My Picture: Xiahe, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu , China.
Romantic Interlude
Vietnam
The thoughts that poets have
My Picture: Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China.
It seems at times I can’t be older.
A white haired smile
and a fossil imprint,
infused with a hunters despair.
Exotic summers still remain,
and winter days without
a breeze are wildly wept on.
I still remember how the stillness dazed.
As night pushes into day,
I taste the fragrance of your flesh.
A flower soaked in persistent rain,
a tiny track in fallen snow.
Each step, and again is silent.
The tragedy of dreams
My Picture: Xinxiang, Henan Province, China.
Like most others
I have come through
sadness and
loves deep nights.
And let them have their moments.
Now I see through
the wasted landscape,
and broadcasts
that say nothing.
Lamenting only a
laugh and an echo passing by.
A grey cry of the future,
is enough to make things grow.
And suffer the castigation
of my thinning dreams,
now so quickly dispatched.
Street Shadows
My Picture: Frozen River Fen, Taiyuan, Shanxi province , China.
Shadows cast by
neon lights, ripped plainly
from the future.
A world now
only of memory,
and frozen snapshots
of unclaimed territory.
Each moment experienced
more violently,
with every sleep
secured.
Some people
are never wrong,
and others yearn for love.
Idle comments are
left hanging,
on an empty white space.
I find myself watching
endlessly, searchingly
for whimsical lines
and a poet with all the answers.
But in the end, it is left to me
to tell it as it was.
Love Confronted
My Picture: Wall Painting: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
There was only one love.
Or shall I say,
I only loved one woman.
But now I know,
beyond the remote borders
I loved myself more.
And the words
spoken in an ancient forest,
now hauled away without compassion.
Winter is so far away from spring,
it sours my soul.
But this is my design, mine alone.
Walking under the moon
My Picture: The moon tonight: Xinxiang, China
Long walks at night—
I asked the moon to talk to me,
just the two of us.
But the moon would not talk,
it slept within.
So we both never said a word.
I hope one day soon
we can meet again.
With a desire, and a yearning.
Imitation of Life
My Picture: Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China.
A bird sat
on my windowsill.
Each movement
and habit
carefully planned
and uncontested.
A poetic truth
I thought.
I was moved
to see such
outstanding
imitations of life
on this
cold morning.
Their Day
My Picture: Quoc Hoc High School, Hue, Vietnam.
It’s been a long day.
Everybody wanted something from me.
Tracy wanted me to practice for
the line-dancing competition.
I said I couldn’t dance.
In the end I practiced the electric Slide,
cupid Shuffle and the Cha, Cha, Cha.
And felt like a dancing queen.
Josephine wanted me to talk to her
students on how to improve their English,
and good habits.
She gave me that look….it always gets me.
So I say ok.
Then Dave called me,
not in self-pity and something forgotten,
which is normal for him.
More, “I have an idea….”
It never strikes, but makes me despair at
the language and the scrutiny.
Now I feel like the only living boy in this place
Moving towards the night
My Picture: Early evening, Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China.
Late in the evening,
a cold day of silence in the city.
The lights of Number 3 hospital,
recovered from memory
days and nights on the wards.
Dances full of questions,
and a tall thin woman
swept through my bones.
I listened to the radio,
and voices from faraway.
A conversation about the
meaning of life I think.
Unpainted and twisted,
the voices boiled into a
gloom and silence.
Composed of new forms
of unrelated shapes.
City Lights
My Picture: Xinxiang City, Henan Province, China.
A Wandering Poet 