Novel Traditions Poetry Series (3)

Novel Traditions

Putrid black now smells the Yangtze
In monsoon melancholy.
The Monkey King stands outside seven stores,
Singing country in Chinatown.

A moldy green and smoke-filled gray invade Tenochtitlan.
Malinche cries eight notes of solemn grief.
Ghetto girls gloat over golden giraffes;
Montezuma’s pride is trampled at the city gates.

The land of captive eagles boasts quetzals and golden tongues.
Alvarado Street runs north to south; Alvarado conquered south to
North, subdued the K’iché, pitted them against the Kak’chikel.
In market stalls young children cry; Tecún Umán has lost his horse.

Bushido blade is now a game.
Young warriors are no longer proud, not even brave.
Though one of them may write hokku, not ten of them love
The truth of swords or the camellia tree.

Pink is the new black but green is not new blue.
A bruise may come from scarlet straight to purple, but
Pink can cause black eyes. A land of free braves loathes a land
Of pink primaries.

Progressive regressions of a new-age depression
shun old-world traditions in favor of novel smut-novels.
Novel traditions seek goodness in evil, true love in lust.

Misty white smells the elusive temple
In vestigial vision.
The prophet cries outside seven times seventy mansions
Dressed as a beggar from TJ, dressed as poor man with wings.