PROSE POEM 2

In Bhopal, I helped a blind man

across the road,

in Berlin, I went over the Wall at midnight

since the dice were loaded anyway,

in Lisbon, I sang the Fado

with the gypsies on the beach,

in Budapest, I got drunk

with a tramp under a bridge,

in Paris, the hundred year-old

Eiffel Tower knelt beside me

at the altar of our ancestors,

in New York, I stared

at every yellow cab driver

to see if he was Robert de Niro,

in Havana, I thought I was

a talented writer,

in Buenos Aires, I played the harmonica

all night long with the moon,

in Kigali, I danced with wild abandon

with a one-eyed monkey,

in Sydney, I slipped a postcard

into a kangaroo’s pouch,

in Minamata, I felt the presence

of William Eugene Smith,

and the relevance

of the Tomb of the Fireflies,

in Shanghai, I smoked opium

with a Chinese leader,

in Rangoon, I suffocated

under a rain of bullets and tear gas,

in Jakarta, I had a kriss fight

with my shadow,

in Saigon, a prostitute outside

the Hotel Continental mistook me

for a reporter from the old days,

in Hue, the Perfumed River plunged me

into the depths of the sorrow of war

to tell me Bao Ninh’s tale,

in Hanoi, a dignified old man

wanted to polish my shoes;

and my refusal did nothing to wipe

the terrible grin from his face.

Since then, I am wading through mud,

I drown myself in the monsoon,

I look for him everywhere,

to beg his forgiveness.

He’s the only one who knows

the secret of my caged bird’s eyes.