Alone,
singing a rain song.
At an iron gate
a dog is heard to bark.
Pretty river,
I will come when
night is dark.
And chant the
praises of love.

Weeping with the sound of reeds.
And surging in black jade.
My life shivers in the cold.
Poor boy, they say.
A life of rice – grinding.

Ah, I say – what a long time it is.
We’ve miles to go yet.
Gulping June and July
and the swollen rains.
How precious I am, on this path.

Desolation deep in spring.
Leaving a peek at myself,
why should I breathe?
But that which ends,
hangs first in slender
and hazy dreams.
A poem of fading light
at the sky’s edge.
A kiss, made peaceful bed.
Against this tide
of helpless misery.

City backstreets in plum rain.
The stench of last nights liquor.
Mounted on the breath
of the unrequited.

A silence of slow water,
pervades the city.
And nothing is an accident.
A daily essense of survival.

 
In this passing moment,
in a world of mud
and bleached skies.
With stomachs pallid
and unrequited.
I carry on, floating
through the air.
From stone to cloud,
eastward or westward.
Cutting a swath
through bones of stillness.
Until the spring nights,
glittering and dancing.
Buzz like children
playing , and multiply
to embrace the
summer shadows.

Stamp and jump.
Jump and stamp.
Mist on my glasses.
Why is it still raining?
Of me, a graying stranger.
Deep as a well at night.
But what is happening
to the wind, I ask.
Not a soul will speak.
Not a single person will scream.
So how will I address the fog?
Like so many spirits,
I am always surprised by spring.
Around the tombs,
what are the butterflies
trying to trace?

When the moon is quite.
Beyond the paper doors.
I look cautiously
at her face again.
A fire of spirit
bloomed with flowers.
Full of sweet scents.
Enough to live,
warming my soul –
on these cold nights.
This is how we are
between us.

Walking,
I stopped to buy
some sunflowers.
Thinking of Van Gogh.
All into himself,
right until the end.
I used to give my
wife sunflowers.
Right until the end.
They filled her heart.
And filled my eyes.
Oh, but so gently.

I told her she looked tired.
She replied
” Some things last a long time”
And the ceiling dripped
with sweat – from the tea gods.
A mirror into a way of life,
mirror and he.
Always mirror and he.
So, I drank the black tea –
from moment to moment.
Then hit the streets,
as if everybody had left the city.

It was a time
when people thought –
awake or sleeping.
It was dancing time
from morn to night.
Full of fresh scents
and moon – viewing.
And there were
no more strangers.
Then we wandered
into a tortured grove.
And life scars
crossed the brim.
Mountain streams
then raging torrents.
We fought as well
as we could.
All the way to the
ready-made shallow graves.
Until the clouds
turned into rain.
And deep in the wood,
a fox howled to heaven.
Tasting the blood.