Check it out here on the Chengdu Forum. Or below.
Now I know where all the recycling goes
down a funk street in hongpailou
past the rows of ankle high plastic seats
roundtables and dust covered plastic hats
rough faced workers with mouths full of pigfat
laughing out loud as they chopstick spar
a bowl of pepper dust covered meat and taters
without question no doubt better believe its the best food in China
past the lady in a corner sewing up pants
past the dog on his back biting at some fleas
past the tied up cat yowling out its misery
through a gate into the old powerplant
ruins remind me why i love this place
life amidst the poverty
no ghettos no guns
no hard looks no despair
gales of laughter send the
winter sausages swaying in the window
past a tower sinking into plaster
and metal and plastics and the detritus of a century
where the woman rocks a baby boy next to a pile of stacked old doors
nails face up
waiting to be overloaded on the semi
three men pulling the wires out of a QQ and a fat man eyes me up
rickshaw after rickshaw pull up and drop off scavenged stuff
for the tractor to pick up and pile somewhere else
just when i think how quaint it is, to be broke,
how peaceful the black dog looks curled up
camouflaged
the tractor’s driver hops out
he’s maybe twenty, with an urbanites face
an urbanites pants and and urbanites shoes
he whips out a white iPhone, pops in his headphones,
and hustles past
It still surprises me
