Loading and unloading.
Oil refineries, natural gas tanks,
Giant coal towers that look like thick nuclear legs
Smoke stacks everywhere -
Tall, thin, straggly like toothpicks
Or rockets with red and white circles
All flooding the sky with smoke
Blanketing the cities and countryside with toxins
Fading into the skyline like ghosts.
Pollution seeds the air with poison
Rain and water sometimes unsafe
Who dares to eat the vegetables
Grown near this populated and polluted place?
BOILING NOODLES AND SNACKS
On the train
Chinese music plays classical arhu
Just before each stop.
The fuwuyuan sells:
Saimin in quart size cups
To be heated from the hot water thermos
found under the table in each car of the hard sleeper
Soft drinks and soda
Sweet snacks and pijiou
Trails of men move down the narrow space
to the open place between the cars
Eager to smoke, drink beer and laugh together
After eating lunch.
NEXT STOP JINAN
One half the distance
Between Qingdao and Beijing
Sprawls Jinan, ancient capital of Shangdong Province
Too hot in summer, too cold and drab in winter
Jinan is full of government functionaries and
High party officials, like mayors and governors
Conservative to boring, housing prisoners and dissidents
Jinan stands firm under the red thumb of Beijing.
JUXTAPOSITIONS
Tall bright street lights
Line the large highway
Full of new imported cars
Outside the new city.
Multiple colonies
Of towering cranes and displaced communities
Around the weeping willows.
BEFORE CONVERSION
Miles of coal yards
Mounds of coal
Waiting along the side of the tracks
To fuel the voracious needs
of postmodern materialistic hoards.
CONTRADICTING MODERNIZATION
Shiny spotless yellow backhoes
Tractors and trucks just shipped in
Look almost rediculous next to farmers
Working diligently with hoes, sickles
And buckets of hand carried water.
GOVERNMENT CONTROLS FOOD PRODUCTION
Cities, towns, rural
National factories, industry
Fields of agriculture
Small plots of uncultivated land
here and there
No private farms or farm animals to be seen.
Big people power to feed and be fed
One fifth of the earth’s population
In the ancient middle land
Abundant food supply for now.
JINAN SPRAWL
On the fast tracks
The train takes only 10 minutes to go in and out of town
Small miracle, considering the traffic of millions.
GIVING NOTICE
Artistic and flashy barrettes, belts and shoes
Brightly colored clothes moving
Every way different
Tradition yields to vanguard
To catch the attention
In a crowd of a billion plus
One must be unique and sparkle.
FAMILY
Your bright smile
My sweet fragrance
Seem far from the double rainbow.
The smell of a dogwood tree
How I long for my dead father.
A puakenikeni lei
How I miss
My second daughter.
SHIFTS
Gray government factory
Broken windows everywhere
High unemployment.
NIGHT IN BEIJING
At least 5 overpasses meet
Crisscross crazily above each other
Lit by thousands of tiny lights.
Underneath the precarious balance
Chinese men cluster in circles
Gambling on Chinese checkers.
CHI FAN LE MA?
Men travel on trains
Eat boiled peanuts and sunflower seeds
Smoke and drink beer and clear white jiu
Laugh and swear
Take care of each other
Forever friends.
OBSERVATIONS
T-26, car 12, seat 26
Bottom row, hard sleeper
6 bunks, large hot water thermos
Small table, comfortable quilt and pillow
Convenient hook to hang one’s clothes
Stretch out and take a rest
A good way to travel.
TIRED
Vineyards, quarries, large highways,
Unnamed trees, mountainous piles of coal
Isolated clusters of hills
Lotus root farms, great fields of rice paddies
And thousands of farmers up to their knees in mud
All whiz by as I notice my sore ass
Only half way to Beijing and 5 hours sitting on the train.
SEPARATION
Alone and speeding on a train
Seeing nameless trees
On spindly trunks
In forest farms
Trees grown taller than telephone poles.
Where are you now
Watching another landscape
Traveling to new possibilities
How tall is love
Under a fading sun?
NEW WORLD
A few goats
Farmers talking together in a vast field
Vendors waiting for buyers on the road side
Cars and buses overtake slower trucks, carts, cycles
Impatient to speed, seeing nothing.
Only a few white flowers
Adorn the unnamed trees
On both sides of another
Newly constructed highway.
SUMMER HEAT
The sun puses through
The thick veil of dark clouds
Briefly revealing small patches of pale blue sky
Beijing will be hot like a wok!
FAVORITE FOODS
Hot pots, steam boats
Beijing duck
Sweet and sour port
Tripe, liver, and kidney BBQ on a stick
Unforgettable dumplings
Endless varieties of soups
What will I miss the most?
1000 PREPARATIONS
Red fish, river fish
Jelly fish, cuttle fish
Clams and oysters
Shrimp and conch
Seaweek and mushrooms
Fungus and
Different sizes, colors and tastes
Each prepared differently
Hot, boiled, fried, baked and steamed.
TIAN JIN
Nest stop, Tian Jin
You and I are on separate journeys
Carrying our baggage of memories
Each moves towartd a central city
A hub of millions
I pass trains, laden with logs, coal, chemicals
You pass trucks and carts, laden with food, people and recyclables
All products of and for millions
Do you know
I have tears of sadness
Fears and trembling
For an unknown future between two old friends.
BEIJING
6000 cranes in Beijing today
Perched precariously
Turning slowly
Deliberately lifting and placing
Heavy loads
On 6000 buildings
Most more than 30 stories tall
24 hours a day
7 days a week
While workers, welders, plumbers, electricians
Work at maximum speed and capacity
On the great push
To complete the 6000 big projects
Before the 2008 Olympic Games.
EXCEPT FOR
Except for the gray gritty air
Beijing could be New York
Except for the 6000 cranes
Beijing could be Paris
Except for the million dancing night lights
Everywhere a glitter, every color, design and art
Imaginable!
Beijing could be Moscow
Except for the flower and tree lined freeways
Beijing could be Los Angeles
Except for the music and hutongs
Beijing could be Athens
Except for the fabulous food
Beijing could be Dallas
Except for the 6 story walk-ups
Beijing could be Honolulu
Except for the city of 17 million people
Beijing could be home.
ARCHITECTURE
Architecture in Beijing
Twin towers multiplied by 4
Joined by passages
Geometrical glass windows
Blues, greens, golds, in astonishing patterns
Irregular protrusions and colors
While atop the tall structures
Pyramids, circles, antennas, towers, penthouses
All lit up at night
Tops of buildings like flying roofs, pagodas, round towers
Semi circle designs
Buildings with insets, esers, joined by stairs and walkways
Buildings in semi circles with curved sides and wavey roofs
Buildings irregularly placed, part forward part backway, part at angles
Brick buildings of every color imaginable:
Pinks, peaches, mauves, whites,
Browns, grays, taupe, green, dark red, pale orange, yellow
Buildings with originally designed trim:
Blue, tangerine, walnut brown, yellow
A few buildings of marble and tiles
Many buildings built mostly of glass:
round towers,
geometrically designed masterpieces
90 degree triangles, facing each other
Full of enormous, extravagant, sparkling chandeliers
50 story skyscrapers with glass walls and bay windows
up and down 3 sides
Rectangle buildings with rounded sections
All astound the foreigners and peasants alike.
SIGNS AND PUBLICITY
It all comes down to lights, signs, and publicity
The Chinese are masters in allurement
Small and large publcity
Lights 5 stories tall at the tops of tall buildings
Rectangles and circles, gaudy and subdued
Across the middle of buildings and down low on the sides
Lights with moving backgrounds
Water, sunrises,
Simple geometrical shapes, cubes
While in the foreground the message and names remain
Lights flashing, running, twinklikng, circling
Thousands of tiny white bulbs in cylinders 8 stories tall
Lights artistically arranged like suns, palm trees, bottles, pinapples
Strings of lights along alternate balconies on 40 story buildings
Greens and blues, lanvenders and rose
Lights under every other window in high rises
Lights on the rails and sides of freeways and overpasses
Lights to show the flowers that line the street and highways
Lights in red lanterns outside restaurants
Some stacked in strings of rows several stories high
Lights 3 stories tall ont he front walls of large stores
Lights of music notes and bottles outside the nightclubs and discos
Lights up the escalators, tiny lights in the elevator floors, along the walls
Lights one story high but as wide as a restaurant that feeds 1000 people
Lights at Tian amen Square, the Emperor’s palance
The large hotels, the 6 table restaurants
Night lights in China
Make Christmas in America seem small and insignificant
But around 10 pm, 12 million apartments are mostly dark
As people turn in and sleep early.
LONGTAN PARK
At last a park
Where I can rest under a tree
Sitting on the grass
Across from a tall stone sculpture
And waterfall
An orange and white cat limps by near a tiny pagoda
At the bottom of the refeshing falls
Wedding pictures taken all around for the soon to be married couples
As they move from picturesque spot to another with the camera crew
Families, youngs parents, children and grandparents
Go fishing in the rubber pond for live goldfish
Set up at small tables to do watercolors
Duck, not dragon, boats move lazily back and forth
Over the waterways
While over there, noisey toy speed boats
Go in circles by remote control
Hard to find a quiet space in the shade
The grass is wet from watering
I find a tree and recline, against the custom
Gaze up at the green parasol of leaves from 7 trees
Suddenly I notice 3 fake life size coconut trees
Red, yellow and green fronds
Misplaced in Beijing.
GOOD FRIENDS
After morning rush
Massage
Dumplings
And the Long Tan Park
After the office
Computer
Editing a short story
And e-mail
After dinner
Chinese food
And grits
After the thunder
Rain shower
And dishes
We share
Watermelon delight
Shower
And early bedtime.
THE OLD PERFORMERS
The Cyprus Garden
At the temple of heaven
Provides a space
For old men and women
To relive their past splendor
Practice the erhu
Sign the old Beijing operas
With enthusiasm the sing above
The loud groups of erhu players
They lift their chests and lean forward
Complete with classical hand motions
Some of the ladies wear gloves
The men have large fans
As props for their parts.