Allishandra

Where is the bus?
In silence, some sitting and some standing
We all ignore
Each Other
The middle school kid is smoking
Like Always
The overly friendly old man who is really just nosy shouts, "How y'all doin' today?"
We are silent.
"Where do you go to school? Where do you go to school?"
Where is the bus?
The black cats glide across the black road
Past the old Asian Lady who is standing beneath a tree looking for hers
In a Pink robe and leopard-print pajama pants
Staring up, up, up
She is my friend, why do I not speak to her?
The Mid-Life Crisis who is walking his Golden Retriever
Is asking the world who is more successful
They walk in the road because there are no sidewalks here
Ah, there he is, the last one, slipping through the bars of his gated community
He is a stander, leaning against the STOP sign
We have the STOP but where is the
Bus?
The Asian lady is still staring into the tree Her hair is still black in Most places Though her Face is

old, old, old
She used to have to stick pins into Japanese boys on the trains back home
Who tried to look with their hands instead of their eyes
The birds are singing
Where are the slanting sunrays?
Where is the bus?
It is overcast ----
I want to listen to music but
When the bus comes I will only Write Poetry
He throws the cigarette into the road
The fat, friendly man in the short shorts who works at the bicycle shop runs over it in his screaming ancient Beetle painted rusty red with the cream doors which just wants to be put to rest but only we are interred
As we step onto the bus
The old Japanese Lady looking into the tree
My friend looking for her cat.

Written, Revised May 5 and 6, 2008

    I've been reading it like mad...mostly about the United States' financial situation and China's presence in Tibet and the threat to Taiwan.

    Did you know that about 225,000 climate-change-related deaths occurred in the Asia Pacific region last year? Including malaria, flooding, etc...

    Did you know that Taiwan has been deliberately not allowing their dollar to strengthen so that the US will continue to purchase products from them, and that this is the reason that so much inflation is happening to their country now? And did you know also that Asian companies and bankers are trying to pull more and more out of betting on US currency and are being forced to by their government?

    So anyway, I was wondering if I could get some input on this: Do you think that by eliminating the minimum wage, the United States would be able to pull out of a recession faster?

    Here's the justification: If you eliminate the minimum wage, the price of labor will be at equilibrium with the market...people will be willing to work for far less - mostly minorities, the ones who, at the present time, are the ones suffering most from unemployment (approx. 9% among blacks, 5-6% among Hispanics). Subsequently, because cost of production decreases and because people are making less, prices will drop, thus fighting inflation. If we can fight inflation enough, people will buy more, and the economy will turn around.
    There is also another factor; inflation in Asian countries has in some areas (Taiwan, Vietnam) tripled over the last year alone. Since about half of the products which the United States imports are from Asia, and cost of production are going up all across the board, American consumers are going to be forced to pay more, especially at historically "cheap" stores such as Wal-Mart. In a situation like this, is it not better for America to mobilize our own shrinking workforce, even if it is in a manufacturing sense, to create products at a similar price (possible with the elimination of minimum wage), and thus help eliminate the massive trade deficit (which, if not combated, will result in a lower standard of living)? (As of January 2008, the US trade deficit in both goods and services was $58.2 billion).

    This really makes me want to find international employment...where the currency will actually have a value.

    Thanks for your thoughts! :)

In his earlier reminiscences he was prone to denounce dada, saying that it was rather shallow, something like a bubble, that it contained only a modicum of 'fox-Zen', that is, fake Zen. He argued: 'If there is any legacy at all of dada and surrealism, it is simply that they have helped accelerate the desolation and downfall of the Occident, and prompt the ascendancy of the self-awakened Asians.'

~ Afterimages: Zen Poems, by Shinkichi Takahashi, translated and with introductions by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto

It's interesting to read something from that perspective, ne? I think it's really funny.... xD
My brother is reading this completely anti-Japanese book that's really interesting, too...
Bias is everything...
[Baby Biiiiaaaasss]

All of my IA's are finished... =)

Isn't it strange to think, how in ages past, all these things we write about, all these introspective thoughts...you would actually have had to been with someone to speak them? To express yourself?

Can you imagine how much closer that must have made us?

The internet is just a way of saying, "I don't fully trust you..." with people you see everyday. It's a barrier. Just like text messaging someone when you get their number instead of just calling.

Sometimes, things just aren't real enough anymore...

How do you think having siblings (or not having siblings) affects who you are as a person?

My grandmother forwarded this to me:

A PUPPY has been born in Japan  with a large, clear, love-heart-shaped pattern in his coat.

The  Chihuahua was born in May as one of a litter to a breeder.

Shop owner Emiko Sakurada said it was the first time a puppy with the marks had been born out of a thousand she had bred .

She had no plans to sell the puppy, which has been named 'Heart-kun'.  

The long-coated male Chihuahua  puppy was born in Odate, northern  Japan

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