My Picture: Cafe, Ho An: Vietnam.
Another Day
Culture
The Harshness of Life
My Picture: Xinxiang Cafe, China
A coffee in my favourite cafe,
escaping the harshness of the
cautious loners.
The coffee was hot and clean
and the staff always say “hello”
in practiced English.
Tonight a woman told a man
they were finished.
She told him he could go to hell.
Someone once told me to go to hell.
It was just after we made love,
and the phone call from a strange woman.
I only met her once, when I was drunk
and probably said ‘I love you’
That was my mistake.
Restless Farewell
My Picture: Wei River: Xinxiang, Henan Province, China
In the darkness a dream came to me,
pale and waiting.
Beauty to destruction,
your head tilted but your face lost.
Rapturous and green eyed,
I drank each word from your mouth.
A sensuous scented sea of colour,
standing naked under unknown eyes.
Infused with lust and exposed skin,
I found a restless farewell.
And through the depths of blue I see
the last star, no longer dreary to be nobody.
It seemed by itself remembered love,
moments of breathlessness, but no sickness.
A cacophony of never ending whispering words,
dropping like flakes, fragile and complete.
Gentle as you should have been.
Lying in the darkness, I made a last wish
I am here.. standing alone
left looking …..
As you touch my soul and bleed into my dreams.
Awakening Solitude
My Picture: Jin River, Chengdu, China
When alone, I thought
the crowd is wearing my face.
Silently judging,
safe in the knowledge of the tribe.
Transfixed by the multitude,
the lights flash on.
And as the daylight falls
the world is silent,
but for the sound of a singing bird
that comes from you.
The light that specifies the
face and the music,
swings as the deep abyss.
Night Father
The Independent Newspaper. UK.
The United Nations High
Commission for Refugees,
told me that 1,500 died
this month.
Or maybe they told me
850 lives were lost
in June and July alone.
It’s probably fake news anyway.
But I hope someone finds a solution,
I’d like to help,
But I haven’t the time today.
I know you tried to save him,
He had a home once,
pictures from school,
his favourite toy, Buzz Lightyear
made in China.
Now his home is the
mouth of a shark, and
one dead night swimmer
is the same as another.
You tell of your anger,
fear and shame?
Of your hopes for the future,
as the world watches you die
A washed up tiny young life,
you say ‘sorry’ for disturbing the
sangria on a Mediterranean beach.
The world speaks English,
when we write poems.
And the poets would like to help,
but their hands are tied.
October Lament
My Picture: By The River
A noisy October morning,
yesterday’s wind crows above
a day less brief.
These hours will be slow now.
One memory released at
break of day, another falls
in the morning mild.
You asked me why I came,
I told you, a time after doubt.
A leaf that fell,
on an October morning.
So cold and broken away,
I could not speak.
Faded Beauty
My Picture
Xinxiang backstreets in hard rain.
People at every junction,
walking in and out of my ears.
Dancing their bee dance in the
margins of returning light.
I wrap my coat around you.
A personal memory of lost hope,
burned in the zig-zags, runs
and circles of a fire spun moment.
The evening stars, a pattern of sorrow
humming their exquisite extravagance.
Now and forever, lamenting a loss
flamboyant and luminous.
Nothing good will come of this.
Disco in China.
My copy.
Quite, alone
trying to write a poem.
And Disco comes on
in the cafe.
Yes…disco!
Donner Summer I think
“Love To Love You Baby”.
My mother liked this.
A sunny cloud,
drifting swiftly by.
Tantalizingly floating
from 1975.
It was up there, the
sky still high,
and a richness in the land.
I hear the song
so clearly now.
Sunday Morning Moments.
My Hulusi.
For this Sunday morning, fate
has already brought me noise
and colour.
A wedding procession at 6:30 AM.
Two taxi drivers and a contentious
dispute.
And down the road
someone is practicing hulusi scales,
over and over again.
Music that is hard to grow to.
But from the clear morning sky,
and an unwrapped Sunday morning.
It is amusing to see how life,
past imperfect, spills out
and no longer screams of fear.
A Change of Habit
Angus Young (www,acdc.com)
A Wandering Poet 