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)
A Place of Solitude
Vietnam
Vietnam Blues
Cafe Cong” Hanoi, Vietnam
My Pictures: Cong Coffee Cafe: Hanoi, Vietnam.
I searched for Ho Chi Minh
in Vietnam, four line quatrains
and the substance of a country.
I wondered why, there
are no rhythms of screaming
souls or nightmare firestorms.
Or mothers who still shed one
lonely tear of the night.
My heart was heavy
when I saw the pictures of Mỹ Lai.
The kindness answered
with foul wrong from gloomy
and angry men.
I walked the streets of Hanoi,
Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City.
And saw the beauty of human
love and struggle, pass the
threshold of moral grief.
I learnt of people
leaving behind nights of
terror, and leaping
wide over black oceans.
They brought gifts
from Nhat Hanh, Dang Thuy Tram
and Hồ Xuân Hương.
A gentle light that strays
and vanishes, but always returns.
And a wind that blows
a forgiving silence.
Why Do I Write Poetry?
My Picture: Two friends: Xiahe: Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu province, China
Writing poetry is not easy, at least not for me. It takes time, space, ideas, thoughts and usually something to happen to spur me to write. When some people ask me, and not too many do ‘why do I write poetry?’ my answer is usually consistent. I write poetry because I want to live forever.
Let me clarify what I mean by this.
My life has been eventful and has taken some unexpected turns. Five years ago for example, I was living, working and still playing rugby in the UK. Then my personal circumstances changed and now I live and work, but with no rugby in China. So how do I make sense of this and all the other events and moments in my life?
Well, one way is to write poetry.
A poem allows me to flush from the deep thickets of someplace within me the thoughts, feelings, questions and music, I knew was there and in the world, but didn’t know how to represent this?
More and more I think that my life and eventual death are a momentary flicker that will pass me by (if I let it) without me knowing the experience. I have three children, friends in different parts of the world and I want them to know what I am doing, what I see, what I learn and poetry helps characterize these experiences, opportunities and moments.
My Picture: Wilmslow Rugby Union Football Club
Whether my poetry is good or not does not concern me too much. I was once part of a writing forum, in which many people seemed more concerned with how many ‘likes’ or ‘followers’ they had, than the honesty and integrity of their writing. This was one of the reasons why I set up this blog.
So why do I write poetry?
Well, as I told a Chinese friend of mine yesterday, to rescue some portion of what has ‘fueled’ me in life, what continues to tell me that I am alive and to leave something of myself behind when I die. Others can then decide if they make something of this or not.
This for me is the nearest thing to being alive.
Strange Currencies
My Pictures: Vietnam Military History Museum; Hanoi, Vietnam
A Wandering Poet 