On the Way to Welcome Market, Hong Kong
I wobble with Bell’s palsy,
Face paralyzed stumbling along
Oxford Street in Kowloon Tong.
Patch over unblinking eye.
Fog devours the emerald ridge
Separating us from New Territory.
Shadows fall backwards, kuroko my steps.
Sun rises where it should set.
A white cat sleeps in the gutter.
I pass gloss-black gates
Embossed with dragons.
Girl jogs by tugging a pug.
The top half of Mao’s face
Peers over a balcony on Renfrew Road.
The PLA barracks are deserted.
Fence surrounds the invisible army.
A jun ren standing in a box
Shifts rifle from right shoulder to left.
Woman in pants and pandanus hat
Rakes the empty lawn.
Notes:
kuroko: stagehands in kabuki theatre dressed in black
jun ren: soldier
Author: Kirby Wright Visit Kirby's Website -
Email Kirby Kirby Wright was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is a graduate of Punahou School in Honolulu and the University of California at San Diego. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Wright has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and is a past recipient of the Jodi Stutz Memorial Prize in Poetry, the Ann Fields Poetry Prize, the Academy of American Poets Award, the Robert Browning Award for Dramatic Monologue, and Arts Council Silicon Valley Fellowships in Poetry and The Novel. BEFORE THE CITY, his first poetry collection, took First Place at the 2003 San Diego Book Awards. Wright is also the author of the companion novels PUNAHOU BLUES and MOLOKA’I NUI AHINA, both set in Hawaii. He was a Visiting Fellow at the 2009 International Writers Conference in Hong Kong, where he represented the Pacific Rim region of Hawaii. He was also a Visiting Writer at the 2010 Martha’s Vineyard Residency in Edgartown, Mass., and the 2011 Artist in Residence at Milkwood International, Czech Republic. His futuristic novel THE END, MY FRIEND is forthcoming in 2013.
1 comment
Gordon Hall says:
Aug 7, 2012
interesting cityscape w/this hong kong district apparently split in half by a former Brit barracks turned PLA and now deserted; the bell’s palsy is to the narrator as the barracks are to the city–a grotesque reminder of foreign occupation–both British and China having control of the military outpost