My picture: A dragon fish….my friend keeps these fish…so I wondered about the life of this beautiful creature.
Water margin
Environment
Saturday 20th April, 2019
My Picture: Bookshop in the center of Xinxiang. I often go there to think and write.
Well versed in news this morning.
Parades are plentiful in Belfast,
a murdered journalist and omens from above.
What makes you think they will love you?
Elections in the Ukraine, jokers among the pack.
The crowd shouts ‘Why did the chicken cross the road”
But the joke isn’t funny anymore,
when ladder days are every day.
The BBC tells me that we have 12 years to save the planet,
but like you mother….. you can’t always trust the BBC.
So, all eyes to the heavens and silence on command.
As the desert moon probe crashes again, again and again.
Outside, in small towns a stream of voices shouts
“We’re innocent ….think of our children…..”
But nobody thinks of the children anymore,
it’s all on you.
In the end, I decided to sleep tight and be thankful.
Maybe I will write to complain about all the fake news on TV,
just like before.
Or listen to the midnight fear,
and the bells ringing in Washington, Belfast and Caracas.
The nearest thing to being alive, this morning.
Dawn Chorus
My Picture: Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu, China.
Dawn, and the campus is quite.
Sun beams yearn to break.
Rows of baby-chewed medical books,
tinged brown and beaten flat
by thousands of little bare feet.
Sit quietly in the morning shadows,
watching old women sweeping.
It becomes a thing.
Faint strands of outdoor light,
half-warning, half fear.
Stand alone in a makeshift moment,
all for another day.
Stiff-bodies awake to slow-mo happiness.
And notebooks in the margins
are turned-slow by cold hands.
One page, soon others deepen the approach,
a slight chill to the morning.
The Voice of the Cicadas
My Picture
It’s the edge of the world,
and I am tired.
The sound of water
says what it thinks.
Fish are walking
and sparrows singing.
Too often hinting of past things,
how far-off they are!
The moon taps at the window,
tap, tap, tap…..
Searching for the spotlight,
a slatted loneliness.
By the mountains, graceful
a kite ascends…
As the wind beats the wind,
pitying a lonely cicada voice.
Somewhere over here
A picture sent to me by a friend in Harbin, China. Northern China is experiencing late winter snow……..
Everybody run, run, run…..
a friend told me about death today.
Already naked
my dreams go wandering.
A vast empty autumn night
…..my very own constellation.
It reached the clouds in the sky,
an empty sickbed
and impotent doctors…..
watching the clock dial glow.
I awoke before the end,
a split second spirit.
And cast a cold eye….
I will not sell death today.
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.
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?
Silent Moments No 3
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My Pictures: Harbin. Heilongjiang, China.
Old church doors
across the street.
Not creaking for anyone.
The Songhua River,
quite through bare trees….
never quite full.
Yet faintly, between the space,
a dutar plays a song.
A small patch of grass
surprises me as I turn.
Snow people of Harbin
My Pictures: Taken this evening , Songhua River, Harbin, China.
Away from the crowds,
I found the snow people.
Once snowflake beautiful,
now silent and waiting for the longest night.
Just moments before,
made with tiny hands and love.
And wishing fame would last for ever.
Now those clouds, war horses on the march…
will have their day.
At first, they would not talk to me
but I reached to the clouds.
I wanted to know what the snow people
thought about life and death.
The British one found me and whispered in my ear……
“ Why are you here… there is only endless change, and no destinations”.
January Dusk
Harbin: Heilongjiang, China: sent to me by a friend today.
A Wandering Poet 