"westerner" poems
I went to meet her in a town
just west of Kyoto
she was wearing a colourful flowing kimono.
She greeted me greedily
and she seemed to float ultra easily on her feet
which were tiny
petite.
In the bath house, a tub
an afternoon scrub
and some very green tea.
When the washing was done
Mah Jong
Oh what fun
as I bathed in the glow of the late evening Sun.
Then I woke up in Bow
East London, as if I didn't know
was it a dream?
And yet I was surprisingly clean
except for a tea leaf that clung to my sleeve.
Hard to believe but it's true.
I wouldn't kid you
and it's difficult to see how a tea leaf from green tea
can end up in my bed.
In a town West of Kyoto there's a story they tell
Of a Westerner doing quite well
and getting wed to the belle with the petite little feet
I'd like to meet
him.
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 4:06 AM UTC
My poems, where are they from?
Westerner.
An appellation, of the 'hood of my nation,
Customary identity association,
But not one that springs to mind,
When they inquire, as they do,
Hey man, tell us about your "self."
But there is no deniability,
At least three hundred years,
That my father was aware,
Europe to America,
Westward ** the seeds sown.
From the banks of the Lippe,
Ocean crossing to NYC,
From the Krakow Ghetto
To the shores of the
Manhattan Indian Reservation,
By the banks of the grandest river Hudson,
They journeyed, they sojourned,
Staying for awhile, scattering across the Midwest,
"Coming to America."
Yet out West,
I am an Easterner,
My hometown teams,
In the East Division,
And this schizophrenia
Is non-problematical.
But where are my poems from?
I have studied the time zones,.
The AM's and the PM's.
I know when I deliver this to you,
If the sun is rising or setting,
Whether to greet you with
नमस्कार or magandang umaga,
Greet you with a "Good Sabbath!"
Or an Insh'Allah...
But where are my poems from?
Bog of technical definitions,
Matters not, my poems have no
Passport to be stamped,
The Customs lines they cross are the
Customs of mine and yours.
The are both immigrant and emigre,
Experienced, well travelled, they familiar
With the right satellites to
Grace thy welcoming space.
Tap dance, recitations of evasions,
Answer the question man,
But where are my poems from?
You tell the when, the how but not the
Where.
We can't wait much longer,
The inbox heavy with homework,
Your poems to love, like and take.
Don't you see?
They, born in the West,
For lack of a better answer,
Clock and setting sun racers,
Surfing the Atlantic, Indian,
Circumnavigating the Pacific Isles,
Is just the course they take
When out my window sent.
But is that your answer,
Their path, to the single quest,
From the West, is that the best
Answer you can equivocate,
Where do they come from?
**No.
Obviously,
They come from you...**
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 6:42 AM UTC
The miraculous Quinoa has been exported out of the local market.
The westerner deems this as their super deed.
The idea that the Inca finally died at the grocery shop
grew root,
furnished beneath the serving glare of the exceptional crocheted beards.
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 8:40 AM UTC
there was a girl at friedrichstrasse station
she waved
through the barrier
with dainty hands and gentle eyes of kindness
and i smiled at her carefully making sure
nobody noticed my face
the gleam in her eyes doe-like and sweet like she cared
even though she didn’t know me even though
she was supposed to hate me
even though it’s been hours days weeks months
years i still think of her
those shining eyes that smile that changed me
the westerner that i should not have looked at
wanted craved
for so long even while my friends kissed
boys at midnight under the stellar stars
in alexanderplatz
my mind still returned to her loyal
the way a dog returns to its master
forever thinking of the girl at friedrichstrasse station
Sep 18, 2019
Sep 18, 2019 at 3:51 PM UTC
Default African,
Yes I am,
And a disgrace for that matter,
Yet African with Katekism,
I am supposed to be,
Come rain, sunshine or high waters,
I have betrayed you Africa,
I have 'back-stabbed' you in the face,
And spit rotten phlegm in the wound,
Giant mother,
With this badge of slavery I now proudly wear,
**** me.
Never have I washed my father, Or mother,
Never have I washed my grandfather or grandmother,
Neither of these have I ever dared looking after,
Yet today,
I assume total custodianship and curator-ship,
I take care of some grandfather and grandmother,
Somebody's father,
Somebody's mother,
Somebody's grandfather,
Somebody's grandmother.
Only yesterday I was told,
Your father and mother passed away last year,
And so did your brothers and sisters,
And they were all buried like dogs,
Their burials were the talk of town,
How could you let that happen,
How could you,
And I am these enermies' comfortable door mate.
My grandfathers were colonised,
Because of our rich land,
And now I have been extensively colonised,
Because of their pound,
Because of wanting to be a Westerner – overseas,
Away from you,
Continent of respect and dignity,
Continent of dance and song,
A continent pregnant with untold tales.
My sick mind has been colonised,
Graduating me into a nefarious modern commercial slave,
Just but an echo of an old tune,
A worse slave than my ancestor,
The Kunta Kintes,
I am a cheap voluntary slave,
Who has been gratuitously deserted by his values,
The African values.
I stand accused before myself,
I am a cumbrous culpable default African,
An African who has lost his ebullient Africanness,
A charlatan ********** African on a detour,
A dismantled, shameless self destroyed pimple,
A nauseating counterfeit second hand African,
An extraneous stain on Africa's underwear,
I am of as much value to Africa,
As is an over- used ****** to a filthy growth point **********
Regrettably, that is the African I have become.
How I wish I washed my father and mother,
How I wish I washed my grandparents,
How I wish I took care of them,
The wish is killing me badly,
I may as I have run away from you Africa,
But never from Africanness,
Litres of your blood flows in body pipes,
I am because you are,
I am a default African.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 8:01 AM UTC
He Who Presents Visions
He personally fills the frame with a largeness broad shoulders wears the western hat perfectly the
Quintessential westerner handsome he projects comfort he stands good in tall trees he meets life on his
Terms confidence he projects easily with ease he takes his surroundings from their settings transfers
Them to canvas with deftness perfect tone and hue he captures his subjects he takes breathing living
Creatures and landscapes projects his vision of them in intricate detail he creates their life anew in
Flawless demonstrations he prepares this depth of understanding in the studio it is compelling it will
Touch draw ignite your emotional will into the viewing of his work you will see strength exhibited as
Naturally as if you were observing the original in the sight that he had the same light and shading the
Boldness that crosses from ordinary to beautiful his eye never wavers from magnificence and his
Fingers delicately follows the mental picture soft to strong the essence of being is being told wonder
Lives large in his expressive paints a telling by a master in full power of his talent nature is fused
With every ounce of reality that she gives of her proud display structures rise their presence
Phenomenal they have an essence that grabs holds your imagination only lets go when it has given all
Of the pleasure it contains one represented beast of the field causes a staggering effect that empowers
You to make a connection with the heard that is unseen but in your mind you know that it is there the
Billowing cloud and blue sky activates sensations that flow out and over you overwhelming feelings
Burst over you like a cloud burst on a rainy spring day flowers in profusion carpet the land they start
At the edge of the coral at the end of the barn and gently climb up the sloping hill far beyond the snow
Capped peaks shout of grandeur untold sweeping you to the end of a world bordered in a frame and
told on canvass
Oct 25, 2012
Oct 25, 2012 at 6:02 PM UTC
I’d been reading about boy insemination in the Sambia, Papau New Guinea. As a ritual rite of passage in this war-torn enclave, boys aged 8 to 10 were taken from their mothers to become men. This ritual included things a Westerner couldn’t fathom doing to a child - shoving sugar cane up their noses until they poured blood, forcing them to **** flutes to mimic ******** and ultimately, swallowing “male milk,” their sponsors’ ********* which according to tradition will rid them of their evil mothers’ poison and make them warriors.
Heavy ****
You know the response that happens in your body when you experience the luxury of your food begin too hot? You kind of breath in and out, rapidly, mouth open, until the food cools down? Sitting in the cafeteria, eating a bowl of vegetables and quinoa created in a vegan space certifying no cross-contamination, I found myself making this face. This stupid, ***** “oh no my mouth may feel weird for a day or two” reflex that immediately made me sick.
I decided to close my mouth. To lean into the fleeting, no-more-than-inconvenient pain instead of running from it.
I think it may have changed my life.
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 5:23 PM UTC
It long been known to many that the black male is a threat to the white race.
Whether real or not.
Many frightful if the hell or vision of abuse from the Civil Rights movement many endured.
Obviously, those violent days if happen today would create WAR.
But one must understand things has changed.
No more butlering and maid days is required for many African Americans.
Which brings us to the Hell of Wendy Bell views.
Which hardly factual but more based on her stereotype based solely on reporting of the news.
Should we be upset?
Should we be protesting?
Which obviously some will do.
Or seek balance of truth within the news.
A great majority know most crime is black on black mostly.
And a majority of greater white crimes gets washed over by the press.
Why?
Cause they don't want the whites to obviously be upset seeing themselves.
The Hell of Wendy Bell lies in her perspectives.
Where in her job she forgot to be less objective?
Truth lies in the justice or injustice of the courts.
Where one race of minorities gets to see the cells?
While one cries about mental issues to avoid detention.
Columbine or the Theater clown, where many was killed?
Than this exposed the truth that Wendy Bell can't fathom.
When counting bodies based upon race.
The facts soon exposed the true face of killers.
Where you find some hiding in bravery behind purchasing of guns?
Like they some westerner type cowboy in the movies.
Which brings us to another truth.
Many parents gets killed more by legal weapons used by white youth.
Deny if you like.
But this mostly the main truth.
Which the Wendy Bell of the world avoids.
Mar 31, 2016
Mar 31, 2016 at 7:10 AM UTC
He Who Presents Visions
He personally fills the frame with a largeness broad shoulders wears the western hat perfectly the
Quintessential westerner handsome he projects comfort he stands good in tall trees he meets life on his
Terms confidence he projects easily with ease he takes his surroundings from their settings transfers
Them to canvas with deftness perfect tone and hue he captures his subjects he takes breathing living
Creatures and landscapes projects his vision of them in intricate detail he creates their life anew in
Flawless demonstrations he prepares this depth of understanding in the studio it is compelling it will
Touch draw ignite your emotional will into the viewing of his work you will see strength exhibited as
Naturally as if you were observing the original in the sight that he had the same light and shading the
Boldness that crosses from ordinary to beautiful his eye never wavers from magnificence and his
Fingers delicately follows the mental picture soft to strong the essence of being is being told wonder
Lives large in his expressive paints a telling by a master in full power of his talent nature is fused
With every ounce of reality that she gives of her proud display structures rise their presence
Phenomenal they have an essence that grabs holds your imagination only lets go when it has given all
Of the pleasure it contains one represented beast of the field causes a staggering effect that empowers
You to make a connection with the heard that is unseen but in your mind you know that it is there the
Billowing cloud and blue sky activates sensations that flow out and over you overwhelming feelings
Burst over you like a cloud burst on a rainy spring day flowers in profusion carpet the land they start
At the edge of the coral at the end of the barn and gently climb up the sloping hill far beyond the snow
Capped peaks shout of grandeur untold sweeping you to the end of a world bordered in a frame and
told on canvass
Nov 17, 2011
Nov 17, 2011 at 5:43 AM UTC
waiting for minutes to deliver movement
two tennis ***** on the platform edge
unlikely random symmetry
maybe this is art?
when we arrive in another town
we face the same commands
BE THE BATMAN
BE A GREAT WESTERNER
—so many commands!
everything runs like clockwork,
until we hit the bars
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 7:45 AM UTC
There is tropical warmth
Inside my heart, that
Only an Island girl can understand
Why we eat the mango, the way in which we do it:
Making that small hole at the top, as the sweet juice
Sipped into our mouth, Like fresh breast milk
Mangoes help you unclog your pores
and add freshness to the face.
The internet is changing the way in which we think
Too much **** information, on things
That we already know from long ago:
Knife and fork to eat my mango;
Yeah right!!! Leave my island mango alone
Tourist westerner man!
Not once did I mention
the relationship between the island girl, the warmth
or the joy we gets from eating a mango…
but I will let you in on a little secret
it's the Organic ******* with the timing...
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 5:58 PM UTC
Don't be too kind
Too loving
You'll be thought of
As weak
The small waves
Wear away the stone
Over time
The westerner
Misunderstands time
The nature of life
He must be constantly "doing"
His health depreciates
Because of the love of money
The world is an empty
Open space
Like a woman
It is nourishes all things
It lies low
In silence
It's okay
To be kind
And gentle
We are here to lose
You and I
Here to lose the game of life
I am here
Then I am there
I like living alone
And I don't care
I won't work
Won't work at all
There was a drone
Flying in the sky
In the park
On that day
I don't really have
Much to say
Except
It's repeating again
The cycles are repeating again
I live in a program
I cannot win
I'm poor
Alone
I don't care
This place is not
At all fair
I'm sick of those people
Go away
I don't want to see them
Not today
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 8:59 PM UTC
When your face drains to white
and black grows around your eyes,
when you continue to live in mid-night songs,
even as your heart beat becomes a surprise.
When the weekend's velveteen fields
are filled with resentment, and stained blue -
every **** text, upon every eve,
two years straight and still I hope it's you.
You were the painful medicine,
replacing my October-distraught sinews,
two hearts beating blindly
one out of synch, starting to confuse;
oh I'm running, I'm crying
and I'm racing the dawning clock -
you're so transfixing, and surprising
lurking where reality stops;
loving you is like loving a blade,
one lone westerner
comforting, stroking, fulfilling his own demise -
I'm useless, pathetic,
and you're still Pretty Crystal Blue Eyes...
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 6:52 PM UTC
Dear ...
Yours is a post PhD thesis and sets us thinking about what life is but definitions are relative and subjective as philosophy and morality is not science--more by way of speculation and hypothesising. Truth is sui generis--we de-sanctify it by claiming we know it but it stands askance.
I would look at life in awe and in recognition of the limits of my own understanding, also in acknowledgement of my lack of maturity and perspicacity ---I shall not pre-empt bur rather live a day at a time-if lucky enough, I might learn to know a bit, just a tiny bit more ,of myself and my relation to life.
I do not need to have an answer to life's mysteries, complexities, nuances or its contradictions as my happiness and wellbeing does not rest on knowledge--I would deem myself lucky to have some oblique insight--to be able to see a moment in its intrinsic state is quite enough--though it is not enlightenment, a new consciousness would have dawned upon me as what was reflected by Blake in his AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE.
Whether life has meaning or not is definable only by personal experience, stripped of external influences or the ranting of writers and philosophers---it is the perennial 'I' and 'Life' that is the crux.
Existentialism is but a lonely and isolated way of looking at life and might be better suited for Western thinking in its vague and dubious search for answers to living unlike the Eastern which seeks to live in harmony with the self and the universe. As such, the West is Yang and the Eastern, Yin--the former involves struggle of the self, the latter is strife-free in its benign acceptance, acquiesce, humility, compassion and subjugation of the ego and not over-doing or over-achieving. That the West is bending more and more towards Zen, Taoism and Buddhism clearly shows a sharp shifting of thinking in espousal of Eastern wisdom.
Love is more real than life as it impinges upon me in my relation to those whom I love and also in my knowing I am loved in return.
It is not an abstraction like life or truth.
What shall save me at the end is not understanding nor knowledge
but rather in recognising I am but a ripple in the limitless vastness of the sea of life and my acceptance of such.
Do I make sense, dear Master?
My IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ZEN--THE PATH TO A CALMER AND HAPPIER LIFE (published by Brolga Publishing, Melbourne) is on sale in 14 countries under Lim-- for rating vide Lim Sing AbeBooks, et al.
It mentions, inter alia, existentialism, Camus and Sartre
with my deep esteem.
Aug 8, 2020
Aug 8, 2020 at 11:59 PM UTC