Immigrants

When a young boy’s hand grows Hanuman
In his battle armor
Magnificent, victorious, fierce, bent on destruction
And asurs flee the pale space of the cheap paper
I hear the thunder of leathery wings
Of the flying monkeys
Over the darkening cityscape,
Its many fractured reflections drowning like shiny spears of light
In the black well of the Elliot bay
Little Dorothy
Lost in a strange land

MOTHER COURAGE

With March blowing wild breath onto the sprawling cold city
The armies moved along the coast north
Motorized infantry
Towards the Canadian border;
That day the sakuras bled
Gathering pools of red petals
streaming like rivulets of blood
In the gray cement canyons
Today I am left to pick up the spoils by the road
Round shields
A lonely shoe ( I always wonder where its mate could be)
A torn garment
And a pale piece of paper,
a letter to nowhere
rolling in the dust