Or, rather, a poem with a few details that point specifically to a China setting - which is why I've had to suppress it until now.
The motorcycle-and-sidecar reference is, I think, very Beijing. There may be other cities where this phenomenon exists as well, but in all my travels I've never noticed it to anything like the extent we see it here. Old-fashioned motorcycle-and-sidecar combinations, putt-putting 'Wallace & Gromit' jobs, are a major cottage industry here: there are 100s of the things on the roads. Their popularity is perhaps now finally on the wane just a little (as mopeds and small motorcycles have been introduced in the last few years), but I think they will long hang on to a decent market since they are such a stylish and far, far cheaper alternative to a car. I've always hankered after one myself.
The fake 15th Century world map (link to the intermittently interesting East Asian history blog, Frog In A Well) - that, of course, was a topical reference from a year or so ago, tied in to Gavin Menzies' laughable book about the Chinese supposedly discovering the Americas a couple of generations before Columbus et al (but then forgetting to tell anyone - actually, that would be quite typical).
And the hand-grenade?? Well, there is a surprising vogue for 'army surplus' stores here. There was one on Dongdan my buddy Big Frank and I used to visit, run by a rather creepy young Chinese guy we dubbed 'Herman', after the character in The Simpsons (he kept a few snapshots around the store of himself in full Nazi regalia!). Live ordnance is probably not that easy to come by, but dummy hand-grenades abound.
I think I have commented on here before that "list poems are easy". Well, yes and no. See what you think. I really like the combination of funny & bleak here.
Don't ask me why I like the number '17' so much - I'm really not sure.
17 (or so) Things To Do Before I Die
Learn to yodel
Shave my head
Climb the Great Wall
(And startle tourists with my yodelling)
Run a Marathon
Write a novel
Buy a case of good scotch to celebrate
Buy a work of modern art
Buy a fake 15th Century map of the world
Buy a hand-grenade
Buy a motorcycle-and-sidecar
Buy an inflatable woman
Buy a bikini (two bikinis!)
Ride around town on the motorcycle
With the inflatable woman in the sidecar
Both of us wearing bikinis
Ditch the inflatable woman, try to pick up girls
Offer them a ride
Ask them to wear the bikini
Learn to endure the repeated rejections
And when I have grown good at that
I will come and find you
Hear your side of the story
Forgive you
Sleep with you one last time
Forgive myself
Pull the pin from the grenade
Disclaimer: I know this takes a turn towards the dark and stalker-ish at the end. This really isn't me. I don't brood on things excessively, and I'm certainly not a grudge-bearer about failed relationships. Writing allows us to live other lives. However, there were some references to myself thrown in; I think a few of my friends got a bit alarmed when I wrote this at the beginning of last year - because I had just shaved my head and started training for a Marathon.
5 comments:
even with the disclaimer
eyes grew wide - startled
as I watch you pull the pin
it's good, it's a keeper.
trying to imagine you with a shaved head - with such nice hair - why would you do that? does it really add that much to your running speed?
Glad you like it.
Yes, I've moved the 'disclaimer' to afterwards - it might have been getting in the way of a 'raw' experience of the poem, free of preconceptions.
I do tend to write a bit too much about the poems I post on here. If I were reading them in public, I don't think I'd have that problem; but in this forum, you're never sure what's going to become of them, who's going to read them and when and how, and you want them to have a fighting chance of being understood and appreciated in a certain way. It's a bit like sending your kids out into the pool with water-wings, I suppose. Over-protective parenting - they'll never learn to swim properly that way!
Many advantages of a shaved head - not streamlining as such, but it does stop you overheating so quickly when the weather's warm. It also creates a useful aura that you are "not to be messed with" - I first did it when I went Greyhounding round the States 10 years ago..... and I never seemed to have any trouble getting a double seat to myself! Very useful on long-haul travel.
I read your poem and thought that the last bit about "Hearing her side of the story" was a good idea and I wonder why you have not done it yet -if this is about the Evil one.
But then I read the disclaimer and the comments, and thought then it's not you!
But never the less, it would help to find her and hear her story, from "far away", or in a neutral place over a cop of coffee.
If this was 'inspired' by anyone, it was my more recent amour, The Poet.
As I've recalled elsewhere, I did talk extensively with The Evil One - about everything but the relationship. I don't think there were any dark secrets or unresolved tensions in that breakup; she just didn't do commitment, valued her independence too much. The thing that saddened me most was that she insisted on breaking off all contact, on refusing ever to speak to me again. (It wasn't out of any anger or resentment against me; it was just her tactic for protecting herself against too many regrets, for making a rather radical 'fresh start'.)
The Poet was, in fact, worryingly similar in many ways. At least I am still in regular contact with her - but again, the relationship is the one thing we do not talk about.
I say this one more time, it would be really good for you if you could talk about the relationship and termination of it and the effects it has had on your life. If she is a friend now, and you think she'd be understanding, then ask her if she could do this for you.
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