The stranger

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My picture: Another doodle….but a self-portrait of sorts.

Strange how fast night comes,
a solid sound as jaded faces melt.

Then the night shivers out
an early morning drift, like a sigh.

In the wink of an eye,
a world cowed by wind and rain.

A summer’s backward glance,
and broken shells in disarray.

Tokens of regret left all around,
but dreams forget to come.

And sleeping now, life is sweet
all tucked inside dawn’s blue light.

 

The sound of noise

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My Picture: A simple doodle in my journal……

All morning I’ve been thinking.
I wonder about the trees, the flowers and
the noise outside my window.

Sometimes I watch the trees sway,
always humble and kind.
Do the flowers have mountains to climb?
It can’t be easy having the white clouds watching over them.

And the noise, always the noise
it never gets away, until we lose the measure of life.

This Easter Day

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A picture sent to me by a friend in England…..his son on Easter morning.

Rain clouds conducting rhythm.
April fools, all around.
The daffodils wilting in sight of spring,
an early morning warmed.
And down this dusty road
words will make you a lemonade sun,
on this Easter day.

A letter

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My picture…a friend gave me a letter today…..

The letter was beautiful,
written in English.
A freeway of thoughts
and heartfelt emotions.
Like a closet being opened
to another world……
an earth therapy tugging at the future.

It is easy to think the world is shrinking,
and the mountains just repeat themselves…… for the few that
can still keep a straight face.

Yes, the world is smaller
but across those darkened skies
– a prelude to the awkward moments….
Words of magic and an acorn at the foot of an oak tree…. the future colds of winter.

Rejected

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My Picture of my picture

My poetry was rejected this morning,
early morning China time.
A time when people are weary, unhappy and frustrated
……facing a long and uninventive day.

The magazine gave no reasons,
just the manner of things
No emotions…..
“We have decide not to keep your poems”

The curious thing for me
was that, I felt in good company.
Bukowski was rejected most days,
and Dickinson almost never published.

They just left large droppings of their lives, all around.
For people like me to pick-up,
in between reading Camus and Chomsky…..
spaces in their lives and the lives of their friends.

So, I made some coffee, drew a picture
and wrote a poem.
Not like Bukowski or Dickinson, like me.
A concrete man, then the real morning began.

A busy poem

My pictures: We all say we are busy. Some say they are ‘busy’…all the time. A little satirical poem…I wrote this morning.

“I am busy”, they say

Sorry, volume is busy

J’ai été tellement occupé

나는 도울 수 없다, 나는 바쁘다.

如此忙碌,我從來沒有時間去死。

I said “ I know, that is why I can’t write much….”

Uplifting spring

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My Picture: Sanquan Medical Collage, Xinxiang, China.

A little boy looked at my hair
and asked me

“Why are you so old?”

A trick philosophical question from one so young.

Short sun in cold winter white,
I pulled out a small strand of grey hair,
going the same way.
Exchanging looks with the boy,
we smiled for a selfie.

A snow blanket mountain,
something tiny and whole and
the power of allure.
A soul with wings
and freedom felt in spring’s fresh lace.

A moments decline

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My Picture

Uncertainty,
trotting timid minds out
in a closed space.

A pale gray train appears
stirred empty on the silent outskirts,
proclaiming a second coming.

His life, a kind of a freeze frame
a non-thinking matter.
Smothering the earth with a fast silver-whitewash

Not too unpleasant, these days.
The beauty and fun of it all,
a quick free trip with no return.