Group Dinner #1

Lazy susan filled with fried fish heads & heaping hunks of greasy pork
Pieces of ham floating in spicy shrimp broth
Mushroom stems swimming in bright green sauce
Nameless greens in streamers like confetti
marinated cubes of barbequed beef
Dim sum & dumplings
Noodles & fish fillets submerged
Deep brown textured kao fu
A dozen more dishes I didn’t try or can’t remember
Beer and wine
An endless stream of dishes perpetually arriving
No wonder this culture is thriving
A dozen dead animals consumed each meal
Each feast
A testament to unrestrained appetites
Such profligate neon is a waste of light
So many people moving en masse
Everything’s so new here I can’t locate the past
Blank slate of a city high on its own fresh paint fumes
Somewhere beneath all this clean marble old ghosts loom
Amidst mainland mercenaries & imported suits
Scheming Hong Kong traders cashing in on their roots
A certain restlessness stains the air
A mood of transition everywhere
Unfinished & half-gone I catch a cab back to pudong
Cause of a case of billiards blues & a desire to escape the throng
all along the watchtower coolies keep the doors
in a metropolis of polished steel & freshly laid marble floors
nothing here is familiar & nothing is like I thought
gotta start seeing this place for what it is
Instead of thinking about what it’s not…