My Picture: Coffee and Bukowski’.
Nothing, so lonely
Mindfulness
Across the ridge
My Picture: Taken this evening Xinxiang Medical University, China.
Fog….. sitting here
without the trees.
A deserted basketball court,
wind weeping through the hoops.
And in the distance,
the train to Beijing picks up speed.
Dragging the night stars out
one by one
….. by one.
Unclaimed Territory
My Picture
By tree and blade of grass,
a cold breeze swept through the city.
A single beat, with histories mingling
from a netherworld.
A freezing fuzziness in my eyes and head
and darkness scattered.
I watch searchingly,
at the people walking in dead leaves.
Nothing seemed as it was, nothing felt new.
The girls had fireflies in their hair,
and the boys wrote
calligraphy in the clouds…..
a slow burning love.
The beat became louder,
quick frozen faces.
Snapshots of times before the ancestors,
before we sank into the dreams.
A cold swept through the city today.
To think about thinking
My Picture
The hour done,
another exam over.
I am that kind of person
whose brain holds a different kind of thought,
critical and more desperate.
A student ask me
“Do you want to live forever?”
I told her
“That is the essence of poetry,
or at least to tell a story of approaching despair”
Meanwhile, I insisted on the detail…..
at least for those without accomplishments.
First day of the year
My
hdrpl
My Pictures
Waiting for the world to turn,
tree-by-tree.
I walked to the coffee cafe.
It claims…..
‘The Best Coffee’
A big claim in China.
A cat watched me across the road..
across our differences.
I thought the cat was familiar,
but I have been mistaken before.
Inside the coffee was good.
As the last rays of the day fell silent,
I listened to Fela Kuti.. “Opposite People”.
From another world, a soothing flatness hung from a distant shore.
On the winter horizon, I saw the cat again.
Death in his pocket and swaying to the afrobeat…. another body count.
It was time to go home.
Silence is also an answer… I thought.
Thank you
A short note to say thank you for taking the time to read my poems this year. I appreciate all those that have the courage to ‘expose’ their words…to a wider audience.
I have enjoyed reading your work and sharing my words with you.
Happy New Year
X
Last Images of the Year
My Pictures: Sun setting in Xinxiang, Henan Province , China.
The last day of the year
was cold……another art form lost in translation.
And hardly anything as beautiful
as the sun setting in Xinxiang.
I went for coffee with my friend.
We drank and talked about the picture
of Kurt Cobain on the wall,
and how he blew his brains out.
I told her that Hemingway
went the same way.
And that he was a concrete man.
The girl next to us told me to “be quite”,
she felt I was too loud.
I answered in the negative, and told her
“This is my world as well”.
It was only a moment.
Soon we will both be asleep
and only the shadows will remain
For some reason, I thought of Guernica
and dreams falling from the sky.
So I wished my friend a
‘Happy New Year’, and suggested that she
read more Bukowski next year.
The End of Christmas
My Picture: ‘Putting Away Father Christmas’
With the coming end of darkness,
a dog howled to the sky.
A big sky…..
with uncertain legs.
And waiting for me to give it life.
Another year over
and the living still seeking shelter.
Well-ordered dispositions,
innocently impaled…
And waiting for the death poems…..
to be written.
Somewhere beyond the gray,
with time crawling.
The poets in desperate vigilance
await their call.
Shadow King
My Picture: Christmas Day Fishing – River Wei , Xinxiang, China.
Shadows cast by the street lights,
and a world taken for granted.
Haunt time walking by the river,
and the lateness of the world.
This is one picture, a second
ripped from the concepts of a life.
But one that each morning
rises and sinks again.
Each moment cast, held together
by lingering strands of hope
as only harsh things can.
Recalled and revised for another gathering.
Dark Times
My picture
A Wandering Poet 