Paean for my lover

This is for Jenne, which is 真.
It means true or genuine in the first tone.

I live in Hong Kong. Tang dynasty poetry is from 300 years after the birth of the common era. I don't think Christ lived. He is a myth. A good one. I know the Tang dynasty poets lived; lived full lives. They write of love, to be longed for, of drinking wine, and mourning for old friends. The poets wrote of their life as they lusted after women and wondrous nature: mountains, swift rivers, tall bamboo, wine, Hanzi scriptures on the plinths in monasteries. Dew on leaves; roses bursting with colour, cold winter chill that shivers in the morn. I study politics and the sociology of lost peoples. Those who have suffered at the hands of British occupiers.

I don't know Hong Kong poets. I haven't found them. They are lost in the small history of Hong Kong. I wonder if there is a society that doesn't express itself in art and drawing? I bet there isn't.

This is from a Tang poet, Du Fu:

i am an old man, and i do not know where i shall be
heading.
i am tired from walking the wild hills, i am ever more sad at the pace.

Du Fu lived until he was 58. Only 1300 years after the birth of Buddha. Or 1244 years before I was born. He wrote about his life and the sights and sounds of the China he enjoyed; the emperors, lords, court eunuchs, his lovers, and drinking wine with good friends.

He also wrote:

the flowers she picks are not to put in her hair
and she often gathers cypress leaves by the handful.
the day is cold, her emerald green sleeves are thin;
as the sun sets she rests against tall bamboos.

I know this woman who holds many lives in her smile -- I am happy to have loved her and still do. I don't live with her now, I will.

Ai Weiwei and sunflower seeds

A Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, now sends out a twitter each night at midnight naming those children whose birthday it would of been had they survived the earthquake in Sichuan province in 2008. The names of the children were gathered by a grieving father, Tan Zuoren, who was investigating why more than 5,000 children lost their lives when the school buildings they were in collapsed during the earthquake. Tan has been sentenced to five years imprisonment for inciting and advocating for an investigation.

Fellow investigator, Huang Qi, has been imprisoned for “illegally possessing state secrets,” according to the text of the court resolution. Under the one-child policy, in place since 1979, many of the children who died were from one-child families. Think about losing your first born child.

Ai Weiwei went to Sichuan to help demonstrate with Tan. He too was beaten. He said: "art is expressing through a special channel your emotions towards something you are most interested in, not hanging a picture on a wall and thinking how much you can sell it for."

Three weeks after the beating in Germany, Ai Weiwei underwent surgery for a brain haemorrhage caused by the beating.

His latest work is Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern, London. I write of this after a late night email to my son, Stefan. He said he wanted to see more art with me in Sydney. And I mentioned Ai Weiwei. I don't know how we suffer for causes.

Slovakian Marxist Slavoj Zizeck paraphrasing Walter Benjamin, said "every monument of civilization is a monument to barbarism." This is one of those moments. Sylvia Plath's poem, Daddy, is a tense and horrid poem.

It evokes a barbaric state and those who think they can restart a society in the name of High Culture too.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--

The vampire who said he was you

And drank my blood for a year,

Seven years, if you want to know.

Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart

And the villagers never liked you.

They are dancing and stamping on you.

They always knew it was you.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.