My Picture: Bronze Sculpture, 798 Art Zone, Beijing, China
That Summer Feeling
Education
A Poet’s Thoughts
My Picture: Bookshop: Hoi An, Vietnam
A late night,
or early morning
listening to Gill-Scott Heron
singing about prisons
and a sense of loss.
And the words keep coming.
I know about loss.
Each day I struggle with the
echoes of another world, imported
into dialogue.
A tired pen trying to catch an
errant voice passing by,
struggling to find the right words.
Now, suffering autumn’s castigation
lamenting in my awareness.
And Gill-Scott Heron, now he is
singing about no rain, no rain
and how to survive on sadness.
I get this…..
Awakening Solitude
My Picture: Jin River, Chengdu, China
When alone, I thought
the crowd is wearing my face.
Silently judging,
safe in the knowledge of the tribe.
Transfixed by the multitude,
the lights flash on.
And as the daylight falls
the world is silent,
but for the sound of a singing bird
that comes from you.
The light that specifies the
face and the music,
swings as the deep abyss.
Night Father
The Independent Newspaper. UK.
The United Nations High
Commission for Refugees,
told me that 1,500 died
this month.
Or maybe they told me
850 lives were lost
in June and July alone.
It’s probably fake news anyway.
But I hope someone finds a solution,
I’d like to help,
But I haven’t the time today.
I know you tried to save him,
He had a home once,
pictures from school,
his favourite toy, Buzz Lightyear
made in China.
Now his home is the
mouth of a shark, and
one dead night swimmer
is the same as another.
You tell of your anger,
fear and shame?
Of your hopes for the future,
as the world watches you die
A washed up tiny young life,
you say ‘sorry’ for disturbing the
sangria on a Mediterranean beach.
The world speaks English,
when we write poems.
And the poets would like to help,
but their hands are tied.
Yesterdays Sun
My Picture
Most days on my way to the café for coffee,
a homely comfort in a foreign place.
There is a man I see, a bleeding soul
in this vacant place.
He sleeps mainly on the grass verge,
always rough and unwashed.
Lays like an animal too ready for winter.
And the people pass him by.
The whole process shows desperation,
no such helpmates or a plight to bear.
A sickness of the mind, steeped in
ancient rules of deception.
Some see an empty space, some a sleeping dog.
And some an inconvenience from where they lie.
None of them see the whispers invading their
perceptions.
Yesterday the sun was setting, half asleep.
I remembered once feeling the
sun, and seeing half a yellow daffodil pale
blowing left and right.
Another heart broken race.
So I took some coffee and slice of
coconut cake to the man.
Undone with misery, he said something
I did not understand.
I thought, I am bitter sometimes
but the taste of life was one day sweet.
I was loved by goodness, and that was enough.
The Age of Reason
My Picture: 798 Art Zone: Beijing, China.
Now, for all that is the
curtain of my soul.
It is hard to remember those
bright days of early love.
And a picture of you and me
in strange surroundings, is all
that is left of days restored.
My share at least, the beauty
of desire and a loss stolen away.
Distant children, a house that is no more
and a world turned loose from
dense dreams past.
A concept of love,
a plaster fix of selfish cries.
Was a least a reason for sinking in
the sand and losing it.
Too many indulgent days,
self-aware, yet unable to care
and blinded by coal-burning
tears.
Now, in silence my wounds I feel.
From those times, so fondly
cherished.
Faded Beauty
My Picture
Xinxiang backstreets in hard rain.
People at every junction,
walking in and out of my ears.
Dancing their bee dance in the
margins of returning light.
I wrap my coat around you.
A personal memory of lost hope,
burned in the zig-zags, runs
and circles of a fire spun moment.
The evening stars, a pattern of sorrow
humming their exquisite extravagance.
Now and forever, lamenting a loss
flamboyant and luminous.
Nothing good will come of this.
Disco in China.
My copy.
Quite, alone
trying to write a poem.
And Disco comes on
in the cafe.
Yes…disco!
Donner Summer I think
“Love To Love You Baby”.
My mother liked this.
A sunny cloud,
drifting swiftly by.
Tantalizingly floating
from 1975.
It was up there, the
sky still high,
and a richness in the land.
I hear the song
so clearly now.
A Place of Solitude
It’s been fifty five years since this car dropped off Thích Quảng Đức in downtown Saigon, and now it’s sitting right along the Perfume River at the Thien Mu pagoda in Hue ( second picture, I took)
I took a boat trip to Thien Mu
in the ward of Hương Long in Huế,
to see a celestial lady.
The boat was run by a mother
and daughter, who offered me tea
and smiles that wanted us all.
Inside it was quite,
just the engine of the boat,
wet and gutted.
Another failed lung,
a small sound that was all sounds.
Always pleading with the perfumed
river and smiling seductively, the
daughter tried to sell me things.
T-shirts, postcards of old Vietnam
and oversized conical hats.
So I bought a t-shirt
with ‘Hue’ on the front.
Even though I knew it was too small,
it seemed the right thing to do.
There was no imitation of life,
just three people in a moment.
Awake to the filtered sunshine,
that occupies most of our days.
A Short Walk
My Picture: Taken Yesterday.
A Wandering Poet 