My Picture: Evening Exercises: Xinxiang City, Henan, China.
What to ask yourself
China
January Dusk
Harbin: Heilongjiang, China: sent to me by a friend today.
Confronting the dark,
what sadness there has been.
A feathered longing
retrieved from a thorn,
a dull commotion of typewriter-keys.
Beneath the feet
of a dancing dragon,
old age now grazing the barriers.
And yet…..
out of solitude
I swallow all things up,
and see a poet
surprise his audience.
With the neon glow of his words,
and thoughts turned inside out.
Drinking under the moon with Li Bai
rbsh
hdrpl
My Pictures: Wall Posters , Xinxiang City, China.
In these years,
what I like is still
the shell I take.
Swollen shut
and looking for something
from the inside.
I love the lonely grasses
that thrive by the roadside.
Waiting for the rain to give witness,
and the sun to send forth its faint rays.
In silence to and daffodil mornings,
I listen to shell sounds
and bursts of wet clay.
While the moon wanders the sky,
sober and unrequited.
Words heard, and lost
My Picture: Wall poster, Xinxiang, Henan Province, China.
Last night it rained,
then there were stars.
A ceaseless weaving
of a winter echo.
The water fell together,
as the moon dissolved.
Bleeding its light,
the thickness quite
with still intent.
You flickered,
I could not touch you.
Just enough of the rain,
to bring the smell back.
From those stolen moments
and flaming fornications.
Across the ridge
My Picture: Taken this evening Xinxiang Medical University, China.
Fog….. sitting here
without the trees.
A deserted basketball court,
wind weeping through the hoops.
And in the distance,
the train to Beijing picks up speed.
Dragging the night stars out
one by one
….. by one.
Unclaimed Territory
My Picture
By tree and blade of grass,
a cold breeze swept through the city.
A single beat, with histories mingling
from a netherworld.
A freezing fuzziness in my eyes and head
and darkness scattered.
I watch searchingly,
at the people walking in dead leaves.
Nothing seemed as it was, nothing felt new.
The girls had fireflies in their hair,
and the boys wrote
calligraphy in the clouds…..
a slow burning love.
The beat became louder,
quick frozen faces.
Snapshots of times before the ancestors,
before we sank into the dreams.
A cold swept through the city today.
First day of the year
My
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My Pictures
Waiting for the world to turn,
tree-by-tree.
I walked to the coffee cafe.
It claims…..
‘The Best Coffee’
A big claim in China.
A cat watched me across the road..
across our differences.
I thought the cat was familiar,
but I have been mistaken before.
Inside the coffee was good.
As the last rays of the day fell silent,
I listened to Fela Kuti.. “Opposite People”.
From another world, a soothing flatness hung from a distant shore.
On the winter horizon, I saw the cat again.
Death in his pocket and swaying to the afrobeat…. another body count.
It was time to go home.
Silence is also an answer… I thought.
Last Images of the Year
My Pictures: Sun setting in Xinxiang, Henan Province , China.
The last day of the year
was cold……another art form lost in translation.
And hardly anything as beautiful
as the sun setting in Xinxiang.
I went for coffee with my friend.
We drank and talked about the picture
of Kurt Cobain on the wall,
and how he blew his brains out.
I told her that Hemingway
went the same way.
And that he was a concrete man.
The girl next to us told me to “be quite”,
she felt I was too loud.
I answered in the negative, and told her
“This is my world as well”.
It was only a moment.
Soon we will both be asleep
and only the shadows will remain
For some reason, I thought of Guernica
and dreams falling from the sky.
So I wished my friend a
‘Happy New Year’, and suggested that she
read more Bukowski next year.
Shadow King
My Picture: Christmas Day Fishing – River Wei , Xinxiang, China.
Shadows cast by the street lights,
and a world taken for granted.
Haunt time walking by the river,
and the lateness of the world.
This is one picture, a second
ripped from the concepts of a life.
But one that each morning
rises and sinks again.
Each moment cast, held together
by lingering strands of hope
as only harsh things can.
Recalled and revised for another gathering.
Bai Juyi’s Dream
My Picture: Taken on Christmas Day, Xinxiang , China
A Wandering Poet 