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
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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.
Lights Out!
My Picture.
Darkness and gloom,
in a chattering street.
Everywhere glitter and stare,
sky blurred and nighttime stubborn.
Across a late December night,
a tired moon lifted in the east.
I thought everyone needs a place,
and casts a shadow of lingering strands.
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.
Bai Juyi’s Dream
My Picture: Taken on Christmas Day, Xinxiang , China
An icebox wind
clumping across the frozen
city streets.
Whipping across my face,
to let my memories go.
A guarded path,
no longer anchored.
Allow new melodies
to break from old tracks lost.
Dark Times
My picture
In a dark time,the mind plays tricks.
I end up meeting shadows
deep in the shade.
Outside is like a quite graveyard,
a cold breeze and an end.
The ragged moon competes for attention.
With a tearless night, abject and mute
and patched by indifference.
A few stars, not dimmed and dark yet.
Offer to enlarge the circle of light,
and silent friends meeting.
Meeting Wang Wei by the river
My Picture: Taken today on my Christmas Walk…
On this Christmas Day,
I walked in Lesau Park.
And read Wang Wei and Sun Di.
The mist along the river fixed
it lazy gaze, on the old fishermen
from the old places.
I talked with a couple,
who offered Baijiu and sweet potatoes.
We talked about the drowning soul,
and how the weeping willow
tree still bears witness.
As I crossed the river,
I saw a veiled mist
encroaching with sadness once again.
And who would choose not to inquire,
to see the grief for one more time.
So half coming back,
I hurried home.
To a sigh and an echo passing by.
Christmas Eve
My Picture: Words have magic….
A messenger delivers
and everything I feel.
Big stories, with small bottom lines.
The quite boy with the simple smile.
He never knows what to say
to his mother, who is never satisfied.
The girl with the straight ‘A’s
who does not want to be a doctor,
and hides a dark family secret.
The old man hiding the pain
and fire inside,
consumed by ill-fate and
dragging himself from day-to-day.
A woman who told me
her husband had not kissed
her for eight years…….She
was beautiful.
A cautious loner
who once was a king.
Now he drinks each day,
and shouts at the moon.
Everybody’s searching for them,
everybody’s consumed by them
…and my story?
My eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul….
Sailing on the yellow river
My Picture: I held a small Christmas Party tonight….a gift from a students mother….
Before the winter fire
and shrill midnight cries.
I craved nothing.
Then the hunters silence
and fickle friends leaving,
surrounded my bones.
At the brink
an unseen bird sang
from the tree shadow.
I knew then of the road
not yet taken,
and some of the silence is me.
A Wandering Poet 