Diana Woodcock
Michael Gregory
Diana Woodcock
.
.
Year of Lhasa
Around the yaks’ necks, golden flecks of
sunlight fall on timbrel bells. Leavening
the city with prayer, pilgrims arrive each
day in droves. Dust clouds rise like incense
off unpaved roads. Monks chant prayers,
making ritual stairs to heaven from palace,
marketplace and monastery. Rancid yak
butter tea stinks in musty shops and cafes.
Wind whimpers through cracks in the wall.
Bits of sod roof fall onto our bed. All day the
dread of sunset and the cold of night. Dagger-
like icicles cling to laundry hung drying on
the balcony. Two Chinese men play elephant chess
while keeping one eye on us, the range
of the Himalayas wrapped round us all—stark
and gray save for their snow caps, each peak sharp
as the angel shark’s backward curving teeth.
All day pilgrims wind their way around the Jokhang
Temple, chanting and spinning hand-held prayer
wheels. Nowhere to go—this city always their
destination— they move in slow motion, some so
old or sick they’ve come to die in this sacred place.
Before nightfall, they settle by the river,
light their fires with yakpats, play homemade lutes
and reed pipes, drink butter tea while their yaks
graze and the haze of their fires rises like incense
over the river, drifting with their prayers and the
flashing shorebirds on the shifting wind across
the Himalayas and the closed border to the exiled
Dalai Lama.
Around the necks of the young girls, ivory
pearls of moonlight fall on stringed shells.
Every night every one of them dreaming
of that thousand-mile flight.
Bio:
Diana Woodcock is the author of Swaying on the Elephant’s Shoulders, which won the 2010 Vernice Quebodeaux International Poetry Prize for Women and is forthcoming from Little Red Tree Publishing. Her three chapbooks include In the Shade of the Sidra Tree,), a nominee for the Library of Virginia poetry award (Finishing Line Press), Mandala (Foothills Publishing), and Travels of a Gwai Lo—the title poem of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Toadlily Press. Currently teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, she has lived and worked in Tibet, Macau and Thailand.
(author retains copyright)
.
Year of Lhasa
Around the yaks’ necks, golden flecks of
sunlight fall on timbrel bells. Leavening
the city with prayer, pilgrims arrive each
day in droves. Dust clouds rise like incense
off unpaved roads. Monks chant prayers,
making ritual stairs to heaven from palace,
marketplace and monastery. Rancid yak
butter tea stinks in musty shops and cafes.
Wind whimpers through cracks in the wall.
Bits of sod roof fall onto our bed. All day the
dread of sunset and the cold of night. Dagger-
like icicles cling to laundry hung drying on
the balcony. Two Chinese men play elephant chess
while keeping one eye on us, the range
of the Himalayas wrapped round us all—stark
and gray save for their snow caps, each peak sharp
as the angel shark’s backward curving teeth.
All day pilgrims wind their way around the Jokhang
Temple, chanting and spinning hand-held prayer
wheels. Nowhere to go—this city always their
destination— they move in slow motion, some so
old or sick they’ve come to die in this sacred place.
Before nightfall, they settle by the river,
light their fires with yakpats, play homemade lutes
and reed pipes, drink butter tea while their yaks
graze and the haze of their fires rises like incense
over the river, drifting with their prayers and the
flashing shorebirds on the shifting wind across
the Himalayas and the closed border to the exiled
Dalai Lama.
Around the necks of the young girls, ivory
pearls of moonlight fall on stringed shells.
Every night every one of them dreaming
of that thousand-mile flight.
Bio:
Diana Woodcock is the author of Swaying on the Elephant’s Shoulders, which won the 2010 Vernice Quebodeaux International Poetry Prize for Women and is forthcoming from Little Red Tree Publishing. Her three chapbooks include In the Shade of the Sidra Tree,), a nominee for the Library of Virginia poetry award (Finishing Line Press), Mandala (Foothills Publishing), and Travels of a Gwai Lo—the title poem of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Toadlily Press. Currently teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, she has lived and worked in Tibet, Macau and Thailand.
(author retains copyright)
Return
Michael Gregory
.
.
Remembering
Speaking truth to power
Fighting fire with fire
Keeping alive to fight again
the battle if not the war
There are many ways to resist
witnessing
testifying
putting money where your mouth is
body on the line
a monkey wrench in the works
Many ways to prepare
remembering
the body bags
the mustard gas
the Kamikazes
Ghost Dancers
suicide bombers
remembering
Buchenwald
Hiroshima
Rwanda
remembering who paid
for surgical strikes
smart bombs
strategic rapes
tactical bombers
death squads
mass graves
There are many ways to resist
lying down on the job
lying in
lying in wait
instead of just lying
remembering
Pearl Harbor
the Gulf of Tonkin
the Bay of Pigs
the Pueblo, the Maine
Abu Ghraib
Guantánamo
the broomstick in Brooklyn
Rodney King in L.A.
the ace of clubs the king of diamonds
the pentagon the tower
connecting the dots
the poppy fields to the oil fields
the cotton fields to the coke plantations
boardrooms to party platforms
bank accounts to body counts
world banks
world trade organization
world trade center
world market
stock market
slave market
new world order
self-interest to vested interest
interest rates to tax breaks
sweat shops to laundered money
to keeping up with the Joneses
civil rights to human rights
birth rights to last rites
remembering
what wasn’t on TV
what isn’t on the history channel
Operation Chaos
Project Phoenix
Operation Mindbend
debt debit deficit doubt
Project Artichoke
Project Naomi
Project Monarch
the High Arctic Auroral Research Project
the harp angels don’t play
remembering who you are
remembering who you aren’t
Bio:
An internationally-recognized toxics activist for many years, Michael Gregory's poems have appeared widely online and in print journals. He is the author of several books and chapbooks, including most recently, re: Play (Pudding House 2009). Mr America Drives his Car: Poems 1978-2010 is forthcoming from Education in Reverse Press.
(author retains copyright)
.
Remembering
Speaking truth to power
Fighting fire with fire
Keeping alive to fight again
the battle if not the war
There are many ways to resist
witnessing
testifying
putting money where your mouth is
body on the line
a monkey wrench in the works
Many ways to prepare
remembering
the body bags
the mustard gas
the Kamikazes
Ghost Dancers
suicide bombers
remembering
Buchenwald
Hiroshima
Rwanda
remembering who paid
for surgical strikes
smart bombs
strategic rapes
tactical bombers
death squads
mass graves
There are many ways to resist
lying down on the job
lying in
lying in wait
instead of just lying
remembering
Pearl Harbor
the Gulf of Tonkin
the Bay of Pigs
the Pueblo, the Maine
Abu Ghraib
Guantánamo
the broomstick in Brooklyn
Rodney King in L.A.
the ace of clubs the king of diamonds
the pentagon the tower
connecting the dots
the poppy fields to the oil fields
the cotton fields to the coke plantations
boardrooms to party platforms
bank accounts to body counts
world banks
world trade organization
world trade center
world market
stock market
slave market
new world order
self-interest to vested interest
interest rates to tax breaks
sweat shops to laundered money
to keeping up with the Joneses
civil rights to human rights
birth rights to last rites
remembering
what wasn’t on TV
what isn’t on the history channel
Operation Chaos
Project Phoenix
Operation Mindbend
debt debit deficit doubt
Project Artichoke
Project Naomi
Project Monarch
the High Arctic Auroral Research Project
the harp angels don’t play
remembering who you are
remembering who you aren’t
Bio:
An internationally-recognized toxics activist for many years, Michael Gregory's poems have appeared widely online and in print journals. He is the author of several books and chapbooks, including most recently, re: Play (Pudding House 2009). Mr America Drives his Car: Poems 1978-2010 is forthcoming from Education in Reverse Press.
(author retains copyright)
Return
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