12th step meeting
after tales of
wasted years
and reclamation
Yamatji girl said
'when I had a feeling
I had a drink'
and I laughed
softly
so as not to
offend anybody
she said
'no wonder ya larfed.
you're whitefella'
This Land In Time
'How quietly time collapses in a poem.'
–Yannis Ritsos
the land lies silent
under foot under hoof
under wheel
this land scarred
by English terms
of management
barbed-wire fences
rugged roads
open-cut mines
its people lost
in a culture so
foreign
Taibai Mountain poem
for Jen
I saw a shining moon last night
through leafy poplars and pines
on Taibai Mountain
and thought of you awake
amid the lowing of Brahman bulls.
I thought of Li Bai
spilling ink down the mountain
leaving black stains
and wondered whose Dreaming
spilt red on The Kimberley?
More rain today
Late Summer, Linfen
More rain today than fell last year. Pollution
coats the buildings as rain falls perpendicular.
Linfen's drainage system overflows
and baby-faced police huddle in muddy vans
while the townsfolk welcome the wash:
a little soap in the alleys' armpits,
sunny deodorant with dawn perhaps.
Inside, street vendors huddle, stretching
yesterday's Yuans like old inner tubes.
The gatekeeper pulls a grey sheet over
his knobbly knees on his roadside cot.
Beyond Linfen city, farmers wave as
roads run with mud and crops drink deep.
Tomorrow shines like sunflowers in their eyes.
China
with apologies to Ginsberg
China, I am packing up little pieces of you
ready to leave your sures and doubts,
ready to look over my shoulder with
a postscript wave and wonder.
China, it is dark under this tree and the moon
cannot penetrate your greedy industrial smoke.
I'm waiting to see how much poetry is in
the Dragon Boat Festival — Does it always
have to be about food, China? It's Qu Yuan's
death that's important, yesterday and today.
Can we learn from history, Big Panda?
If you go out on a weak limb, it will break.
China, too much America is not good for you.
Follow your own Confucius-Marx mix.
China, where's your Green Card?
Where's your Green Party?
Let them learn Mandarin, China —
you have enough people to swing it.
Don't let them seduce you with their beads
and mirrors. You're worth more than that.
I buy your trinkets and Good Luck charms
but I don't buy your Western ways.
This world is a hall of mirrors,
keep your eyes peeled.
It's not just currency that's counterfeit.
Andrew Burke is a Perth poet who has been publishing since the mid-1960s. In recent years he has taught at Shanxi Normal University in Linfen, China, and at Wanalirri Catholic School, Gibb River Station, in The Kimberley, Western