Poetry / March 2013 (Issue 20)


Two Poems

by Tracy Koretsky

The Yellow Emperor Mourns the Mapped Meridians

Our Central Palace
they call "Lung-1".
What we describe
as prostrate rabbit, they
locate as the lateral
superior border of
the patella. When they treat
what they call "Bladder-61",
do they throb with the ache
of Servant’s Partaking?  Surely,
they know the warm musk
of Yin Mound Spring when
they touch their "Spleen-9s",
after all, they’re still human.  And,
it’s true; ours is not the simplest
language, our  "abundant flourishing"
the same as "thunder", so…
so, one must try to forgive.  Still,
how could they—how
could they—have separated
Receiving Fragrance
from Contains Tears.


Armour, 15 mg

At the Shoulder Well, my skin, so suddenly starving
for the light to come on and white transformation, shimmered

 away, bringing me to you, here today, as I am, smiling.  So, too, does
the speed with which chemical reactions occur in the

 body send us to Heaven’s Pillar.  These I have lifted, though without
desire to eat, used as a low bar that I kept myself

 clear of.  Illness?  Who had time to notice mine?  And besides it
wasn’t an illness at Wind Pool.  And she suggested I

 question, and she suggested correctly the condition of signification:
The warriors at Crooked Pools—a lack of

 character.  Oh, sometimes I suspected thyroxine is
controlled by the pituitary gland, underactive, pressure

 protruding.  Well, it’s all too personal, too embarrassing really, to tell
you how it was at Adjoining Valleys before the red sent

 me on my way.  I even tried acupuncture.  Work?  I had lost my
passion.  Which level eases smiling at Spiritual Soul Gate?

 That test: underactive Venus and Mars, and before the name bringing
me to you at Great Transverse, unrecognised, to keep

me from napping eight times more often because she was smiling (a
lack of character at Penetrating Gate.)   How long,

 how long I have waited. Worked.   I had lost my passion.
And then there was Ken and the fact of this metal in five

damp phases. 10 million Americans wouldn’t have recognized Yin
Mound Spring.  Too embarrassing, really.  Wouldn’t have

recognized, because she was smiling to the startling brightness. A
bow–tie shape shimmered away down Great Thoroughfare

whose sadness here today, the fact—well, its all too personal
in women, then in men, beneath Abundance Gate.  Let’s just

say,  I blamed myself, President George Bush, the gland
in the lower neck.  Time to notice.  Let’s just say I blamed

 myself at the Conveying Palace.  The startling brightness most
commonly affecting approximately women?  Let’s face it, a

low bar I kept myself clear of,  and sent me to Central Palace.
to affect approximately that test.  Then she gave me the name

of a book and a doctor, and illness, and I even tried process destructive
at Adjoining Valleys.  A book?  I was old.  I 

question.  Time to notice Ken, the metabolic rate via Great
Thoroughfare, illness as I am.  Oh, sometimes I suspected

(let’s face it; that reads like a bad joke)  and then I ran
into Janet, whom the body delivers to Adjoining Valleys,

 nodular, artificial. On my way, I was lazy. Then she gave
at Great Thoroughfare; occurred, enlarged, tested my blood

 circulating thyroxine, for Foot Three Miles.
 
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