Age
Bob Dylan’s Harmonica
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The book shop owner in Xinxiang
gave me Bob Dylan’s harmonica today.
At least he said it was Bob’s,
and that was good enough for me.
So I played a tune,
and it was like it used to be.
When my head was high
and I was a king.
Before the signs of the cross,
cold and blunt
and things that worry me.
Then everything had to be replaced,
and I forgot about being a king.
One future was traumatic enough.
Forests of the Imagination
My Picture: Mekong River, Vietnam
I walked outside today,
something from far off it seemed.
Nobody was talking to each other,
and yet
nobody seemed unhappy.
I found myself by a rapid, roaring
river,
a silent spirit broken.
Hiding itself
underneath its lonely cave.
The fish, unfed for days
wasting away.
And yet….
still concerned about their
autumn splendor.
In this place,
I am a stranger.
Nothing to guide me through this silence
or mist of faded smiles and tears.
Where is all the inspiration now,
and yearnings after beauty.
To spin with words of wonder,
that is my only hope.
A drifting fragrance
My Picture: A bird landed on my windowsill …a caught moment.
Sometimes I feel lost,
a place far off it seems.
Hidden by endless
autumns of traditions,
and demanding something deeper.
Five hours this afternoon,
sending documents and
talking on QQ.
Trying to wake them
from the dreaming forest.
Memorizing or creative thinking,
Who cares….
Not Jenifer Aniston
or Kate Winslet.
They are shown on high
definition screens
24 hours a day, on endless repeat.
Each new thought being lost,
and stretched far behind.
This is deep and secret to me.
A failed drifting fragrance,
from a time before the new age.
And I wonder…
where have the wrong turns been made?
A Supermarket in Xinxiang
A plant I bought from the supermarket
What thoughts have I,
pushing my trolley
around this supermarket.
Another solitary walk
shopping for images,
and a beautiful
Chinese woman
to share my life with.
Open isles of pork chops
and my feet dragging
across the ground.
Passing the ladies selling
expensive hair conditioner,
to the weary and unrequited.
‘Where are we going’, asked Camus
I am reading him now.
There is meaning here,
at least for some,
and absurdity is a distant memory.
Everyone in this supermarket
seems to have a mission.
Following a 5000 year old star
to the end of the road.
They taste the sweet bread,
and stroll dreaming of
possessing every
frozen delicacy from a foreign land.
They are not scared or unclear,
or make love cry.
Everyone knows they are part of history,
except me.
Terms of endearment
My photograph of a painting by a local Vietnamese artist, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
We woke each morning
mapping our lives across the bedroom wall.
Cobwebs in the corner,
each thread a new conscience nagged.
Home was home
and this was the best kind of love.
Then we fell mute, dumb black stares
in the shadows of those winter mornings.
And silent rambles by the canal side,
each moment slowed to silence.
As years go by, I still see
the blue cotton curtains hanging still
on a ceaseless summer day.
And your perfect body, long blazing hair,
offering me endless endearments night after night.
Now, with the rain falling
they are just a few quick frozen closet snapshots,
left alone in a small corner of a foreign land.
Far beyond all that is now and will be.
Domestic Issues
My Picture: Poster promoting women’s health. Hanoi, Vietnam
It was winter and wet,
our children gone.
Your anger fueled by grain
and family traditions.
Persuasions, to no avails and
my body a punching bag.
Beautiful diamonds,
no longer carry your traditions.
When the insects sleep
the wounds heal.
Silent knife, I hate you
for what you try to subjugate
and take for your own.
I am leaving now,
this can’t be living.
No longer receiving,
your pains and sorrows.
You broke my body, but not my mind.
The blows from you,
will hurt no more.
Difference
My Picture: Red Coffee Cafe, Xinxiang. Henan Province, China
Some people think Chinese people are all the same.
I know they’re not.
In my apartment block there is Ms Chueng,
young and beautiful and
still looking for love at 27.
Each morning I see her and
we say ‘hello’.
She asks me about
football and the cold in England.
So I tell her that it has been
cold in England since the 1980’s.
Then on the 15th floor
there is Mr Wang, he lives alone
with two cats and reads Tang poetry.
I lent him a book of poems
by Emily Dickinson a few weeks ago.
Now he is fighting for love with the
teacher who lives above him.
Below me there are the Shan’s,
and their two children.
They have been to America twice.
They talk about trade wars and a
President who twitters all the time.
They think he lives under a floating moon.
I don’t tell them what I think.
So you see Chinese people are not the same.
They are a mind-map of personalities, ideas
and hopes.
Just like me.
Night Time Friends
My Picture: Taiyuan City., Shanxi Province, China
There was a time when it ended
that I drank all the time.
I would drink with Jim, the policeman
until one in the morning.
He would tell me how most women
did not understand him.
And how his latest girlfriend
satisfied him, most of the time.
He felt sure this was the right one.
But he had said this before.
I would drink with my neighbour,
she was older than me and always
answered in the negative.
Listening to her was painful, the more
she talked, the more I needed a drink.
As each evening tailed off into the night,
I would see the embittered face of my father.
And an early morning smile from you.
That told me I was waking up and no
harm would come to me.
I’ll never forget the smile as long as I live.
So I made up my mind to quit my drinking,
and write about unsavory details and delighted
moments, in all its forms of existence.
Oh yes.
My Picture: Vietnam Cultural Museum, Hanoi Vietnam.
A Wandering Poet 