My Picture: Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu, China.
Dawn Chorus
Travel
Autumn Sounds
My Picture
Leaves fall with sounds
as the years go by,
still with passion and movement.
And I write of future nostalgia
and lingering fears,
to be left for a thousand years.
Bucolic words remain unfinished.
As shepherds no longer devoted
to their sheep, order the children in line
for the next prize giving.
The sowing season has been missed again,
passing away with sincere emotion.
It’s an endless road.
For every sunrise and sunset,
there is a dark night.
A house where it all began
effortlessly, languidly…..it flows.
Just right, for eternal
commemoration and grand theater.
Teaching poetry in Vietnam
My Picture.: A gallery I visited in Ho Chi Minh City…a collective of local artists.
Big wheels turn round and around,
live it our way and live it long.
Lights going down, never satisfied
a first faint line without substance.
Midnight valentines shooting the moon,
following snake tracks on the road.
Clipped roses litter the ground
and blind birds drink from a dark puddle.
Something in the way it all moves.
A night walk slowly approaching, open in hunger.
Dark against the near dawn,
filling the corners with light.
Quite Neighborhood
My Pictures: Taken in Vietnam, Summer 2018.
Deep and dark now
whalebone and winter rain.
Thin plates to enlarge the circle,
a hand to the sky.
Unafraid, a black bird
watches me approach.
Trees shift, and gulls turn the day
no other words come.
Silent friends meeting,
the sound of chairs being moved ,in and out.
Tears in silver foil litter the ground
and white wind eyes darken the mood.
I look at the rain shadow and distant virga,
razored through and losing its name.
And yet, a fleeting symbol of life
a returning sea, seducing the summer sun.
Stillness
My picture of a photograph I took in Vietnam celebrating the role of women in the history of this country.
saying nothing
has become part of the English language
held by it
like flashbacks in a forest
across the tables
conversations grinding away
a petal falls
and the afternoon drifts along
when I look up
migrating birds show the way
giving loneliness
in the taste of white peach
Understanding
A picture sent to me by a friend in England.
I talked with my friend from Anyang this morning.
Upon a background of fading moonlight,
and recalling times gone by.
Once, we both had pure and romantic hopes… and lost them someplace.
You walk…. I walk.
Now there remains a heart in deep sadness….. estranged from this yellow land.
So I sent her a daffodil, from England…..
to pull along her threads of worries
and clean up these ancient wounds.
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.
Midnight Road
rhdr
hdrpl
My Pictures
During this time and through it all,
falling free from a lazy sky.
A sole evening star glows to the left,
overlapping the trouble I’ve seen.
The armies of the day, a mirror …..
reflect soft seeds of spreading hope.
Across the towering Taihang Mountains,
reigning heights….. echoed by a silent sound.
Now warming lights blink sober red,
and gather in the throat.
A voice that strives to strike the senses dumb,
floods its beauty to the sky.
Afterglow
My Picture: A accident on the way home this evening…our coach hit a car…all is well…but the fragility of life is all around us.
A Wandering Poet 