‘My Cafe’: Xinxiang, China.
Putting in the Work
Love Poems
Street Shadows
My Picture: Frozen River Fen, Taiyuan, Shanxi province , China.
Shadows cast by
neon lights, ripped plainly
from the future.
A world now
only of memory,
and frozen snapshots
of unclaimed territory.
Each moment experienced
more violently,
with every sleep
secured.
Some people
are never wrong,
and others yearn for love.
Idle comments are
left hanging,
on an empty white space.
I find myself watching
endlessly, searchingly
for whimsical lines
and a poet with all the answers.
But in the end, it is left to me
to tell it as it was.
Love Confronted
My Picture: Wall Painting: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
There was only one love.
Or shall I say,
I only loved one woman.
But now I know,
beyond the remote borders
I loved myself more.
And the words
spoken in an ancient forest,
now hauled away without compassion.
Winter is so far away from spring,
it sours my soul.
But this is my design, mine alone.
Moving towards the night
My Picture: Early evening, Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China.
Late in the evening,
a cold day of silence in the city.
The lights of Number 3 hospital,
recovered from memory
days and nights on the wards.
Dances full of questions,
and a tall thin woman
swept through my bones.
I listened to the radio,
and voices from faraway.
A conversation about the
meaning of life I think.
Unpainted and twisted,
the voices boiled into a
gloom and silence.
Composed of new forms
of unrelated shapes.
City Lights
My Picture: Xinxiang City, Henan Province, China.
When I first came to the city,
I was so much smaller.
The city was busy with
stories, hidden away and unsung.
Fog played at my feet,
and cold mists of rain
chorused a life
of tragedy and contentment.
Among the soundless solitudes,
I found a crowded room full of poetry
and thoughts of hope.
Wakeful Things
My Picture
It began with a slight
pain in her side,
nothing new really.
She was witty,
knowledgeable and golden,
and she loved me.
Then it came,
somber the night was.
Dragging those
beautiful thighs,
from love and sleep.
To a hospital bed
and the dangerous tides of
palliative chemotherapy.
And death dropped from
the dark,
a ghost standing on a bridge.
And everybody hurts.
Cold Mornings
My Picture: Frozen River Wei, Xinxiang, China
I woke early this morning,
and grey marked the sky.
The many things that
claw and tear in my mind,
swept the crowded jungle clean.
In winter nothing stirs
along the ground.
An ample cold begins to fold,
a dullness touched my
thoughts of you.
How to disregard me
My Picture: Burnt Scooter – taken today: Xinxiang, Henan, China.
Just tell them I am a frustrated poet,
that swears that he is an atheist,
and hates football.
But even this they did not get.
Just tell them, that
I promise never to listen to AC/DC again.
And I swear, I will never, never again read
that alcoholic sexist pig
Bukowski,
at least not for a while…
But even this statement of my ill-intentions
they did not get.
Just tell them,
that I will get back to teaching
cats and dogs, and promise to give more
time and marks for beauty.
After all, every day is judgment day.
And as they drift,
and fade away so slowly.
Some said
“you cannot be a poet”
Even though, I could show it.
Then I realized that I am at their mercy.
And a life on the road seems a good
way to sink into my dreams,
and write my open poetry.
On Reflection
My Picture: River Wei Today: Xinxiang, China
Observing all the things I meet
on downtown walks,
reminds me of walking through life.
You can yell at this direction
or that direction,
a fire garden of illusions
Either way, the wind takes
your voice away.
And you see the shadows
of your mother,
or any other empty reflection.
In the end, two people can look
at the exact same thing, and see
something totally different.
Only to doubt what
is presented to you.
Passing Time
My Picture: Statue of Vietnamese Woman: Hue, Vietnam.
A Wandering Poet 