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‘Tuku’ died today
Medical Humanities
Branches of memory
My Picture: ‘Giant Buddha’. Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China.
Between the sun in dull reflection
and the grieving branches.
I may move between familiar memories,
and starless still nights cold clean and unclaimed.
Moments linger touched by what was.
A faint visible haze of seamless living life,
that reaches out to me now.
For simply breath without pain.
To the tune of life
My picture: Poster on the wall of No 3 Hospital, Xinxiang, China.
How long is lifelong?
Years of tender colours,
taken away in a moment.
Once a life was so flat,
so bitter and cold.
But love and lust
never eluded me.
A year’s gone…
but moments are offered
up in song.
Dredged each day
from toil in the fine dust.
Yet… there are times
away from the crowd, when
the flowers fall fast in the hard rain.
Then I think of you.
To remain inside
My Picture: I had acupuncture on my left shoulder today…to many years playing rugby…the Doctor said…….
I used to hide
around the shadows of the night.
Pain like a rose thorn…..
beautiful yet
prick sticks the tender…..
a constant companion.
Ice cold tears,
silent and tempted by voyages.
Then the sun came forth,
a work of art and words without sight
flowed and gave me a ride to a dreamscape.
Faith beauty floated above a Chinese sky.
Poems in high clouds and vintage bones,
there was nothing that I could not see
that was not a flower.
Pure like a sweet child’s heart
……I would sooner have the sun
And as for the poets
My Picture” My Apartment door.
As the moon rises
I see steel hardened and standing,
silent as a water-worn stone.
Like a ghost from the past,
haunting present and future.
It visits me form time-to-time,
leaving behind legacy systems
and memory by memory of the mind.
Dark Waters
My Picture
After Christmas…
too many unsold trees
and damp mornings.
The river goes over and over
the curve of the winter hills.
A fallen oak branch
becomes an AK47
in the hands of the child.
As he watches his mother and father,
argue both sides of the story.
A pale replica of summer days in Jinghua Park.
Looking up,
I can see the rules of punctuation,
with temporary wings.
A contraction of darkness
unfolding the dust of others winters,
one limb at a time.
February 4th, 1989.
My Picture
the only girl I ever loved
a star bubble beautiful
Now I count the stars.
Snow song
My Picture: A walk in the backstreets this evening. Xinxiang, China.
In the cool gray morning
sounds of loud fireworks,
and the little dog trembles
to see such hope.
Braying aloud
and smiling from chin-to-chin,
he simply wants attention
and see you.
Form this mad place,
courage and creativity
is what will bring the days
and soft barks erupting.
Another body count
My Picture: A place to walk: Xinxiang Medical University.
Innumerable raindrops
fell today.
I tried to count some,
Pen in hand….. a poets mind.
But I stopped…..
when my Chinese friend
told me to go back inside..
And only count the winter flowers.
Razored through to a void place,
I saw the future of my bones.
A sudden applause and fog
filled streets.
This is no place for a poet.
Summer grass
A picture sent to me by a student.
A Wandering Poet 