My Picture: The Mekong River, Vietnam.
A hand to the sky
Vietnam
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
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.
Interrogative Blues
rptnb
My Pictures
Steve Reich in class today,
blowing in 18 musicians.
Discordant……
harsh and jarring…..
a lost harmony.
But I could see,
a blues haiku
entwined in my mind……
switch them awake.
Structure without structure…..
a Bukowski moment,
how to teach writing
to lit up heads…….
Slow bloom inside you
memories of failure,
turning….. glowing….. humming.
A lost phase……
and slow motion sound.
Too long this sense of obligation
and solitary existence.
But then again……a timid word
emerges from this despair.
A first line together…maybe.
A woman’s day
My Picture: Local Artist Painting, Vietnam.
Each girl walks with a boy,
but no one feels the fire at 3 pm.
Bathed in sunlight, for now
Yet soon the winter winds of Harbin
will caress their hair.
And lead them in a contracted dance
bounding the battered, shell-like dreams.
Button-bright eyes quietly growing,
an awkward bend of recognition.
How strange, how different
this parody of life and death…..
compared to running before this dull life, slowly realized.
A brief moment skimming the clouds,
then disappeared.
Dancing Queens of Harbin
fznor
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My Pictures: Some of the ‘ Queens of Harbin’
At night in Harbin
the queen’s come to dance.
Nowhere to hide,
nothing better to do.
If you can wait,
silent in the cold
you can join them….
…..spinning top and dreams pervade,
a few shimmering droplets of a legacy left….
Wasting their days away,
a dance existence.. here and gone.
But a flash of time on this cold night.
And whispered echoes
that scream aloud once more.
Sailing on the yellow river
My Picture: I held a small Christmas Party tonight….a gift from a students mother….
Before the winter fire
and shrill midnight cries.
I craved nothing.
Then the hunters silence
and fickle friends leaving,
surrounded my bones.
At the brink
an unseen bird sang
from the tree shadow.
I knew then of the road
not yet taken,
and some of the silence is me.
Love Confronted
My Picture: Wall Painting: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
A Wandering Poet 