My Picture
Autumn Sounds
Death
Teaching poetry in Vietnam
My Picture.: A gallery I visited in Ho Chi Minh City…a collective of local artists.
Big wheels turn round and around,
live it our way and live it long.
Lights going down, never satisfied
a first faint line without substance.
Midnight valentines shooting the moon,
following snake tracks on the road.
Clipped roses litter the ground
and blind birds drink from a dark puddle.
Something in the way it all moves.
A night walk slowly approaching, open in hunger.
Dark against the near dawn,
filling the corners with light.
Uplifting spring
My Picture: Sanquan Medical Collage, Xinxiang, China.
A little boy looked at my hair
and asked me
“Why are you so old?”
A trick philosophical question from one so young.
Short sun in cold winter white,
I pulled out a small strand of grey hair,
going the same way.
Exchanging looks with the boy,
we smiled for a selfie.
A snow blanket mountain,
something tiny and whole and
the power of allure.
A soul with wings
and freedom felt in spring’s fresh lace.
Quite Neighborhood
My Pictures: Taken in Vietnam, Summer 2018.
Deep and dark now
whalebone and winter rain.
Thin plates to enlarge the circle,
a hand to the sky.
Unafraid, a black bird
watches me approach.
Trees shift, and gulls turn the day
no other words come.
Silent friends meeting,
the sound of chairs being moved ,in and out.
Tears in silver foil litter the ground
and white wind eyes darken the mood.
I look at the rain shadow and distant virga,
razored through and losing its name.
And yet, a fleeting symbol of life
a returning sea, seducing the summer sun.
Alive
My Picture: Part of railway that took Chinese prisoners to Unit 731: a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development wing of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II.
Humanity’s gift, a creation by love.
A life of spirit, branches, leaves, water.
Sailing in the sky and pardoned centuries ago.
For there is no core to throw away.
Words whirring over wide plains
Somewhere else, somewhere here
beyond the reach of your presence.
Already forgotten and born again.
A moments decline
My Picture
Uncertainty,
trotting timid minds out
in a closed space.
A pale gray train appears
stirred empty on the silent outskirts,
proclaiming a second coming.
His life, a kind of a freeze frame
a non-thinking matter.
Smothering the earth with a fast silver-whitewash
Not too unpleasant, these days.
The beauty and fun of it all,
a quick free trip with no return.
Stillness
My picture of a photograph I took in Vietnam celebrating the role of women in the history of this country.
saying nothing
has become part of the English language
held by it
like flashbacks in a forest
across the tables
conversations grinding away
a petal falls
and the afternoon drifts along
when I look up
migrating birds show the way
giving loneliness
in the taste of white peach
Kodokushi
Kodokushi (孤独死) or lonely death refers to a Japanese phenomena of people dying alone and remaining undiscovered for a long period of time…. sadly… this is not just a Japanese phenomena .. My view is that we need to talk more about why many die alone.. and quality in death…..
A Wandering Poet 