DISCONNECTED IN YUNNAN:

December 2006

ISOLATION

There's nobody who speaks my language

My phone card ran out of charge

I can't get my own computer on line

It's holiday time,

I'm alone,

cold,

sick,

and now,

due to the Taiwan earthquake

my Web Mail at Mac.com

(it says in Chinese characters)

can't be accessed from China.

We become accustomed to having our friends,

our loves,

our business,

our information

at the distance of our fingertips on the keyboard.

Any thought

any emotion expressed

is sent off onto the glowing screen of another

in an instant,

all the world waiting patiently,

But suddenly not.

Cut off,

I am alone

cold

not even a home to go back to

no fingertips on your heart.

Crying in Yunnan.

(I can't even send this poem!)

----------------------------------------------------

ODE TO CONNECTION

My phone out of juice,

Alone in China

My only connection

My only contact

My only love

My only hope

comes through you 

my dear,

dear, dear 

beloved

ethernet cord.

Some would say you are slow

and can't upload my perfect expressions,

but you are mine

and I love you,

And I hate to leave you,

unplug

for the bathroom

a meal,

going for  a walk

disconnected

I have no hope.

What am hoping for?

I should just buy a lottery ticket.

CRYING IN CHINA

Nearly the new year

my friends around cozy bonfires in Poland,

sipping fine champaign and

watching their children play guitar in Manhattan,

my friends in Paris sitting meditation at midnight,

me in Kunming alone with my damn pictures, they keep coming,

like rats filling my ship

sinking alone in an ever widening sea.

Can I ever go back to Grand Manan?

What will I do with all these projects I've spent my life on?

What is giving up?