Happy Workers Day

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My picture of my drawing:  1st May is International Workers Day…so I thought about this..everyday is ‘International Workers-Day’ …for many people, especially children…nothing really to celebrate.

12 years old,
my mother tells me it is International workers day.
I know…I work 17 hours every day.
If only….

If only I could see my daddy…I miss my daddy…..he works so far away.
If only there was a playground for me and my friends to play in.
If only there was fresh water for me and mummy to drink
If only I could draw pictures, I like drawing pictures.
If only the man did not come at night time…
If only……

Happy workers day to all the people in the world.
I will finish this box soon……..then the next one.

Sleepless Nights

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My picture: A simple drawing I did…part of a late dream one night…..

I know the night outside my apartment is cold,
and the wind turns empty.
Sprawled on my bed, my heart is not asleep
and my mind is wide open.

Touching distant signals, watching the bodies
no flesh and flesh in a cage of sleep.
These fellow non sleepers kiss my brain and shed a tear of time.
A drop of dreaming on the rim of vast silence.

Sometimes, I would like you to sing me to sleep.
I’ll fly endlessly wishing me well to remember this vision.
A labour of tears, false dawns and false grief,
clock ticking loud in the dark for all to see.

All I need

My pictures: I went to see a concert tonight at Henan Normal University in Henan. To hear Western classical music played with such individual interpretation and passion… by Shi Meng Xiao… a post graduate student at Henan Normal University…. was simply a very special moment for me….

Relentless April days,
it hit me without warning.
Schubert , the most poetic musician
Absorbing light, deep within
……a soak right to the bone.

Until that moment there’s pain,
for simply being.
Then tall birds gathered
Chopin and Bach,
and three became as one.

Water margin

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My picture: A dragon fish….my friend keeps these fish…so I wondered about the life of this beautiful creature.

Open in hunger,
we slowly approached.
A fish of silver, flash
with barbed mouth.
And a poet, inner soul red
and time wounded.

The fish spoke first
“You know….. there are rain clouds
at the window, hiding their trail.”
So I took out my pen
and tapped on the glass.

How I remember it

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My picture of my picture……more and more I try and characterize my poems with simple drawings as well as pictures.

Dandelion seeds float away on each breath,
suffocating the koi fish for words misunderstood.

And where the seagulls die,
a loneliness of soul….. a shadow grain on a rice wall.

In this place someone in the dark,
changing formation and raised from the sea….. needs my help.

As cold sands cling for all who have loved and lost.

Strange cat

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My picture of my drawing.

So sick of being honest,
so tired of being an artist.
When all around the cats
swallow their shadows
murmuring ‘you can’t do that’,
and dream of the suns defeat.

I’m probably going to die
like Edgar Allan Poe,
falling delirious
on an empty street……calling out
“Emily where are you…”
Guess I could fake it………

Last days of a poet

My pictures: I have become interested in surrealism poetry….the writers use the unconscious mind to explain rational life. To free the imagination, poets use a variety of techniques that liberate the mind of conscious control…so …an attempt……

I first saw the dog, then the rabbit.
It seemed I could not keep up.
Out in the sky everyone was sleeping
sleeping, always sleeping.

The dog spoke first
“Be careful, life is not a dream”.
I thought one day spiders will take refuge,
in the eyes of the dogs…. from bitter wounds on fire.
And butterflies rise from the dead,
to count each beat.
That would be something.

Life while – you – wait

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My Picture: Anyang, Henan Province, China.

This spring

with age and growing old.

A cloud, a bird

and beauty of youth.

Hide the moon, a gaping hole

and a loss too soon.

In loitered form

a glimpse of death’s grinning face,

filled with anxious, mounting fear.

For a soul filled and let fly,

here’s to spring memories.

So many lives in one day

 

I saw the pictures.
Shoes without children,
blood stained streets.
A world falling apart,
all in the name of God.

From some place, far away
they bury their dead, again, again and again.
I’m in deep sorrow, a bleak house
to see blood…..so random washed away.
Unknowing to the end.

Forget one, and then another.
We live with toy disasters
and lands that know lots of no news.
The earth soiled, once again
a touching without being touched.

Saturday 20th April, 2019

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My Picture: Bookshop in the center of Xinxiang. I often go there to think and write.

Well versed in news this morning.
Parades are plentiful in Belfast,
a murdered journalist and omens from above.
What makes you think they will love you?

Elections in the Ukraine, jokers among the pack.
The crowd shouts ‘Why did the chicken cross the road”
But the joke isn’t funny anymore,
when ladder days are every day.

The BBC tells me that we have 12 years to save the planet,
but like you mother….. you can’t always trust the BBC.
So, all eyes to the heavens and silence on command.
As the desert moon probe crashes again, again and again.

Outside, in small towns a stream of voices shouts
“We’re innocent ….think of our children…..”
But nobody thinks of the children anymore,
it’s all on you.

In the end, I decided to sleep tight and be thankful.
Maybe I will write to complain about all the fake news on TV,
just like before.

Or listen to the midnight fear,
and the bells ringing in Washington, Belfast and Caracas.
The nearest thing to being alive, this morning.