My Picture: Evening Exercises: Xinxiang City, Henan, China.
What to ask yourself
writing
January Dusk
Harbin: Heilongjiang, China: sent to me by a friend today.
Confronting the dark,
what sadness there has been.
A feathered longing
retrieved from a thorn,
a dull commotion of typewriter-keys.
Beneath the feet
of a dancing dragon,
old age now grazing the barriers.
And yet…..
out of solitude
I swallow all things up,
and see a poet
surprise his audience.
With the neon glow of his words,
and thoughts turned inside out.
Drinking under the moon with Li Bai
rbsh
hdrpl
My Pictures: Wall Posters , Xinxiang City, China.
In these years,
what I like is still
the shell I take.
Swollen shut
and looking for something
from the inside.
I love the lonely grasses
that thrive by the roadside.
Waiting for the rain to give witness,
and the sun to send forth its faint rays.
In silence to and daffodil mornings,
I listen to shell sounds
and bursts of wet clay.
While the moon wanders the sky,
sober and unrequited.
Words heard, and lost
My Picture: Wall poster, Xinxiang, Henan Province, China.
Last night it rained,
then there were stars.
A ceaseless weaving
of a winter echo.
The water fell together,
as the moon dissolved.
Bleeding its light,
the thickness quite
with still intent.
You flickered,
I could not touch you.
Just enough of the rain,
to bring the smell back.
From those stolen moments
and flaming fornications.
Nothing, so lonely
My Picture: Coffee and Bukowski’.
The young girl said to me
“you look lonely”
I thought it was a strange way to say hello.
We looked around, at mind’s swirling with noise and nothing to say.
And street dogs
tailing with low self-esteem,
losing one-by-one.
With the red moon hanging low over a winter cityscape,
I told her
“go and ask them how lonely they feel in the cold of night”
And, “that beauty can be fake”.
Across the ridge
My Picture: Taken this evening Xinxiang Medical University, China.
Fog….. sitting here
without the trees.
A deserted basketball court,
wind weeping through the hoops.
And in the distance,
the train to Beijing picks up speed.
Dragging the night stars out
one by one
….. by one.
Unclaimed Territory
My Picture
By tree and blade of grass,
a cold breeze swept through the city.
A single beat, with histories mingling
from a netherworld.
A freezing fuzziness in my eyes and head
and darkness scattered.
I watch searchingly,
at the people walking in dead leaves.
Nothing seemed as it was, nothing felt new.
The girls had fireflies in their hair,
and the boys wrote
calligraphy in the clouds…..
a slow burning love.
The beat became louder,
quick frozen faces.
Snapshots of times before the ancestors,
before we sank into the dreams.
A cold swept through the city today.
To think about thinking
My Picture
The hour done,
another exam over.
I am that kind of person
whose brain holds a different kind of thought,
critical and more desperate.
A student ask me
“Do you want to live forever?”
I told her
“That is the essence of poetry,
or at least to tell a story of approaching despair”
Meanwhile, I insisted on the detail…..
at least for those without accomplishments.
First day of the year
My
hdrpl
My Pictures
Waiting for the world to turn,
tree-by-tree.
I walked to the coffee cafe.
It claims…..
‘The Best Coffee’
A big claim in China.
A cat watched me across the road..
across our differences.
I thought the cat was familiar,
but I have been mistaken before.
Inside the coffee was good.
As the last rays of the day fell silent,
I listened to Fela Kuti.. “Opposite People”.
From another world, a soothing flatness hung from a distant shore.
On the winter horizon, I saw the cat again.
Death in his pocket and swaying to the afrobeat…. another body count.
It was time to go home.
Silence is also an answer… I thought.
Last Images of the Year
My Pictures: Sun setting in Xinxiang, Henan Province , China.
A Wandering Poet 