My Picture: River Wei: Xinxiang City: Henan Province, China.
The Warmest Night Of The Year
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Conversation No 2
My Pictures: Hue Art Gallery, Vietnam
I met two Vietnamese
men this morning, visiting China.
They invited me to drink tea
and flexed about philosophy.
One of them told me that
Le Quy Don was the greatest
scholar that Vietnam has produced.
The other one disagreed,
and wanted to tell me about
Tran Duc Thao
“He’s a Marxist and traitor”
Said Le Quy Don’s man.
I just drank some tea and listened.
And thought about literature
not made from literature.
Now some say how can this be?
You cannot speak Vietnamese,
and their English is poor.
So I tell them I keep searching
the streets and wonder about words.
And the next thing is that
everything is still there.
A blast of colour is a silent world.
The Harshness of Life
My Picture: ‘Great Wall of China: Beijing, China.
A coffee in my favourite cafe,
escaping the harshness of the
cautious lovers.
A slumber to avoid what exists.
The Carpenters played
in the background, every word
a deceitful relationship.
From the corner of my eye,
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.
Beijing Airport
Beijing Airport, China (China Daily)
A woman walked passed me.
Her eyes seemed wet with tears.
Or maybe she had just been
to the bathroom.
Seeing herself through circles
of confusion, a state of soul.
But I wondered about those eyes.
Drowned in the dim lit Beijing rain.
Tangled and twisted in toils.
Or love confused and the world
moving at a normal pace.
Beyond the confines of right and wrong
Coffee Time
Coffee Time Cafe: Xinxiang: Henan Province, China.
Everybody here is fresh and young.
Unscratched, and never tired
of looking at each other.
I took a seat and opened my copy of
“The Last Night of the Earth Poems”
And felt like the oldest person in China.
The coffee is hot and clean, I come
here mainly for the coffee.
And the old waitress who always
says “hello” in practiced English.
There is a young couple across from me.
He wants to touch her, pressing for a kiss
at least in mind and spirit.
But this is not the way it happens in China.
And she is having none of it.
A quick look and a smile at me.
And without minor notice,
she decides to leave.
So now I am alone again,
a little earlier than I expected today.
A Walking Moment
For me poetry is about moments, bite-sized pieces of my life, and the truth is I never really know when these moments are going to happen. There is not always a ‘signal’. I just walk, listen, watch, look, hear and taste what is around me.
Yesterday was a warm day, so I walked by the river and a ‘poetry moment’ happened. I guess ‘life’ happens like this….but maybe we do not always see it.
So I wrote this poem.
A Walking Moment
My Picture: River Wei. Xinxiang City, Henan Province, China.
An out-of-nowhere moment.
A mother breast feeding her baby,
a knowing nod and a peeking way.
My secret nourisher in a lonely place.
Two sleeping dogs, tethered
with rope and chain.
Enacting a punishment of
pain and pleasure.
A tidy breeze, unfastening frames
with great seriousness.
That spoke to me from the inside.
The rush of traffic stacked away
and slowed down by silence.
An armored peace to meet
my solitude.
An orange coated beetle caught
up in a freezing lament.
Rotting and waiting to die.
As the old man, consumed
by thoughts of his demise
drinks the last drop of Baijiu.
And a carefree boy walking
the silent streets, turns slowly round
and smiles anxiously as time sleeps again.
I still believe in moments.
Mid-Autumn No 2
This weekend here in China, and other parts of Asia we are celebrating mid-autumn festival. Mid -Autumn Day is Monday September 24th. In China this is a national holiday.
Mid-Autumn Festival. … Falling on the 15th day of the 8th month according to the Chinese lunar calendar, the Mid-Autumn Festival is the second grandest festival in China after the Chinese New Year. It takes its name from the fact that it is always celebrated in the middle of the autumn season.
The moon is a symbol of fertility, prosperity and peace, it also indicates nurturing of our dreams, and passion. The full moon symbolises family reunion and an auspicious token of abundance, harmony, and luck. The harvest festival also encompasses the fruits of labour by the farmers.
So..I wrote this poem this morning. I guess we all see the moon differently.
Mid-Autumn No 2.
Lugou Bridge, Beijing, China (China Daily)
The moon, now full grown
Cold and darker.
A statue through a
gauze-draped window.
Disappearing, as pain stains
from mountain less risings.
A crystal bottle of liqueur
by its side, so cruel and crazy.
And the blackest of Chinese ink,
draws the ink dark moon.
As the ten suns rise,
silent as the night’s rough husk.
How sad to think of the moon like this.
A pale white shadow, drifting in silver fields
above the mountains rim.
To know that once the song was sweet.
Xiahe
My Pictures: Xiahe: Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China .
Today I went to the top of the world
and met three monks.
Empty of everything except themselves.
The sky a seamless part of it.
With pleasant walks, food and talk at will.
Our only dreams of words forgotten.
And there in the margins,
an interval between wars I saw a black bird.
As black as those that bled in a Shanxi mine.
Darkness evolved into perfection.
Mountains within mountains,
something like a maze.
And now, in my returning dream,
I see tides of people falling through the siege.
6am in Xinxiang
My Picture: View from my apartment window. Xinxiang City: Henan Province, China.
It is 6am in Xinxiang.
No one home, nothing filling up.
A dog howls, in a thick hoarse voice.
That breaks the silent part.
The moon still up this morning,
greets the eye as reflections blaze.
Unable to bear the past, a small
semblance of a lamp light future.
Only a street cleaner,
hardworking, lovesick and confused.
Occupies the space between common lines,
and the black gutters by the road.
I look through my window,
broken with slashes of hard metal.
A whirling cosmos of love, far away.
The only living thing in Xinxiang
The few stars left, able to
punctuate this blissful solitude.
Give time alone to heal,
to shape the earth to something else.
Sitting in a Taiyuan Street
My Picture: Taiyuan Street Market. Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China.
A Wandering Poet 