My Picture
The Voice of the Cicadas
Art
Afterglow
My Picture: A accident on the way home this evening…our coach hit a car…all is well…but the fragility of life is all around us.
He sung this song
‘Sometimes I feel like a motherless child….. a long way from home…..
It took me back…..
Apples….. bruised apples
late October’s final song
an old dog by a cracking fire
nursed toward a loving light
grasping at the sky
even your life is tender
And then the call is made
a dull material world
numbed by mouth
and the song…..
‘call my brother…….’
How to spend a Sunday
A picture sent to me by a friend yesterday.
Before sleeping I often consider
what I would do, what to be the next day.
Shall I be a mother, beautiful and delicious… flying kites in the park
as the sun sets on another unrequited day?
Shall I be a teacher, not much interested in another awakening
of a long dead language to come?
Shall I be a writer trying to meet others as lonely as myself?
Sometimes there is a strange justice, working for something….
So, I marked some English papers…..
I am exactly what I am supposed to be.
China dream
My Picture
A dog watches me,
across a busy road
across our age and
difference.
Tree-by-tree,
the winter fog fades.
By song alone,
a spot of sunlight.
When I hear it,
I’m older now.
The wind that brought me
here, goes on.
Surrounding my bones.
Interrogative Blues
rptnb
My Pictures
Steve Reich in class today,
blowing in 18 musicians.
Discordant……
harsh and jarring…..
a lost harmony.
But I could see,
a blues haiku
entwined in my mind……
switch them awake.
Structure without structure…..
a Bukowski moment,
how to teach writing
to lit up heads…….
Slow bloom inside you
memories of failure,
turning….. glowing….. humming.
A lost phase……
and slow motion sound.
Too long this sense of obligation
and solitary existence.
But then again……a timid word
emerges from this despair.
A first line together…maybe.
A woman’s day
My Picture: Local Artist Painting, Vietnam.
Each girl walks with a boy,
but no one feels the fire at 3 pm.
Bathed in sunlight, for now
Yet soon the winter winds of Harbin
will caress their hair.
And lead them in a contracted dance
bounding the battered, shell-like dreams.
Button-bright eyes quietly growing,
an awkward bend of recognition.
How strange, how different
this parody of life and death…..
compared to running before this dull life, slowly realized.
A brief moment skimming the clouds,
then disappeared.
Falling through branches
My Picture
Across the frozen field,
a horse breath.
I hear a chime of bells…
a table for one.
Paper flowers,
the old songs
and words we can’t recall.
The poet is out of rhythm.
Hospital waiting rooms,
and jazz in the park.
A mother’s cowlick
squawks the moment.
Walking sticks are left
dropped into a hole.
Foreigners are talking
to a young dog, barking.
A tired flagpole slumbers,
reflecting the new world order.
Bars with under-age concubines
proclaim business as usual.
Growing quiet and suddenly still,
I can see the rice fields glow.
Shyly spreading wispy memories,
with broken and dark stained teeth.
International Woman’s day, 2019
My Picture: ‘Statue of Woman and Baby”: Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China.
Women in my life
Weathering the storms
Stand up and be counted
Black-haired mother and daughter
Never to be owned
They made their way out
Birds and Flight
My Picture: Some friends I met in Xiahe in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu, China.
A deep black satin of the night…
happy hour……
nourishes these broken crowns
…..and words outside their usual habitations.
The only know language
a whipped-up, fading cobalt sky
….and traces of thought
as thin as pins.
And as the girl settles her garments,
a spider with a hidden sting…..
spark fast the blackness of the night.
Like the days before rock and roll
…..and syncopates of love.
Journey to Work
My Picture: ‘Roasting Nuts: Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China.
A Wandering Poet 