Wuhan Girl Joins Us in Poetry

By Douglas Gilbert

The Wuhan girl has let her views be known, adding a few sorrows to this collection of poetry as evil spreads like a bat from the Middle Kingdom sneezing on the world. However, there have been moments when death and apocalypse were not imminent and love danced between rain drops.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716671401

Book preview

978-1-71667-140-1

About the Legacy

Modern poetry is in disrepute around the world, mocked by academics and officials from a plethora of countries unnamed.  Many mocking birds will realize too late that the silk road leads inevitably to the jaws of the spider.  There is no net benefit, no profit from allowing treachery. However, Alice of Wunderkinderland says strat-tea-tackfully, every poem must have a pie thrown at it to lend it color and flavor, but

There are rumbles in the world where

every blade of grass cries, and

as we run through it,

it tries to comb the hair of our sorrows

Perhaps a few, though expecting little, will comb through these pages, and grow, or glow -- whichever comes first.

And however, the main author can still reveal a secret:  he has received an official communication from the League of Benevolent Galaxies.  Given his limitations, he was shocked to learn that he had been named the Poet Laureate of the Primitive Planets.  Secretary-General Chytchalrorix informed him that there was no stipend, but just a paper certificate, made from the pulp of their long extinct keypapx tree  engraved thus:

Poet Laureate of the Primitive Planets, (Milky Way Division), Category 15297xt7388: Backward and Primitive Planets

Wuhan Girl

Wuhan girl, won’t you come out to light

come out for sighting

come out for citing?

Lab girl won’t you show a tiny crown

yes, dance with a crown, but

dance with a bat to dumbfound

We heard she went to market

early as a target

with a hole in her mask

not such an easy task to escape

if the secret police can make you, Shi

Shì de, qīn’ài de, well duh

just simple to confess and die

with your lab confessor at your side

Wuhan girl, won’t you come out to light

come out for citing

come out delighting, shi! my love

or is it that in gain of function

you have died kissing crowns of bats

Grandma Knows a Spy from Wuhan

In the clearings

hauntings inhere

dear unfinished things

They’ve finished cleaning

the blood off the floor of the salon

Grandma’s voice

screams in the night;

her pen pal is lost, yes

Grandma is dead.

her hair dresser too–

by video two funerals

and the autopsy is done

no toxins of the ordinary kind.

Everyone misses Grandma.

Many knew her faux pas cinema

— been odd times.

Grandma had a Chinese pen pal

a foreign medical student

passing the USMLE

passing the TOEFL and everything.

Her friend’s now a doctor

now a scientist.

Many times

Grandma was down in a funk:

Something about the Great Depression,

the War and the slaughter again.

So many screams in the night:

Where is my Wuhan doctor girl?

There is so much beauty yet

in the quixotic world: the

flowers and designs

on the body bags.

Grandma told us

days never come lightly

when the night overwhelms

before the elegant cry

Such beauty in a sad world

my Grandma always said, is

just decoration, and

she favored flower designs

on chic shopping bags

Let the designers rise to the task

to make pretty body bags

to rise to praise, and yea

by the dawn’s surly knights

oh hey can you see our deeds

in the corona of the Sun

particles of sunset and doom.

Everyone misses Grandma.

Many knew of her, some

knew her. It’s been odd times.

Grandma told wild stories.

Very entertaining. She was

not distant ever

regardless of rules

Grandma stabbed herself to death

with a scissor in a beauty salon, and

the owner was shot to death while

grabbing a policeman’s gun.

It’s the usual.

Grandma left me

a stack of papers

from the pal, now a doctor.

Grandma loved

her dear mystery friend

from Wuhan. She claimed

her friend worked in a laboratory.

I have the correspondence

written in Chinese, and

the blacklight she had

asked me to buy for her.

The letters came slowly

sometimes through Hong Kong

and Singapore, but sometimes

through Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan

Grandma was fond

of her Wuhan girl

as she called her.

Just before her death

she reminded me that

it wasn’t important

to read the beautiful

Chinese calligraphy

because it was unimportant

It was important to read

the invisible secret writing

written between the lines.

Read in the dark

she had said.

New letters continued

to come from the

missing Wuhan girl.

I read them in the dark

with the Black Light.

Apparently, Wuhan girl is

patient zero for the world, and

they are hunting for her

They finished cleaning

the blood off the floor of the salon

She's an Anecdote for Easter

We watched the screen plays

in the Ides of March’s sins

hydroxychloroquine

and azithromycin

Studying the oracles of science

she embraced a protocol agreed to:

randomized controlled studies

It’s quintessential to have a placebo

hydroxychloroquine not sufficient

Though playful in loving banter

the study’s the thing she said, and

anecdotes make for clingy fools

who fall for miracle stories’ pull

hydroxychloroquine

azithromycin

anecdote doting

a sin

I begged her to take it,

and the plays were the thing, but

the clouds were gathering

the cytokine storm approaching,

a rapprochement for

Didier* and Tony**

not yet

Even though

she was old

and expendable,

I loved her

She’d loved to study

when she was a student

then found her doctorate Zen

randomized controlled studies

She did studies back when

and she was a professor then

But she embraced

the tragedies of protocol,

and Didier was not a saint;

this one neither known for

truffles nor foie gras.

We had gone from

station to station

into a favorite valley of us

where we’d first kissed the day;

Charlie the dog herded sheep for us

and he barked at seeing us play, and

we’d sought redemption thus, but

Macron journeyed to Marseille

to say je ne sais quoi to Raoult, but

She, my love, embraced the protocols

in a randomized controlled study

’cause she’s a professor at heart

we knew cytokine thoughts

were forming beclouded, oui

beyond reproach, yet taught

to put toes in the water

She got a placebo;

she died.

*Didier

Didier Raoult

Saint Didier

**Tony

Dr. Anthony Fauci

American physician and immunologist

director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Killing Grandpa

Corvidae as the crow flies

it’s a good year to die, ’cause

COVID caw-caw hurrah boo

yea true, my father died at 72 —

a cancer the grim blamed on him

and I at 71 demeaned by life

in Corona, a neighborhood

in Queens, New York

Might say in spirit furor

I’m a beer near Flushing Meadows

of the World’s Fair fame, 1964, though Dad

on Malta had his black market museum:

illegal guns in the ancient Hypogeum,

hiding missiles for dismissal of war

It’s a good year to die an honorable death.

the Grandchildren are nervous, but

I’ve put together some cleanly new

legitimate business for them to inherit.

Yeah, I know they want me dead.

Don’t blame them much…

but for fun I remember how I

let them play in the secret tunnels

yeah

it was exciting for them

to play in my tunnels,

and I let them hide in the

safe room so they could

listen to the oosh bang-bang

and smell the gunpowder,

hear the machine guns, the oofh-ow

swoosh, bat-a-tat-tat, ow-arg-uh, thud

zing, zing, chuh-chuh-chud, and muffled

screams, and it was so good to

smell the barbecue of the foiled.

Yeah, a little lie:

I told them their Grandpa

sold toys, and did laundry.

Yeah, kids, I told them

our crew liked

splashing red paint

on manikins:

it’s a war game, and

we always clean up.

Told them well:

Grandpa hated dirt, but

he made billions of dollars

washing things, and doing demolition.

They loved me, Grandpa, and

since childhood they’d

never officially known I

laundered money and

sold weapons to clandestine

really funny-owned groups

Early they heard fairy tales galore

they were to believe as required

and as they were told about me:

he didn’t like public dirt’s roar

so he washed donor money; yet

he gave their poor children toy guns

to play with, unrestricted for causes

Although they stopped believing in Santa Claus

and the tooth fairy as young adults

they inferred that by consulting

the guns and the washing machines

Grandpa controlled with computers.

I heard that Cousin Joe

called the kids

with great news:

he had shortness of breath and a high fever.

heard the kids all gathered

for his very own sneeze party.

It’s a good year to die, and

I know the kids have

a conspiracy to kill me, but

it’s OK.

I welcome them home

to party close-up with me

because they will give me

an honorable death

with shortness of breath, but

they were the only ones

I truly loved to play with.

Autonomous Evil

While some are wise enough

to search for the next

reincarnation of the Dalai Lama,

I am not, but

I have found Mao

as a fly in a spider web

Must I speak to

Tse Tung, or indulge

the tongue of my hatred

by laughing at he

who teachers mocked,

the angry secularist who

revenged himself by

collecting grievances, in

confusion, hate for relics,

for Religion, for Buddhism,

who is caught

in a spider web?

Han shopkeepers in Lhasa

speak with condescension

of Tibetans they call

unworthy and lazy

ungrateful for smokestacks

Wang Zhongyong

calls us

white-eyed wolves

Yuan Qinghai

a Lhasa taxi driver

calls us filthy

not clean

like Han on their high tanks,

we on our horses

The science of the missile,

the rocket, entices

the Han jackals to embrace

the harmony and unity

of delusion

I know nothing of Lhasa

while plainclothes police lurk

I know Tibetans

have died

Maybe I have strayed, but

how would I know --

all my elders are dead, and

in ignorance of my faith I cry

Mother Charlotte's Poison Pen to Her Daughter

Dear Daughter,

You got shoes and jewels

for what?

I told your idiot Father

not to let you

go to radical college

to major in

socialism and boyfriends

You’re not liberating:

you’re looting.

Your brother is

dead in Afghanistan. Suppose

he’d want you to have

well heeled shoes to walk in.

Why don’t you

steal something for me —

Yes, please,

go anarchy shopping

at the liquor store

Darling daughter,

why don’t you

rip out my liver, and

fry it in onions with

liberation olive oil

Your idiot Father

let me open my Boutique

and now your comrades

have burnt it to the ground

I’m glad for you

that your professor

gave you an A+ grade

Onward to paradise,

and take my heart.

Bark

Unknowns smashed into

the little old lady’s

Goode Notion Shoppe

Her old dog deftly

bit vandals well, teeth

into the foe fight, so

they left

she stayed overnight

pleased to rest a while,

thought they’d be back

She had a glass of wine

tapped her cane 13 times

and counted life in dog years.

In the morning

the dog howled, though

later the coroner came to see.

They were curled up

passing away in dog years

and the little Shoppe closed.

Olympic Torch (2008)

The tale of tails wagging:

my three cousins, fallen

cousins driven on edges

of cynicism, bravely

continuing to pass

the torch of

symbolism

One's traveling by Sudan,

a UN worker who

just wanted

to survive her gambit

into humanitarianism,

come home intact

to her husband, see

the Olympics as

honored guest, perhaps

but

Janjaweed's fleeing victims

stopped in a camp

for a chat

She, a peacekeeper

listened for awhile

to tales of genocide

from refugees of Darfur

Slaughters on memory pause

too starved to indulge grief for

the dignitary just yet,

a Darfur drudgery one

asked why the worker cried

Bad news through Khartoum --

my child watching cartoons

sends e-mail that

the dog died

Melamine* from China

supporter of Sudan

did the canine in

Don't they eat dogs in China

the Darfur woman of dead child says

She is insulted,

has lost her appetite for politics

Oil for China

and a veto of sanctions.

Khartoum is happy, and

flies in weapons

for the final solution,

but politely, because diplomacy

is of utmost importance

to China, market dream

for every company

drooling over

billions of customers

She tells her husband

who has a distant cousin

with Chinese roots

to, for God's sake,

be discreet

Her Mother is from Panama,

hates her husband's

(as she imagines it)

asian eyes, though

he speaks fluent Spanish

(Chinese, English, Tagalog),

quite a bungee linguist is he

Darfur intrudes:

"Will UN troops

protect us",

a woman wants to know.

Srbrenica she thinks

to herself, but won't

dare say

Maybe, safety in Chad,

she demurs, but

even here

another message for her

Leave me alone, she screams,

I'm doing good work

Your Mother had

cough medicine,

diethylene glycol

from China

it says,

a minor counterfeit

resulting in death

Not now,

I'm doing good work

Cousin Jinyan

is under house arrest

for protest

Not now. Get us

tickets for

2008 Summer Games

Her Hubby told me

she's not to worry --

sending flowers,

has tickets, but

hearing the torch would

travel through Tibet,

I called cousin Molly

the Tibetan trapped in China

She's worried

called home to Aba

Sichuan Province, China

to hear the brooding

from monks in the teahouse --

many dead in Tibet, from Lhasa

protests spreading

mad Han hegemony awry

with soldiers and

agent provocateurs

uniforms and robes

plainclothes

Molly doubts the torch is coming.

Thinks runners in Peru.

Odd call

home.  She sells

Buddhist statues still,

swears she doesn't know

the Dalai Lama

I'm confused, heard

she wants to

go to Peru

Odd call home.  She

speaks in riddles.

She seems to know Tibet

is not Peru

Not a Westerner

she's a Tibetan, yet

with biblical aspirations

Speaks of forty days and forty nights

140 dead, and

it seems she seeks

to go to Peru

Odd call home. She

will not peruse the news

from Lhasa,

or even Aba

or Luhuo.

Sichuan food for thought.

She's singing sweetly

on the phone in English

an old Irish song,

"cockles and mussels

are dead in Peru."

An odd call is this.  Arresting...

Seems she

might be going to

a re-education camp for torture

to learn spelling and about

Szechuan Restaurants in Peru

News of spring colors and flights.

Aba green with

a flood of soldiers.

Whirlybirds hover.

In China

she sells

Buddhist statues still

with cockles and mussels

alive in Peru

No calls,

merry or odd.  I

wonder

how is Peru?

Tell me if

a llama died

on the high road

sweet and narrow

greeting Molly of Lhasa

in spirit alive

with a torch

and a ticket to heaven

*Melamine, a chemical derived from coal was found in pet food that killed dogs and cats.  It is used in China as a make-believe protein that has no nutritional value.  See: In China, Additive To Animals' Food Is An Open Secret, New York Times, April 30, 2007, pp. A1, A8, by David Barboza and Alexei Barrionuevo.

Poisoned Toothpaste in Panama Is Believed to Be From China, New York Times, May 19, 2007, p.A3

2 Activists Are Under House Arrest and Barred From Leaving China, New York Times, May 19, 2007, p. A3.

"At Shuttered Gateway to