What's so Great about the Great Wall?

The Great wall?
What’s so ‘great’ about it?
After all
I have climbed the side of it

But, mountains tall
And I stepped every step of it
Through dynasties fall
There are miles and mil4e of it

Cloudy mountaintops
Million steps to the top of it
Bottomless drops
Dragons etched the path of it

still I can’t place
Why is it the Great Wall
When in two trips to China I scaled part of it
And at this pace
Let’s see, total it all
In another thousand five hundred trips, I’ll have scaled all of it

too much drink (Italy 2001)

There is a thing I must advise
for those who choose to drink
Avoid the ones ,unnaturally
That are bright yellow, orange and pink

Stick to wine or quaff your beer
But be careful what you do
Limoncella mixed with those
Will have you gagging in the loo.

Godzilla, where are you?

Written in Tokyo (2001)

Godzilla,
where are you?
I have searched everywhere.
Here I am in Tokyo
And there isn’t hide nor hair.
I’ve turned on every Tv set
To watch the evening news
Bit I never saw a camera crew
Videotape a rampage by you.

I looked around in several streets
Juts looking for a hint
Not a pothole, crevasse or spot
That looked like your footprint


The buildings here are all intact
The high tension wires are fine
I never saw a screaming woman
With your approach in mind

Godzilla
Where are you?
I don’t have that much time
I just want to see you once
As inspiration for this rhyme
Cause if I leave and don’t see you
I’ll assume that you just hid
When someone asks if I did see you
I’ll lie and say, “I DID!”

Chinese toilets

Chinese toilets

The hardest of trials that faces our group
Is finding an auspicious place we can poop
It’s done in a hole that is right in the floor
And often in stalls that don’t have a door

We used all the Kleenex, the soap and the wipes
Our bathroom anecdotes reach startling heights
As we travel around learning just how to be
Our form of enlightenment is spelled “W.C.”

Time Passes

written after visiting small farm towns in China

Time Passes
Does it pass here as well?
Framers toil
Planting as their father did
Digging the irrigation ditch
As grandfather did

Spreading the grain to dry
Raking, raking
As the ancestors did

Time crawls painfully on aching knees
While overhead
Microwave, radio wave and TV
Transmissions
Erode the old ways
Waves that relentlessly batter the shores

Where is the Buddha now?
Asks the Tao
The Buddha says, “It all makes sense.
It is impermanence.”

Observations on a spring day

Observations on a spring day

Along the curbs, trash bins
Appear like spring flowers
Waiting to be plucked
By burly men
In huge green trucks

Caribbean blue, pastel sky
Cotton tufts with Elmer’s Glue
Held precariously aloft
Fluttering
Softly wind tossed

The most important things

The most important things
Are the hardest to say
So many things
We let get in our way

So,
We bumble through life
Wondering…..
What do they think
How do they feel?
Pondering…..
Did I do well?
Did they notice me?

The most important things
Seem to be left unspoken
We fear a laugh, a rejection
Our heart might be broken

So,
We bumble through life
Never showing….
Never knowing….