Monday, February 25, 2013

Museum By Alan Shapiro

So much of once
and now and soon
is or will soon be
caught here, framed and glassed...
free of the drafting air-
and hung, so that
the very halls
that lead from room
to room and rooms
themselves that make room
in little dim-lit alcoves
all along them for what
there wasn't room for
in other rooms.
On the wall outside
each doorless doorway
the audio guides lined up
like black suited
miniatures docents
are waiting to tell the story
of the ambition and the breakthrough
to the early to the later
to the late or belated
recognition of nation
recognition of the name
whose final triumph was to
end up in the digital
recording of nameless storyteller.

Google.com

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Assault (= Xi Ji or Gong Ji)

I have fogotten how to smile
during three years of isolated silence,
I should not regret venturing forth
along this unfrequented path.
.
I'm waylaid by assumptions
Yet encouraged by minds of highest ground,
I wish to hear frogs croak
as I'm on my way to beauty of the nature.