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ISSUE 23: FALL 2013

Departure

By Gary Singh
Tu Fu, the Tang Dynasty Poet of Suburban Wasteland America Offers a Farewell Poem to his Friends, Readers, and Fans.

(Tu Fu, the Tang Dynasty Poet of Suburban Wasteland America, Offers a Farewell Poem to his Friends, Readers and Fans)

concrete expressways

spread their tentacles

cul-de-sacs, wool-coloured stripmalls,

tract-house subdivisions

seasonless weather

suggests the time is right

who wouldn’t lament

the end of an industry

obsolete columnist will not

devolve to the dark side of PR

legions of worthy readers

here in the neighbourhood

beautiful readers, you have held

me upright

now I am heading south

to a legitimate darker side

who’d give a dime, or even some tea

to this wandering columnist with a broken MacBook

About the author

An award-winning journalist, Gary Singh has published hundreds of articles as either a staff writer or freelancer, including travel essays, art and music criticism, profiles, business journalism, lifestyle articles, short fiction and now poetry. In addition, for 450 straight weeks he’s also penned a creative newspaper column for Metro, San Jose’s alt-weekly newspaper, an offbeat glimpse into the frontiers of the human condition in Silicon Valley. Gary’s writing tends to merge the outer with the inner. He is an explorer of that which is hidden. Being half-eastern and half-western, Gary’s work, art and life often exemplify a combination of opposites. Operating between established realms—creatively, geographically or even psychically—Gary is a sucker for anything that fogs the opposites of native and exotic, luxury and the gutter, academe and the street.