Download - Our Ancestors Were Chinese Cranes
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Our Ancestors
Were Chinese Cranes
Lyrical Poems
by John Freed
Phoenix and Son PressPortland, OR
2016
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dedicated to my wife,
Stacy Alexander
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In order to arrange for poetry readings or
on-site, creative writing workshops
contact the author
John Freed
Portland, OR
© Copyright (2002-20!" #y John Freed
all right$ re$er%ed
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Proloue
!i"in in a #a$anese %ouse
Your shadow plays
across the paper screen
collapsing eyes on moth wings.
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&rom San 'ieo(s )lac* )each
Cactus grows leeward.
Naked bodies lie
random and sexless as birds
while the ocean's yeasty arms rush my shoes.
Five pelicans ascend with
the cliff's quick lift
into the boy's idea of a squadron.
pair of Navy !ets erupts like steam
from a cappuccino machine
heading out low over the "acific.#ingtips nearly touch like sprinting lovers.
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A Re"iew of &reud(s Anti+uities
Freud's antiquities were on display recently
at the $laffer %allery
on the campus
of the &niversity of ouston.
shirt pocket(si)ed* cookie cutter cut* clay female figure
of +yrian attribution
caught my fancy.
er wide hips* bird face* ambiguous breasts
and much more practically placed pubis
seemed the simplest answer to all the old man's questions.
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Asia #ournal
yoto $orcelain
,yoto porcelain
whirling dervish of coffee cream
shawls of mountain rain.
yoto(s %eian Shrine
-s it an antique paintingof eian +hrine at
cherry blossoming
-n a gray mountain frame
/hree sharp +hinto
claps make it so.
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A Post-Card from yoto at Rush %our
perverse quiet even at rush hour
even from battalions of uniformed teens
afraid of awakening warlord emperors
t the "ink $unny Cafe a pastel blue elephant styli)ed into a ball
wrapped around a raspberry bear
0ld women squashed
into the shape of a 1
crossing the streets gla)ed with rain
0ne thousand and one gold lacquered
radiantly female images of ,annon
manifested upright for 233 years
nother wooden temple so vast
that only rope braided from women's hair
could have dragged its enormous beams
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glass geometrical monolith
vaster than $lade 4unner's
imagined future contains
/he panther train eager to carry me
back to 0saka leaving maybe
a moved pebble at 4engeo(in 1en garden.
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.o*yo /rand au*i
/he kabuki drum
draws our onnagata
towards her certain death.
ara .em$le 'eer
5uick(eyed deer at Nara /emple
extort their mealsfrom stricken pilgrims.
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.ai$ei O$era School
Charming children
!uggle 6'ing bowls with their feet
for the delight of strangers.
/uilin arsts
#e are drunk
from snake wine.
Caravans of camel karsts
float past our tourist boat.
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On the /reat Wall South of Chende
0n guard now only against
the sounds of bees
and mountain winds
- still long for your voice
like a desolate soldier.
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&irst m$eror(s /ra"e 3ound at 4ian
-t will take much more than 7*888 clay warriors
and rivers of mercury
/o protect the dead emperor
from his slaughtered people's wrath.
/heir heirs won't be bought off by the
pomegranates and bright orange flowers.
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m$eror 3ao in .ienanmen S+uare
Far from that wooden hall
in polyglot Canton
where he was lean and hard
as a lightning rod
6ao lies forever a most imperial saint
sepulchered in his giant9s flesh.
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Wei 3in in Wuhan
/hree small leaves
lay in her ivory hand.
+he was the girl again sent down
some twenty(five years ago
to work in the North
on a tea commune.
/en kilos a day of these
feather light leaves ((
the smaller the better.
+he talked about her three years of pain
and the life(long burden of the peasants.
/wo girls passed us on the dusty road
arms over shoulders in the Chinese way:
their legs tied together
with a red bandanna.
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&rom the Canadian &alls
/he Niagara is a human river.
;apanese man in double(breasted suit
bends down and slaps a rock.
"urple spiked flowers seem to hold back
the skeleton of an ore freighter crossways
not
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/aking that last snapshot of me forty years ago
swinging out over the edge* my mother melodramatically grabbing at my !acket.
#hat wasn9t shown was her tossing me
to the rocks hundreds of feet below.
Can you believe that - didn9t pop up among
the debris in the whirlpool at the bendin the gorge until !ust this moment
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5mer Woman
/he umber woman9s words
caress me like a sponge
From a tongue
that flicks out for all those
black bodies so packed in sweatthere wasn9t air
enough to speak.
Freed from speech
their spirits shot up
to eclipse the sun.
er words caress me
like a sponge but
her tongue flicks out
between flashing teeth.
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She dreamed at lon last lo"e
$rought upright
by the sound of glass
she kicked the covers and ran
down the hall toward the light
the love(seat in her office had forced him
into a fetal position
his glasses off his feet barehe looked too young to be with her
suddenly she was the deer torn
by curiosity and bolting
instead she turned off the desk lamp
took down her mother's afghan
from the top of the bookcase
his face was too closeto her now for her
not to touch it
softer than her own
but with a stubble
she forced herself
to breathe
the afghan snagged
on the settee9s carving
she did nothing to free it
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she had not caught him that night in her arms
in the morning he would be the one to leave
and she already knewhow much she would hate him for leaving.
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%e thouht of her urency
e thought of her urgency
the trace of sand on her lips
the kiss9s force pushed
back his neck
her caressing hand
interceptedand properly placed
pitched her forward
onto his chest
he assessed the damage to the beach
an elderly woman wading in the water
with a naked child caught his glance but would not return it.
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/ift of an Anlo A$$le
Bet me apologi)e in advance for the nglish.
-t is improper to say* ="lease bite apple.>
-t must be my apple or this apple.
s if it were our strictest obligation to inventory all creation for a final reckoning.
Not to mention
Can an nglishman's apple ever be free from
pesticides* dye* symbol or motive
ow much more suspect then
should be the language of his love
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Safe for slee$
+afe for sleep
the mockingbirds scratch
their way back under the eaves.
#here is your sweet smell
strand of hair keeps me awake.
A utterfly wal*s
butterfly walks
in the monochrome
of early spring.
ours are winter nights
when a lover waits.
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%er 3other and &ather
4emember the time when you two
acted !ust like school(girls
hanging onto each other's necks*
wearing each other's clothes
0r that day when you were so smallthat you could ride on her hip*
your father walking across the park
blackening out the sun
e would not look you in the eye
as if the taboo against looking
could somehow save his sweet urydice:it only left you shadowed by his peasant's back.
$ut when she dies
all the air will be squee)ed out
to blow the perfect trumpeter's long
almost breathless sigh.
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our Pen %as Penetrated my %eart
Your pen has penetrated my heart.
ach time that you send a poem*
- feel myself stripped naked.
ow then can your eyes be such mirrors as - look for in a friend* when
your pen has penetrated my heart
7translated from the &rench8
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Scarecrow for !ylvia Plath
?ad wasn't the %estapo: he was a "0#.
e couldn't eat potato skins
because that was prison camp food.
-'ve only recently begun to eat them myself
but never without an apologetic tic.
e will receive a check from the D
for E
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You will always be taller than - am*
but when - was young* more bones than skin
like my fifteen year old today*
- would suck in my gut and act your starving
man of war.
You will always be my scarecrow.
G6issing in action presumed deadGwas all my mother's Christmas in HI.
- still grieve for our loss.
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Waterfowl
- have never made love
to you the way husbands do*
more or less on time like an airline.
#e have been migrating waterfowl
feeding along the shore of our northern(most lake.
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&rom #efferson9s 3onticello
You can actually buy seeds from the gardens
of 6onticello from plants planted by that
farmer of religious freedom* that inventor of
universities* that multiplier of nations.
oudin9s bust from life watches over the visitors shuffling through the large entrance hall*
people he would have invited in*
had he had the time.
6uch of his time was spent bankrupting himself
paying off his dead wife9s dead father9s debts
manufacturing home(grown nailsfrom imported iron.
e brought a slave to "aris !ust to learn the
cooking then the ungrateful man parlayed
his freedom* one of only seven slaves
freed during his lifetime.
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"roud that the sun never caught him
in that narrow bed nestled in an alcovecarved directly under the original wall
of his dead love's house*
e spent his life on the painful side of paradise
believing in an unrisen Christ who left us
the !ob of cultivating people
and asparagus in Dirginia.
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!o"e )ade 3e Welcome in Six %ai*ai
re you that wild
russet rose
shy and shameless as a child
2
+unset red wildflowers
guarded by cobwebs
long to be touched.
&
Dariegated carnations
red and white
lipstick on the envelope.
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'
#ater spilling from your hands
fills the vase
flustered by his violets.
Crystal can more lovingly
hold a stem
than you hold me in this life.
!
/he night wind rises
soft and strong
hushing words* lifting trees.
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%unry Owl
#hat kind father
leaves his children
wandering in the woods
and flies off
a hungry owl
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3en9s 3o"ement
%eorge +egal papier(mJchK man staredat the ivory and maroon ripstop
nylon splayed on the ground.
/hen an B. B. $ean man with bandanna kerchief
tied below his dam's apple and carrying a
huge ceramic mug offered to help.
e was a part(time carpenter from ustin.
+oon two other men stopped by ( a former
engineer now psycho(therapist from 0klahoma*
and a !ournalist from ,ansas who - later learned
had lost two small children.
/he geodesic tent which usually took me about
ten minutes to set up alone took the four of us
almost an hour.
0ver the bush(si)ed trees* a deep(throated
sound beckoned to the gathering.
nd like a herd at dusk to the barn* we silently
moved toward that sound*
a drum under each man's arm.
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:shmael
/he abandoned son* -shmael*
hair flaming out like a dragster9s*
roared and propagated
to no special purpose
somewhere in the desert.
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3aritte9s !e "iol
"erfectly polished nails
violin shaped hair
down to her waist
#hiter scars across a white throat
are her silent witnesses.
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St; #oan and the 'au$hin
/ired of playing the witch*
you held your hands over the fire.
-t burned the rope and freed them
then tresses of orange flame
streamed down your face
to garland your hair.
You looked for me somewhere
in dark corners where - was* out of sight.
Your pain was meant to be enough
for the three of us.
+hameless
the fire betrayed your nakedness*
skin and blackened bone.
Finally calm*
you found that gravity
had been in love with you all along.
Finally blessed*
you became lover* mother* son.
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Cold Stream
-ndifferent to your lovers
the cold stream smooths
the black shale
$roken into ra)ors
by your hiking boots.
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&rom !a*e rie State Par*
Bake rie is that tricolor it gets on windy days
brown near the shore then a band of aqua and
turquoise of the '
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6y wife may be back at eart's Content in the
llegheny Forest where she and her lover
had a matchless time.
-f - asked her* she would tell me.
$ut dreading 0thello's too small cage*
- am sufficiently satisfied not knowing.
+atisfied making out your sky blue eyes
in the sky's 0ctober blue.
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%urricanoes
Cats seek shelter under
broken asbestos tiles
speakers blown in their ears
by sheets of lightning.
+itting naked on the lawn*- neither hear nor feel
the side(swiping hurricane.
-t appears as /D background noise
for more domestic violence.
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3y arms across your shoulders
6y arms across your shoulders
holding your hands apart
the shard of glass from your wrist
+culpted by $ernini
into a world of our own.
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&rom &eruson Point .eahouse
-9m actually saying the words out
loud like a cra)y person.
single carnation* pale yellow piped with
raspberry* brushes the window with its face. -
flirt with the +teak and ,idney "ie but choose
the 0riental Chicken +alad as if foreordained.
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Catching the end of a conversation at the next
table between a man and a woman whose dress
matches her lipstick* - think - hear him say* =-love you more than - don9t dislike my wife.>
0utside again along the water(walk in the
painfully bright cold - pass two older astern
uropean sounding men.
=-9m not going to spoil you by giving youH8*888*> the older* older protests.
=/hen when are you going to buy me a trip to
urope or awaii>
Canada seems no longer willing or able to offerasylum* either sexual or political* at least not
!ust across the border.
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Shi"a9s :mminence
+melling of burnt grass
your hair hides dark water eyes.
- worship nothing so much
as the liquid in those eyes.
Faces are metaphors too.
- love her because of you.
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Wyatt(s 'eer
/wo deer woke me
stalking my open tent.
/hey were small* young or female*
a little reckless* alert.
brown wood thrush hopped.
/he deer started* then fro)e*
like perfect breasts in that photograph of you.
- should have raced with you out of grace
your hair gone wildcaught by the fairy wind
the accelerating instant before the crash.
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&rom the Pia==a da 3ill
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a police officer concerned that the real street
person remains awake and gets his free largeorange !uice*
high body images legs skin(tight* tip(toeing on
cleated shoes* bicycles costing more than my old
+aab laid on their sides to sun like seals*
in the mini version of a Catholic school girl9spleated plaid skirt a photographer silently firing
her Beica at the hippie lovers making out
ambiguously sexual only in their dress*
a native skinned merican* looking as if he
should be in school* dressed in dark blue sweats !uggling a soccer ball in slow motion with his
feet.
nergy emanates from a small child careening
over the brick work* a black and gold /inkerbell
with green aluminum wand*
and from a petite business woman carrying a
huge manila envelope clicking onto the street
to wave down the town's only cab.
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+he reminds me of Carla who once turned
translucent for me.
-9m sure she is a grown up business woman
now who wears rmani on the last day of
0ctober in 6ill Dalley* California.
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!i*e a cowoy lo"er
Bike a cowboy lover*
more prick than sense*
the black metal dog
springs toward a brown metal barrel
through a wire capital 0
dropping his coinsomewhere short of the mark.
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.he truth is
Confidently we undress.
$ut the truth is
we more often act like ;ews
in a pogrom
fleeing from each otherthan we act like lovers.
6ore terrified of our power together
than of our separate deaths.
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On the Oreon Coast
"ushing through the damp sand
head low past the sign*
=Bab on the loose* ?rive +low*>
+he doesn9t see the rock shaped head
bobbing as if exhaustedtoo far out to sea.
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An Ode to #ames 3errill>
" #egret
-'ve never been gay but late in
life - regret not
being sucked by one of themost important poets
in merica.
#e met one night in
the apartment of his
acolyte M my lover.
e* more boyish the
older he became.
-* more regretful
of worm holes -'d
never explore.
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- can hear his reedy
voice still in
=/he owlet umlaut peeps and hoots
above the open vowel.>
6ine* -'m certain evaporated
like the
the bu))ing of a bee.
Jame$ )errill li$tening to me.
Photo courtesy of #udith 3offett
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:n your s*in
for Judith $offett
- can imagine what it's like to live
in your skin* my loving friend.
$rilliant words protruding from your belly
like poems sent from a +alem witch.
smooth* wooden phallus carved in his shape
pumps your heart.
fetus rolls safely* closely
in your darkness M still smelling of us.
0ur breasts* shrunken by losses*
leak milk and blood.
nd - expel my breath
out through your mouth.
nd we are whole and young again*
your kidneys resting in my cupped hands.
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#udas( /os$el
;udas scaled the cedar fence last night
to ruminate among
my pea green pecans.
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Selfless
is last mortal thought
was the starburst green
a bottle of eineken makes
hitting black asphalt.
#hy would a nineteen year old !ump off a cliff in ustin* /exas
Nothing human would find him
for eighty(one more days.
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Ars ratia sanuis
/he small palette knife
slashes his painted
head into halves.
+angria splatters the walls.
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!ast Christmas in /al"eston
6y last Christmas covered by a scrim of fog
distant houses forming chalky cliffs.
/he %ulf's shaming surf punctuated
by qui))ical bursts of gull shrieks.
bleached snake skull crunched
under foot like a glass ornament.
ow warm the water still was
with what a shrimp(boil taste.
Nobody's dog ran up the beach
barking at me like a lifeguard.
ven the waves pushed me back
insisting - was earth and meant for dust.
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Amer
6y heart* it turns out*
is not so much stone as amber*
/hat honey golden resin
preserving nettlesome insects
in such a semi(precious way.
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$iloue
Pittsurh9s orthside
/he old carpenter
planing window sash
was not there.