prejudice | 中国大好き

Posts Tagged ‘prejudice’

3月 13, 2025

Photo by Maja Linnemann

巴黎墓园

巴黎最著名的墓园
有很多外国人
有爱尔兰诗人作家
奥斯卡·王尔德
和美国歌手
吉姆·莫里森
有一些华人
外面墙上有在一战
死去巴黎人的名单
游客不少
我们碰到
英国中学生
他们德语不错
都喜欢足球
还学会了
专门词汇
种族歧视
墓园很文明
不过王尔德
坟墓的雕像
也受到破坏

2025.2

Photo by Maja Linnemannn

PERE LACHAISE

Last week I wrote a poem
after we walked in Père Lachaise,
the cemetery in Paris.
The one with the stars.

Like Abelard and Heloise.
Yeah, I didn’t know they were there.
There is a book with their letters.
They wrote in Latin.

Anyway we met students from England,
high-school students.

Their teachers had given them maps.
It was cold.
I shouldn’t have been outside.
I know that now.

Rasenvorurteile!
Ich liebe Fußball!
Yeah, they knew German,
some of it sounded quite good.

They were from Leicester,
at least some of them.
Rasen means lawn.
There is another rasen,
it means to rage.
Or also road rage.

But what they had learned was another word.
Race prejudice.
Rassenvorurteile.
Yeah, with two s.
Double s in the races.

Yeah, off to the races,
Hamsterwheel,
Lilo and Stitch.
That is a story
against prejudice,
more or less,
mostly harmless.

Abelard and Heloise
was a different story.
Not really for kids.
But yeah, rather deep,
like much in the cemetery.

There are Chinese graves.
One still had wreaths
from a recent burial.

My poem was in Chinese,
the one from last week.

In the end we found Oscar Wilde
or near the end.

The end was ashes
sprinkled on pieces of lawn
near the north exit.
Without prejudice,
hopefully,
but rather orderly.

There were stones to remember
very grave things
somewhere else.
There was one about Ruanda.

The north exit is near Belleville.
But we went straight home
to our friends’ apartment.
We were cold and tired.

Keep your eyes on the road
and your hands upon the wheel,
and may God protect you,
or whatever spirit.

It is a spiritual place.

MW March 2025

Photo by Maja Linnemann