Thursday, February 01, 2007

Lingo Bingo

Recently I read some ten line verses by Fanny Howe, and was taken with them, so I tried my hand at similar, but used it to my own purposes:

Lingo Bingo


the air here is thick with shibboleth
he comes down for da shui not just
to drink but to feel the temperature
expatriot ghettos breed insecurity
it is shortly after the reason to be jolly
now in the season of promise I pause
with a China Post pen in the air
she points at the page to indicate
press harder to be read push down
to give it all birth to give it all berth

*


Those born on the last day will have no name
and come swimming out of one language
into the rocky mouth of the next out of
some lingua franca of muttered remnants of
father’s post-coital snore and mother’s desire
amphibious tongues licking wet wombs
'Feel that! did you feel that? he moved!'
shouting out at the first fresh breeze
the art of Mandarin is in pronouncing it tonally
‘Israeli PM to visit China on heels of Iran official’


quote from Fanny Howe

*


It’s lingo bingo. Let’s nuke it, Dad.
‘Mullah Omar says hasn’t seen bin Laden
for years.’ In the Sakura Hotel restaurant,
a Zimbabwean’s young son wants to
try them all—Chinese, English, Japanese …
breakfasts without borders. Let’s nuke it, Dad.
‘Twin car bombs kill 75 in Baghdad market.’
It’s gene-pool polo with Bush and Hussein: clans,
castes and religions. Lingo bingo, chatting over
the borderline fence(s). Let’s nuke it, Dad.


*

I was a salmon once and look at me now
with a gouty foot and drenched in thought
pulling petals off roses as I think of Blake
fears and the guilty side of testicles
down among bushes of memory
which ring the alarm at half past midnight
and I stay awake pondering
my wilful heart unnerves me till dawn
then rows me out to the middle of a lake
and (slowly) fades to black



quote from Robert Kelly

*


In the Sakura Hotel, Kunming,
I transfer my wet Beckett T-shirt from
bathroom to lounge. He’s inside out, so
I remember Christ’s image reversed on
a kindly parishioner’s towel. Imagination
is the one weapon against reality.
I
wonder which woman and what city,
but time will end one day and
the bo-tree will have leaves or not
and it will not matter.


quote from Jules de Gaultier


The headline quotes are from Reuters.

I may continue this 'series', using quotes from poets and Reuters as they come to my notice.

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