Right on.
2022 wasn’t as fucked up as I like to think
I mean yeah, I lost my frigging job
Oh, and I hit sixty-eight
My hips ache and my BP is high
And the sun, and the heat, well fuck that too
I sort of try to ignore that we are fucking up the planet
Cos, I’ll be dead and gone before the great fry-up happens
Right?
And Covid, here in China, we ignored that too,
Until last week, when they took the fucking lid off that beast
Omicron, is stalking the corridors of my new university post
Now the screamers have their “freedom”
Hypocritically, they wear the mask as if their life depends on it
And the hypochondriacs have their peach slices
Cos Chinese Traditional Medicine works
Right?
The nights are dark, but the morning still comes too soon
It’s not all been bad news. I sold a house
Just before the news of a decline in house sales.
It didn’t make me rich, just removed the yoke from around my neck
Oh, my dog didn’t make it this year either, but her tattoo on my arm remains
A memory of the joy of unconditional love that only a dog can give.
The cats, well, the cats didn’t give a fuck either way
Right?
Money isn’t as tight as it has been, this year of 22
I’ve only been working my ass off since I was fifteen
Fifty-three goddam years of yes sir, no sir, toe the fucking line, sir
From a stinking factory to the rarefied air of the ivory towers of academia
From a working class oik, to that square peg in a round hole
The upwardly mobile prole who doesn’t quite fit
But fuck them too
Right?
So yeah, 2022 wasn’t as fucked up as I like to think
I give as good as I get, and I have trod my own road since I left the nest
I’ve lived the life Jack Kerouac recommended to me – “On The Road”
Give me a bottle of Irish, toasting the green mountains outside my window.
The misty mountains of a thousand Chinese brush strokes, blue hazed in the distance
I raise my glass in a toast to the great Chinese poets Li Bai, Su Shi, Ouyang Xiu
Living a life like theirs aint all that bad
Right?
©2023 Rob Burton All rights reserved.
Rob lives and works in Wenzhou, China and is in awe of the poetry tradition in the City of Hangzhou where he hung his hat for 3 years. Poets such as Su Shi ( a.k.a Su Dongpo) (1037 –1101) and Bai Juyi (772–846) both in their time governors of the city Marco Polo called Heaven on Earth. They enjoyed a drink, looking at the pretty girls and sitting watching the moon and lake. Rob seriously reaffirms that this is a poet’s job, as he sits sipping at a glass of Irish or Jim Beam watching the clouds roll over the misty bamboo covered mountains. (Watching the pretty girls, at his age, is now, in this “#metoo” era, considered a bit “pervy” and his Chinese wife doesn’t like it much.)