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.
Mar 28, 2019
Mar 28, 2019 at 9:25 AM UTC
Old church doors
across the street.
Not creaking for anyone.
The Songhua River,
quite through bare trees….
never quite full.
Yet faintly, between the space,
a dutar plays a song.
A small patch of grass
surprises me as I turn.
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 6:56 AM UTC
Back in Xinxiang
the coffee tastes good.
'The Carpenters' are signing about love,
which becomes lost in time.
Never to be smooth again.
Deep inside, a spring longing.
A shadow still wedged between the rocks, and the rising spring river.
Seared into my aching bones.
Always to linger,
and never to be free.
The music stops, it always does.
Vaguely, I hear a sound....
..... a sweet voice
..... a distant voice
“Come close, and follow me.....”
Pulled into a violet world,
surrounded by the noise of our origin.
I see you...
and my unfinished flight.
Feb 16, 2019
Feb 16, 2019 at 7:25 AM UTC
Sometimes it is difficult to straighten
my saddened thoughts.
I make my bed, drink some coffee
and catch up on the world.
But it is not always enough.
I muddle through the day
swimming upwards, backwards
and from time-to time
finding moments to write
and see things differently.
On occasions I read Bukowski,
then I realize that things could be worse.
So I read Dickinson,
to find a tangible mind and spirit.
In the end, my thinking
always seems to end up in another room.
A landscape of the spirit,
blue sky and thinking open mind.
Jan 31, 2019
Jan 31, 2019 at 4:58 AM UTC
Another year without summer,
the cold sun fills the heavens and the earth.
Darkness on the edge of the city,
a hard moon sick and rising.
One suffers love, so meager
The Jade Emperor shows me a way forward.
A vision in light white silk, beyond the empty void
burning me up with hope……
my mind is awake……
No way now to hide the fire inside.
Jan 27, 2019
Jan 27, 2019 at 9:37 PM UTC
Oliver Mtukudzi died today.
My friend said
“So what….many singers die, it’s inevitable”
But I have a lingering mind…
Long before the shadows came,
and love was stolen from us.
We would listen to his music
and rainbows stood in a moment.
Oliver Mtukudzi died today…..
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019 at 7:51 AM UTC
Deep cold in a dream,
dim sunlight splits
the winter moon.
A few flakes of snow,
hard to see.
Echo a spring longing,
that lies on a Chinese street.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 9:16 AM UTC
The last day of the year
was cold……another art form lost in translation.
And hardly anything as beautiful
as the sun setting in Xinxiang.
I went for coffee with my friend.
We drank and talked about the picture
of Kurt Cobain on the wall,
and how he blew his brains out.
I told her that Hemingway
went the same way.
And that he was a concrete man.
The girl next to us told me to “be quite”,
she felt I was too loud.
I answered in the negative, and told her
“This is my world as well”.
It was only a moment.
Soon we will both be asleep
and only the shadows will remain
For some reason, I thought of Guernica
and dreams falling from the sky.
So I wished my friend a
‘Happy New Year’, and suggested that she
read more Bukowski next year.
Dec 31, 2018
Dec 31, 2018 at 9:07 AM UTC
A messenger delivers
and everything I feel.
Big stories, with small bottom lines.
The quite boy with the simple smile.
He never knows what to say
to his mother, who is never satisfied.
The girl with the straight ‘A’s
who does not want to be a doctor,
and hides a dark family secret.
The old man hiding the pain
and fire inside,
consumed by ill-fate and
dragging himself from day-to-day.
A woman who told me
her husband had not kissed
her for eight years…….She
was beautiful.
A cautious loner
who once was a king.
Now he drinks each day,
and shouts at the moon.
Everybody’s searching for them,
everybody’s consumed by them
…and my story?
My eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul….
Dec 24, 2018
Dec 24, 2018 at 9:56 AM UTC
When awake in the dark mornings,
a heart pounding and star frost outside.
I think of the sun, now turned away.
A vague mood momentarily out of shape
and living fast.
Each light stings and spins,
trying to rebalance the
the dark and light at the same time.
One continuous line dragging
each damp filled day from morning to dusk.
The hope…..
that light will return,
once more eager for sensation and meaning.
A pearl veil of day….with a laughing soul.
Dec 22, 2018
Dec 22, 2018 at 9:36 AM UTC