My Picture: Xinxiang City, Henan Province, China.
Failing winter
China
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.
Poetry of indifference
My Picture: Xiahe Town, Gansu Province, China.
Scolded by ignorance…..tirelessly at labour,
trying to bubble out a scarlet life.
Welled up unable to grasp your unsaid fears,
countless lives……. so costly bought.
I saw you struggle today, coffee and baby.
A cold deserted siheyuan…..
dark and desolate,
the west wind blowing old papers away.
And the black dogs of Fenyang
howled their dismay.
Each night resistance appears,
a haunting gape in mirrored lifeless eyes.
So, I go to the mountains
on the silent outskirts.
In this awkward configuration
it is difficult to tell……
who belongs to which nation…..this is enough.
Sunday Morning II
My Picture: River Fen, Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China.
Big wheel spinning round and round
a sketchy truth about the finer things.
Spring grasses echo a brave soldiers dream,
life forms in places our fingers and lips touch.
Memories firmly held….. grown up without symbols
fire burns the cracks….. passing time.
Fela Kuti flies the eagles, lonely as the poet
a few lines scratched….. by night.
Writing is weighing, a greater void left behind
‘Don’t be stingy with the whisky’…said Bukowski
Call it gray and call it tired, but also call it life.
It’s late, and few want to learn to dance.
In the morning, new mercies I see
as humble yellow hands reach out to me.
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.
Neil Young
was singing about saving the world,
and how to burn love.
The trees looked bare,
behind life looked unpainted.
Xinyun bus, number 25
passed by…..
windows blacked out.
The air hung lowly…..
we need to call the cops…..it will never stop.
Another ‘jam’ but no music,
just people walking away.
So…I got out….
and danced like a giant down the road.
Swift for them I disappeared…..
and then they stopped, as lonely as a poet.
It’s only 7:30 am…..and the cops are late……
How did it come to this?
Ageless
A Picture of a picture by a local artist here in Xinxiang.
Have you seen this place,
the sky, the sounds and the agony……
red cross blazing high and wide.
A ruby sun, unrequited
and slashed by snaking tree-lines.
Walking warily, in half-light moving…..
we talked of horseback
and watching processions.
While others watch the burning forest deep,
and hover in ageless light.
Girls shyly huddled behind each other,
waiting for a snarling lead…..
and the boys…?
…….lumber high and low.
Searching for the perfect black, oily haired girl.
A flitting shape to gape the sky and blink the stars.
A Wandering Poet 