“naked in our times” and “… the enemy has only images, the shaolin say”

By Kathleen Hellen

naked in our times

A dialogue with Mr. Sulu 

A heartache in the heartland: If you don’t love it, leave it.  

What planet is this?

We’re aliens on the starship
of the 60’s.  

U.S planes had bombed Hanoi. Did you dream
a bigger ship?
a galaxy of infinite
potential?

To soar above the jungle of resentments. Hate,
smoldering in pits ….  

Above the jackal-call of gook instead of chink? 

I was stabled in internment, in the swamplands of the camps. 

Now you’re sharing scripts.

I was infected with mysterious emotion. I bared my chest. 

    Ha! No escape for you, you said,
What grateful rage, what hateful bliss!  

I did my bit.

A science fiction? 

Becoming is a long, long walk.

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… the enemy has only images, the shaolin say

for Anna May Wong, with title from Enter the Dragon

I loved you for your daggers
the silk of your enigma
the pearls tucked up your sleeve

too dangerous
dragon lady
too beautiful
though I thought to cut a crease
along the lid

always looking in the mirror and
reflected back:
suicides and slaves
courtesans and coasters: therefore

sideways slit: therefore
sexual. Boys

with expectations toward performance

I loved you posed in a tuxedo, smoking
a cigar with Dietrich.

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Kathleen Hellen is an award-winning poet whose latest collection Meet Me at the Bottom was released in Fall 2022. Her publications include The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin; Umberto’s Night, which won the poetry prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House; and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento. Featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, her work has appeared in Asia Literary Review, Frogpond, Hawai`i Pacific Review, Hawai’i Review, Kartika Review, Lantern Review, leaping clear, The Margins, Nimrod International Journal, Poetry International, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Valley Voices, Waxwing, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. https://www.kathleenhellen.com/

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