My Pictures: A cold evening in Harbin
Zhongyang Street
Age
Songhua River
flashsgl
flashsgl
My Pictures: Taken today in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China – Walking on the frozen river.
My soul companions
dancing in the winter breeze.
Memories of a life frozen
deep below the Songhua River.
Each step a slow procession,
of love torn conversations.
In winter solitude
I make my home…
A New Year in Harbin
My Picture: Harbin this evening….New Years Eve in China
Fingers slowly freeze,
on this New Year’s Eve.
The fast dipping moon,
cold sleeps around my face.
Clutches of deep red lanterns,
parade to empty streets.
And ice stars dance,
sick from half melting
and clinging to a desperate sun.
My skin stings in the cold wind,
ice white and torn inside.
I can see my breath,
now singing for the first warm day.
A winter day in Xinxiang
My Picture: Xinxiang, China.
A sky full of black,
a delicate insight
to a day gray day dawning.
Standing alone
I can smell the end of winter sadness,
joyous despair and a pale spring rattle.
The stars ease their tears,
I watch them in the cold February air.
And trace the shapes of mood and gesture.
Year of the pig
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My Pictures: Today – Xinxiang Medical University, Henan, China.
Last days of the year
I was sat in my favourite cafe,
drinking coffee.
Streets no longer crowded,
a city heavy and slow
with the flushing of the old year.
Shadows passed,
along with the other imitators of life.
But I am older now,
a part accepted
and conversations burning away.
I see the shadows for what they are.
I thought about a friend I know,
consumed by ill-fate and impossibility.
He asked me last night
……………“What is your life like?”
I took only a moment to answer
“There’s always better work down the line….”
Words have magic
My Picture: The last treatment today.
Hiding the pain
I spent the afternoon
listening to John Coltrane,
‘The lost album’.
And as winter fights to stay,
with rooms dark and somber.
I started to figure it out.
Nature’s single breath,
and an eternal now.
Thoughts in a silent cafe
My Pictures: Taken today.
Sometimes it is difficult to straighten
my saddened thoughts.
I make my bed, drink some coffee
and catch up on the world.
But it is not always enough.
I muddle through the day
swimming upwards, backwards
and from time-to time
finding moments to write
and see things differently.
On occasions I read Bukowski,
then I realize that things could be worse.
So I read Dickinson,
to find a tangible mind and spirit.
In the end, my thinking
always seems to end up in another room.
A landscape of the spirit,
blue sky and thinking open mind.
Pain Diagnosed
My picture: A grey day in Xinxiang
After the pain….
drop by for coffee
…..a mind of evolving language
that gives me comfort.
A future frays like a cut wound
…. but at least today
the pain splutters out.
And my words are open.
Unseen Songs
rptnb
My Pictures
Wandering in a bookshop in Xinxiang,
I came across an Underwood 310 typewriter,
an Olivetti by another name.
It was not in good shape….
probably taken too many victims.
A young woman gave me a book about
the sex life of Andy Warhol.
‘You might find this interesting”
I thought this was a strange combination
of histories mingling….
In a moment of lighthouse flashes,
I felt a warm familiar breeze….
a self-moment of age.
There and then
I wanted to love someone.
Until death comes to visit me again,
the wind that brought me here still goes on.
Xiao Nian
http://www.cctv.com: The 23rd day of the year’s last lunar month marks a traditional Chinese holiday called Xiao Nian, which means Preliminary Eve, the prelude to the Lunar New Year’s Eve celebration.
A Wandering Poet 