A Maunderin tongue in a Pounderin Jowl

amidst the
tea cup ash
of vera zasulich
i find myself about
to embark
upon arterial
super-studies

one cup of tea less
might have
drilled
her head stone (but
she was somehow of
the wrong party at
the time of parting)

poor dead
rockwell kent
even
tried to find
vera's words
(for me)
in the heart of the
kremlin
(vatican)
to no avail

i have seen both sides now
i left the winner
only to see the
top
man
kow
tow

the joust a tv jest
potomac fever a
deadly poison
the cure is not
peking duck
lest the man in the white house
(our president)
king/queen/ruler

know what i mean
allow me the
tea
cup

confucius
(half-back
at
some school
for chinks)
called the huddle
signal

To seek and not find
as a dream in his mind,
think how her robe should be,
distantly, to toss and turn,
to toss and turn.*

you dare the
ny times analysis
of your quarterback
ability
and hope to
Bang the gong of her delight **

both sides
laugh
laugh
laugh

and i
(the poor poet
seek Po-YU)
as you dine on the
carcass
of
china

*Book 1. Chou and the South (Kuo Feng)
** Ibid.

a note
the title is from Joyce in Finnegan's Wake

vera zasulich was a russian revolutionary who shot the police chief of petrograd. the jury found her innocent of the crime and she fled to england where she became a close collaborator with lenin and trotsky. vera was a fantastic woman and my research would lead me to believe that she had an affair with trotsky. but, we do know that she once told lenin's wife that when she died all they would say was "one cup of tea less."

rockwell kent was an american communist who painted a vast number of socialist realism paintings.

Po-YU was the son of Confucius Book 1 refers to the historically vital CLASSIC ANTHOLOGY these are the odes and the living tradition of Chinese poetry.

further notes
the tea cup refers to Alice i fear that i cannot explain the confucian odes only the reader can attempt to jump the chasm between the chinese ode and nixon's ego.