Tibet Is Not In Peru
She calls home to Aba
Sichuan Province, China
to hear the brooding
from monks in the teahouse —
many dead in Tibet, from Lhasa
protests spread
mad Han hegemony awry
with soldiers and
agent provocateurs
uniforms and robes
plainclothes
Odd call
home. She sells
Buddhist statues still,
swears she doesn’t know
the Dalai Lama
I’m confused, heard
she wants to
go to Peru
Odd call home. She
speaks in riddles.
She seems to know Tibet
is not Peru
Not a Westerner
she’s a Tibetan, yet
with biblical aspirations
Speaks of forty days and forty nights
140 dead, and
it seems she seeks
to go to Peru
Odd call home. She
will not peruse the news
from Lhasa,
or even Aba
or Luhuo.
Sichuan food for thought.
She’s singing sweetly
on the phone in English
an old Irish song,
“cockles and mussels
are dead in Peru.”
An odd call is this. Arresting…
Seems she
might be going to
a re-education camp for torture
to learn spelling and about
Szechuan Restaurants in Peru
News of spring colors and flights.
Aba green with
a flood of soldiers.
Whirlybirds hover.
In China
she sells
Buddhist statues still
with cockles and mussels
alive in Peru
No calls,
merry or odd. I
wonder
how is Peru?
Tell me if
a llama died
on the high road
sweet and narrow
greeting Molly of Lhasa
in spirit alive
Tibet Is Detached
My cherished Lhasa Apso
my culture’s watchdog,
you are dead by Chinese
poison dog food
imported, trade imposed
stirring the air
with political pollutions
javelins
spearing Tibet
to teãr a tear
from fallen monks
shot in cultural genocide
Compassionate ones,
we are the only true
clique for justice
A gamble on diplomacy
is failing
like a kidney
on Chinese heparin
A dialysis is
to bet Tibet
in a card game
with Artists of War
and propaganda
an atheistic clique
with bullets
For the tourists’ amusement
let them people
the autonomous puppet government
with the buffoonery of their claque
But let us be
the only true clique
left alone
for our prayers
and daily walk
Why would the world
be a lap dog
The Autonomous Evil Of China
While some are wise enough
to search for the next
reincarnation of the Dalai Lama,
I am not, but
I have found Mao
as a fly in a spider web
Must I speak to
Tse Tung, or indulge
the tongue of my hatred
by laughing at he
who teachers mocked,
the angry secularist who
revenged himself by
collecting grievances, in
confusion, hate for relics,
for Religion, for Buddhism,
who is caught
in a spider web?
Han shopkeepers in Lhasa
speak with condescension
of Tibetans they call
unworthy and lazy
ungrateful for smokestacks
Wang Zhongyong
calls us
“white-eyed wolves”
Yuan Qinghai
a Lhasa taxi driver
calls us filthy
not clean
like Han on their high tanks,
we on our horses
The science of the missile,
the rocket, entices
the Han jackals to embrace
the harmony and unity
of delusion
I know nothing of Lhasa
while plainclothes police lurk
I know Tibetans
have died
Maybe I have strayed, but
how would I know —
all my elders are dead, and
in ignorance of my faith I cry
—- Douglas Gilbert
(Henry Le Châtelier)
Poetry and Stuff 