We pass on…..
All the stale old images
and tawdry poems.
Discarded, like yesterday’s
fish and chip paper.
And all that is left,
in this wilderness.
Are arguments
on street corners.
With nothing subtle
about them.

But I have known,
what it is
to be human again.
A body’s last trauma.
That became love,
and dazzling to the eye.
No more surface,
only me and you.
Within the old,
but wildflowers
sweetening a field.
Enough, to live a life –
all over again.

I visited the Hong Kong Museum of art yesterday. I wrote this poem a little later 🙏

Racing through COVID clutter.
A bankrupt taxi driver,
who once sang opera.
A barber, who cut hair for the poor.
Now, a silent death chair waits.
A woman, on the streets –
cheap liquor dripping
from her mouth.
Still talking about
stocks and shares.
And the art of the deal.
Then there is me……
Should I scrape the wall?
Or notice the clouds?
I hear you in my mind.
‘Post-truth’, nothing false
you said.
So, I looked at the clouds.
And thought,
I should say something.

Moon, out of the sky.
In the dense mist,
and a long way from home.
A goshawk, flies in the space.
Between warehouses and
forgotten hutongs.
Spiralling up between
grey pieces of iron and steel.
A veiled marriage of betrayal.
I feel a longing……
For the time,
before I came here……
With streetlights,
gleaming in the dusk.
And nights of love,
that are too short.

I found the hutongs
of Hong Kong, today.
Dragged walled
and forgotten.
Hard walks and hard lives.
Washed down with
cheap spirits.
Each empty pizza box,
cast by the moon at night.
A life, spread over the streets.
Cold against my feet.

A full city…..
block buildings
and no parking spaces.
Umbrellas touch the sky.
And each other’s lives.
Even when I’m gone.
Still the block buildings
and no parking spaces.

For you, my hands swim –
through these veils of apathy.
Half-days forgotten, left behind.
As solemn dark days grow,
you bring colours into fresh being.
A tongue to an indifferent way.

Beautiful sounds, beautiful
smells – hanging in the sky.
An island rhapsody,
and ripples in the sea.
That makes me feel so numb.
And I ask myself, when?

Sunrise hits a white wagtail.
The sound of cars,
and autumn solitude.
Burning the fallen leaves,
I glimpse the past.
The dark edges of night,
and the boundaries
of our beliefs.
Back from the war.

Awake at night –
the sound of
a paradise flycatcher.
Cracking in the cold.
 
Outside, the moon
thinned to a thread.
But, still alive –
and tight like this.
 
On the Buddha moor,
I cover my head.
Weaving me
into future dreams.

Autumn moons,
soon become spring rivers.
A throng of flower umbrellas,
and dancing sea sparkles.
 
Walking in the hutongs,
resting on a temple bell.
A closet of deep love and happiness opened.
 
Picking up dropped
plum blossom, as we go.
Throwing them,
against the wind.
 
This is the colour of love,
and the height of dreams.
A floating life,
smiling a welcome.
 

A weather-beaten trip,
and bleached bones.
Has come out this autumn.
Crowded streets,
splitting winter air.
Now blue in the twilight.
With a wind-swept wandering.
She tells me of love,
stripped to the bone.
And covers the sky…
with night whispers.