David Budbill

THREE DAYS IN NEW YORK: A BLUES IN Bb 

                                                                                               for William Parker

            I

At The Painting Center on Green Street surrounded by Ying Li’s paintings,

oil and acrylic on canvas, of rivers and mountains and sky, fields in the distance

and apple trees—all only vaguely there in these thickly painted, abstract and

intense, splashes of color exploding off the canvas, emotion laden strokes

of the brush growing out of her life with Chinese calligraphy—all here on these

canvases, this so-called Western, so-called European art.

            II

The New Chao Chow Restaurant on Mott a block above Canal:

Water Cress in Bean Curd sauce

Steamed Whole Founder smothered in shredded scallions and ginger

Seafood Hot Pot

Duck

And for desert a turn around the corner to the Italian bakery on Mulberry,

the one right next to The Luna. Then out again and walkin', eatin’ cannolis

on Canal Street headed for the Q train.

            III

On the balcony overlooking the Rotunda at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

a display of pottery showing how the ancient Chinese and Persian Empires

(Iran and Iraq) influenced each other, how Buddhist, Taoist, and Muslim potters

traded back and forth ideas for glazes, colors, designs, shapes for their vessels—

all this back and forth on The Silk Road and Steppe Routes thousands of years ago.

Who told us Europe discovered the world?

IV

155^th Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard, Charles’s Southern Cooking:

            Collard Greens

            Fried Chicken

            Spare Ribs in Barbecue Sauce

            Collard Greens

            Macaroni and Cheese

            Chicken in Barbecue Sauce

            Collard Greens

Corn Bread

            Collard Greens

and your choice of Lemonade or sweet Iced Tea.

            V

There are shards of 12^th Century Chinese celadon pottery on the beaches of

east Africa. The Chinese were there with whole armies and horses, gobs

of stuff centuries before the European colonizers ever dreamed of going there. 

Who told us Europe discovered the world?

            VI

Polyglot          Gumbo          Masala          Stew    

Hybrids          Bastards         Mutts          All of us.

All sloshed together.         Ain’t it grand?

            VII

And here I am this old white guy all decked out in my

yellow, orange, red, black, blue and white dashiki

and my blue and gold African mirror hat playing

Japanese bamboo flute and ropes of bells from India

and a gong from Tibet, with these far-out, crazy

jazz musicians what come in how many different

shades of flesh and nationality, and me right here

on the Lower East Side in New York City reading my

cracker, woodchuck, honky, ofay, green mountain,

ersatz, Chinese, wilderness poetry.

first published in Happy Life, Copper Canyon Press, 2011

TOMORROW

Tomorrow

we are

bones and ash,

the roots of weeds

poking through

our skulls.

Today,

simple clothes,

empty mind,

full stomach,

alive, aware,

right here,

right now.

Drunk on music,

who needs wine?

Come on,

Sweetheart,

let's go dancing

while we still

got feet.

first published in While We've Still Got Feet, Copper Canyon Press, 2005

BUGS IN A BOWL

Han-shan, that great and crazy, wonder-filled

Chinese poet of a thousand years ago, said:

We're just like bugs in a bowl.  All day

going around never leaving their bowl.

I say:  That's right!  Every day climbing up

the steep sides, sliding back. 

Over and over again.  Around and around.

Up and back down.

Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands,

cry, moan, feel sorry for your self.

Or.  Look around.  See your fellow bugs.

Walk around.

Say, Hey, how you doin'?

Say, Nice bowl!

first published in Moment to Moment: Poems of a  Mountain Recluse,

Copper Canyon Press, 1999

WRITER'S TIP: Don't think anything up, please!  Just listen to the voices calling to you

from inside and outside of yourself and write down what you hear.

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