Angus Young (www,acdc.com)
A Change of Habit
Vietnam
A Place of Solitude
It’s been fifty five years since this car dropped off Thích Quảng Đức in downtown Saigon, and now it’s sitting right along the Perfume River at the Thien Mu pagoda in Hue ( second picture, I took)
I took a boat trip to Thien Mu
in the ward of Hương Long in Huế,
to see a celestial lady.
The boat was run by a mother
and daughter, who offered me tea
and smiles that wanted us all.
Inside it was quite,
just the engine of the boat,
wet and gutted.
Another failed lung,
a small sound that was all sounds.
Always pleading with the perfumed
river and smiling seductively, the
daughter tried to sell me things.
T-shirts, postcards of old Vietnam
and oversized conical hats.
So I bought a t-shirt
with ‘Hue’ on the front.
Even though I knew it was too small,
it seemed the right thing to do.
There was no imitation of life,
just three people in a moment.
Awake to the filtered sunshine,
that occupies most of our days.
Vietnam Blues
Cafe Cong” Hanoi, Vietnam
My Pictures: Cong Coffee Cafe: Hanoi, Vietnam.
I searched for Ho Chi Minh
in Vietnam, four line quatrains
and the substance of a country.
I wondered why, there
are no rhythms of screaming
souls or nightmare firestorms.
Or mothers who still shed one
lonely tear of the night.
My heart was heavy
when I saw the pictures of Mỹ Lai.
The kindness answered
with foul wrong from gloomy
and angry men.
I walked the streets of Hanoi,
Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City.
And saw the beauty of human
love and struggle, pass the
threshold of moral grief.
I learnt of people
leaving behind nights of
terror, and leaping
wide over black oceans.
They brought gifts
from Nhat Hanh, Dang Thuy Tram
and Hồ Xuân Hương.
A gentle light that strays
and vanishes, but always returns.
And a wind that blows
a forgiving silence.
The Pain of Lost Love
My Picture: Personal Shadows in Taiyuan City: Shanxi Province, China
In a dark human forest
I swore
I would never
love or believe
again.
Anger, drink
and mistrust
was my daily life.
A new friend.
You ask me why I find
it hard to trust, to love
even after all these years.
Easy to forgive
and forget, right!
Because, I am haunted
more by her memories
than new Chinese dreams.
I am the distant drums
of a distant love lost.
How I Became a Poet
I often think about the how I became a poet.
All those years of reading, when nobody
was nearly interested.
My father was a romantic.
He could read aloud poems by
Keats, Shelley and Byron.
I couldn’t understand any of it, I doubt he could.
But it sounded good.
I settled into a life,
evoked of love and steadfast promises.
And discovered Neruda and personal
colours of hope.
But in life
the dark mornings always come.
Just listen to the coughs,
and the blood stained phlegm of cancer
You will know what I mean.
Then I found Bukowski
and began to see
that being a fool is normal.
And shit happens in life.
“I am a writer” he said.
At least he endured trying.
So now….. I get out of bed
and I write poems.
Sometimes a painful submission of words,
that almost every poet thinks.
But that’s normal…..
at least for me.
Strange Currencies
My Pictures: Vietnam Military History Museum; Hanoi, Vietnam
A Wandering Poet 