Stanley H. Barkan
(USA)
UNDER THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN
(Beijing, China)
On the square under
the Temple of Heaven,
I consider ancient instruments—
strung across dragon designs—
plucked in coordination
with the four seasons,
sonorous stones tapped
for their hidden sounds,
gongs & bells drummed
with padded wood,
processions moving across
shadows of the sundial.
Once an Emperor spoke
and his word was law—
a law that they said
came from the Heavens.
Now we earth people
scatter upon the stones
considering thoughts
of Earth and of Heaven,
perhaps where phoenixes
really do burn to ashes
and emerge renewed/reborn,
where dragons really do fly over
the Temple of Heaven protecting
those beneath their mythic wings.
(5 November 2001)
© Stanley H. Barkan
TEN THOUSAND ROOMS
No more than half a room
less than the ten thousand
rooms in Heaven were permitted
in the Emperor’s Temple.
The half not there was
filled with fantastic creatures—
dragons, phoenixes, Chinese unicorns—
and, all day and night, strange music played:
plucking of strings, sonorous winds from flutes,
gonging of bells and music stones.
At night when the half-moon rises
and the bridge of stars across the sky
permits banished lovers to meet,
you can hear the singing and roar
and whistle and whinnying of the mythic
creatures mingling in their half-room,
a remnant of fairy time and folk lore,
tales of how we wish things could be,
a time of ignorant bliss and happiness.
(13 November 2001)
© Stanley H. Barkan
BOAT PEOPLE
Born on the boat,
raised on the boat,
living & working on the boat
their whole lives,
these boat people
of Abderdeen, Hong Kong
(who believe that the water
preserves their lives),
rarely step on land,
only for special shopping.
They are citizens of the water.
More people live on the blue water
(the water which covers most of the planet)
than those on the green earth,
who only inhabit a small fraction.
Blue water, green earth—
which do you prefer?
(17 November 2001)
© Stanley H. Barkan
MEETING MIKE
Meeting Mike Morrow
at the Foreign Correspondents Club
in Hong Kong was like stepping into
a post-Maugham world—
not so tropical but still with
the elegance of high tea.
I ordered a gin & tonic
and said, “Cheers!”
He was lean and vital,
seemingly capable of not only
running or biking a marathon—
then having an interlude
with various and sundry women &
a sprinkling of children all across Asia—
and, at the same time, consuming
and writing about the essence of
everything he encountered.
He is a curious mixture
of the commercial & cultural,
eyes that pierce the masked visages—
no possibility of fooling him.
He, too, can “look quite through the deeds
(if not the souls) of men (and women).”
Living no more than a week at a time
in various venues, he is, as he says,
“a peripatetic” being, but now, more or less
in a worn groove of domesticity,
he commutes from Hong Kong to Bangkok,
where one of his still-living wives (women)
share habitation with him and a son.
It was “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
(18 November 2001)
© Stanley H. Barkan
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BIO
Stanley H. Barkan is poet, the editor-publisher of Cross-Cultural Communications, a small literary arts, non-commercial press focusing on bilingual poetry, which has, to date, published some 400 titles in 50 different languages. His own work, which has been translated into 25 different languages, has been published in 16 different collections, several others of which are bilingual (Bulgarian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Sicilian). Among the many honors he has received, he most treasures the 2011 Korean Expatriate Literature Association award “for his contribution to the promotion of the globalization of Korean literature through exchanges of Korean and American poetry” and Peter Thabit Jones’ special 2014 “Stanley H. Barkan” tribute issue of the Swansea, Wales-based international poetry magazine, The Seventh Quarry, published with a gathering poems and interviews and photos and art by the many poets and writers and translators and artists Stanley has worked with during the last four decades.