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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…..

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.

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.

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….

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.

In deep winter, it is easy to be lost.
The uneven edges of life,
exposed by the cold hurried snow
leave little space between the stars.
Only the counted poems seem to matter.

I can envision loves, deep night
and the shapeliness
of lines borrowed from the past.
These lines of verse,
taut and unrepentant
offer the sun to my bones.
And the snow gathers on….

In the pattern of shadows,
the chanter sings from the
memories of the birds.
Of swollen tears
and half-moon yearnings.

But I could see
the white of your neck.
As you lifted your hair to me,
to taste your standing form
and beauties slow curve.

I dreamt last night that I was Angus Young,
and then I was Bruce Springsteen
suspended in my masquerade
and open to pain.

Then, I saw you
as eyes should see you at last.
The way I wanted to see you,
a key to the universe…..
a beginning quietly forming.

The young woman asked me
“Why are you a poet?"
It was not a difficult question to answer.

I told her about the world being silent,
but for the gentle sound of a warming wind and the fluttering rain.

She looked confused.
Her eyes, so expressive
like a dangling drop of dew.

So I told her
“I am just glad to open-up and meet the thoughts of the past"

Trying to find Charles Bukowski,
in some places is not easy.

It is easy to find Keats and Tagore.
They come running at you,
like a bright and dusty sun.
As subtle as love making on a drunken
Saturday night.

Yesterday a friend asked me
“Why would you wanna read Bukowski anyway, he
just writes about *** and drinking?”

“What else is there to write about?” I said

He paused…
“The jagged mind and shattered dreams…and all that”

So I thought about this for a minute and told him
“Nobody writes about this anymore, it doesn’t sell”

Some jobs you like,
and others are so dreary and pitiless,
that you stay in bed.
Motionless in time and
watching the sun climb.

But then,
many who stay in bed
have a history of grief.
An empty doorway,
and a faded family photograph.

Nothing to do with their job,
just tricks of the mind.
Memory by memory,
it is easy to forget that what’s here isn’t life.
And nothing can ever happen unless you say so.

When alone, I thought
the crowd is wearing my face.
Silently judging,
safe in the knowledge of the tribe.
Transfixed by the multitude,
the lights flash on.

And as the daylight falls
the world is silent,
but for the sound of a singing bird
that comes from you.
The light that specifies the
face and the music,
swings as the deep abyss.

The nurse asked me about pain
“Does it rain” I told her.

Most days
I am in pain.
It falls upon my soul,
and devours my dreams.

It is a friend, a close friend
A pristine memory,
somewhere in darkened land.

I don't ask its name,
it has no name worth knowing.

But I wish the pain to be stranger
and fly like a bird.

I often think about the how I became a poet.
All those years of reading, when nobody
was nearly interested.

My father was a romantic.
He could read aloud poems by
Keats, Shelley and Byron.
I couldn’t understand any of it, I doubt he could.
But it sounded good.

I settled into a life,
evoked of love and steadfast promises.
And discovered Neruda and personal
colours of hope.

But in life
the dark mornings always come.
Just listen to the coughs,
and the blood stained phlegm of cancer
You will know what I mean.
Then I found Bukowski
and began to see
that being a fool is normal.
And **** happens in life.

“I am a writer” he said.
At least he endured trying.

So now….. I get out of bed
and I write poems.

Sometimes a painful submission of words,
that almost every poet thinks.
But that’s normal…..
at least for me.

It’s a day already.
And the morning sun
is wearing my face.
Half of a singing bird
Half the gentle sound
of a liuqin.
That comes from you.
The world is not silent
this morning.

“Do you write about love like Neruda?”

“Do you understand the nature of immortality
like Dickinson?”

“Have you read Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens?
“They are American you know?”

“What do you think of Dylan Thomas?”
“Oh…..but he is Welsh”

“And what about Sylvia Plath and the confessional
movement?”
“She a woman, but an American woman right”

“Of course we cannot not accept you,
unless you tell us about Whitman and the
American epic”.

“Oh yes… one more thing.
We don’t want any poems that
caustically indict bourgeois poetic values
or celebrate the desperate……
like that Bukowski fellow”.

OK?

Last night, I walked by the relics.
The last of the violent beasts.
Small and damaged now.
Filled with anxious, mounting fear.
The last know speakers of a dead language.

Now exquisite neon figurines,
talk slithering sounds, and horses sleep alone.
The raucous rivers lament the frivolous tunes
and silent broadcasts.

And the poets, who thought
that success followed desire.
Write to complain about the loss of poetic form.
And the death of odes to love.

The river Wei,
Autumn solitude
and a thousand eyes.
A moth-rich summer darkness
that warns the soul.

The slow fat queens,
cold-blooded, green and orange.
Spin and turn gasping for breath.
The last of their sins surrendered.

Flashlights and flasks,
a meditation on a fragile soul.
Chasing the silver fins,
the struggle and the toil.
Forty years of night fishing.

I met a married couple
in ** Chi Minh City.
He was 63, and claimed
he talked to God.

She was 28, heavily pregnant
and told me that God only
smiled at the unsurprised.
I was curious about them.

As we walked by
Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica,
she talked about Vietnamese men,
how they would hit her.
Make her ‘do things’.

She said this man was kind.
“He gets angry, but he does not hit me”.

The three of us spent most
of the day together.
Spinning words of wonder,
as we visited the Independence Palace
and the War Museum.

The man was interesting,
caught halfway between old age
and a new life.

We laughed about age
“**** Jagger had a baby in 2016,
and he is 75” he said.

So I told him “Keeping pace is all the rage these days”
This made him laugh.

I met two Vietnamese
men this morning,
just outside my hotel.
They invited me to drink tea
and flexed about philosophy.

One of them told me that
Le Quy Don was the greatest scholar
that Vietnam has produced.

The other one disagreed
and wanted to tell me about
Tran Duc Thao

“He’s a Marxist and traitor”
Said Le Quy Don’s man.
I just drank some tea and listened.

Now some say how can this be?
You cannot speak Vietnamese,
and their English is poor.

So I tell them I keep searching the streets
and I wonder about words.
And the next thing is that everything is still there.
A blast of colour is a silent world.

Dear State Counsellor.

Once I saw you as an icon of morality.
A bastion of hope.
A ‘dancing peacock’ in a troubled world.
Some called you the ‘midwife of democracy’.
Others an ‘Oxford housewife’,
a peacock ready to show its eyes.

But now….

The Children, babies, women and men of the Rohingya
are butchered, ***** and murdered by your
soldiers as you read poetry to children.

And the rest of the world stands by waiting for
the Norwegians to take away your Nobel Peace Prize.
Another sense of justice, lost again.

The working hands of the Muslim men in Rakhine
are tied by the Buddhists, the lovers of peace.

Their guns gleaming and your army standing by.

“It wasn’t us” say the Generals
“It was the Buddhists”.

But of course we have seen this before.
At Srebrenica, Nanking, My Lai and Auschwitz,
until the gas came.

And the world stands by.
Another failure, another genocide.

Now, as your military load the death carts
and bury mothers next to their children.
The Buddhists place flowers on the mass graves.
And I call for you and your ‘men’
to be accountable for those burnt by the sun.

They were not interested in the forests.
Or how many Asians died?
Nam Viet was a restaurant
Open from 8am-11pm each day.
And summertime in Hue,
means cheap ***** and handmade suits.

All around the girls in golden tight dresses,
who can hardly walk in their six inch heels.
Sell cheap cigarettes from table to table.
Always with a smile and a look at their *******.

On trips to Hanoi and Hoi An,
the code to Vietnam's  literary treasure.
They asked thin questions with no light
“What about the Women Andrew”
“What about the nightlife and the girls”
“Do you think they’re ****?”
"How expensive are they?"

Someone in ** Chi Minh City asked me
"Why do people think like this?"

I guess it is easy, if ugly is all you know
Calling to nothing, and the fall of the future.

The two young lovers looked at me

'' What are you writing"?

" A rhythm of pounding words" I told them.

Bustling in this sticky season.
Tormented by a deep longing.
And nights of making love
in still life silence.

There was a time in Xinxiang
when you you could find good coffee and solitude.

The place was 'Jumping Bean' Cafe
At a crossroads of the sick and those who drank their first glass of Baijiu before 8am.

I would go when the clouds parted
and the sun first appeared through the curtains.

It was the best time to go.
No banging or rat telling stories.
Or fat hands and bright red noses, crawling home
after another business lunch with the young girls.

Once I met a tall slim woman, almost as tall as me. She wore high heels and high spirits.
And yet walked alone on the hot pathways of summer.

Another time, I met an old man
Who told me he had the power to ****** any woman in China.
I thought he must have the power of the Gods.
And wanted to know his secrets.

Now, Jumping Bean is closed.
And the dregs walk past.
A hurrying dust, looking for a perfect blackness.

When alone, I think
I've lived half a life.
A small corner of the noise.
Half a fish.
Half, come winter.
A small white canvas, unfinished.
Smaller, and more smaller.

This grey that stares.
A self-portrait.
Rebel mouth,
harsh of tongue
and love of words.
Blue eyes,
with ghost stories
that speak too loudly.
A smile, that flutters
its wings to a hearts
deep core.
Me inside of me.
Each haunted twilight.

There’s fire outside, fire in my apartment.
Swelling in this humidity.
More uncomfortable than Vietnam.
It is not easy to hide.
Even sitting on the roof writing poems,
there is fire.

A thousand words yet to write,
a thousand words yet to write.
Thoughtful girls with their umbrellas.
Dancing dragonflies,
ascending and descending.
Like a madness of Sisyphus.

And then the sounds of this fire.
The bedroom sounds, a taste that will last forever.
The sounds of the late night Baijiu drinkers,
trying to find the garden of love.
And the unrequited who cry alone at 2a.m
Endless, embracing with a glad sadness.

That is the fire in this city.

Today I tried to remember some faces.
I saw Katia, mischievous elf from Espoo.
Who showed me my soul.

And Susan from Fenyang.
Who wanted to love me.
And smiled with the trees.
A spirit so beautiful and bright.

Faces and more remembered.
A love softly glowing.
Now slipping away at the edge.

They come with cries of lamentations
and cautious sunlight.
And words clinking with every step.

Overslept and tired.
An early start
17 hours a day.
Broken with slashes of sound.
7.43 million Motorbikes in
** Chi Minh City.

The street flowers dying,
no air to breath.
And miles to go before you sleep.
The grass consenting to the dollar,
packs up and leaves the city.

Returning, resuming,
threading your way between
the grey faces.
And the men looking for
someone special today.

The hurt and wounded
pass by quickly.
No soothing hand to pacify
the restless all dark nights.
Some suffer so much.

Sometimes strange things happen.
In the afternoon mostly, after lunch and rest.

Today in was the morning.
A communist asked me

" Did I know the difference between Chinese communism and Vietnamese communism"?

To be honest..I did not.

This is the first time I had been asked this question.
A new experience.
I sensed a passion, a desire for me to answer.
We ascend from time-to-time.
So I said

" The characterization of the struggle"

I put effort into this.
Attention and love.
Was the communist satisfied?
I don't know

But we all learn to do necessary things.

Sleepy now
Too many hours
walking the streets
of Hanoi.

I would rather a life of poetry.
Thank bashing about
these humid days
without a breeze.

It began around 11pm, the dog barking.
A locked in bark, a left alone bark.
It sounded like pain breaking,
for no reason.

After a while,
I wanted to tell the dog to ‘shut-up’
But then…I changed my mind
I wanted to ask the dog
‘What it knew about pain’?
But the time was not right.
And maybe,
there was no escape.

Tracts of land
inhabited by people
A flower, a hero
or revolution.
To define a country is easy.
A pulse of a nation
** Chi Minh.
Defeat of the French,
the Americans.
But what about the prisons?

French prisons
American prisons
Vietnamese prisons.
15 years in Con Dao
6 years in the Hanoi Hilton.
Voices that still echo to this day.

And now the pen,
to free the corridors of our minds.
Diaries, letters
kept close
Inside a cold place.

Now they tell the world
that doors are closed.
And freedom is there.

We move on.

Why do people become angry?
Sadness, a sense of injustice…
Who knows.
An air hostess is angry with a passenger.

Anger is an energy.
The air hostess cries,
But still wants to get her point across.
I guess that is why people become angry.

After every moment
Someone has to clean up.
Old ideas thrown away
New ones, emerge
Hidden, waiting.
For the street cleaners
of Xinxiang.
To recall the way it was.
Discarded remnants of
rusted arguments.
Litter the streets.
Each blade of grass a
compare and contrast,
a cause and effect.

For those who know less.
The days are painted in
remembered harsh light.
Like a slow passing train
it seems to never end.
But in this haunted twilight,
their are some determined
to look for comfort.
Not to you.

0:2:45 in Xinxiang
19:45 in Kiev
Waking before the alarm sounds.
An old poet lifts his eye,
and quits his lagging dream.
Come on Liverpool.

The Red Army expects
England expects.
We, who are English now watch CCTV5.
While others sleep in their beds,
dividing rich fields from doors of dark
and grimy alleys.

It's been a long cold winter.
A biting wind from the West.
The light in the leaves
finds a desolate wall.

The workers, who sing the blues.
Do you stop to listen?

The sanitary worker,
the taxi driver.
The farmer's hands,
and industrial workers.

Neon promises mean nothing.
Sleeping by the river,
fending off the blues.
Sub-health and sub-city
Constant companions.

In a well rehearsed voice.
With a melancholy tone.
They sing.....

' Nobody knows the trouble I've seen'

And the weary blues  
echo inside their heads.
Over and over again.

Dark days ahead.
Banners from the days gone by
flutter in the changing wind.
A comma, a semicolon, a word.
Weapons of mass education
compete with weapons of mass destruction.

Disaster, war, famine and fire.
All crashing and raving.
Demanding your attention..
Noble hero sings about an 'idiot wind'
A protagonist with his own brand of magic.

World on the brink.
Now, eat up your words.
Chew the poets, the writers
and those who write the songs.

Hold on to your fate.

I open a book
And in I hid.
Now, I am alone.
Nobody can find me.

I open a book.
And found a friend.
So I can share
The lonesome hours.

I open a book.
That empties any enemy
It leaves me confounded
At every turn.

I open a book
That casts a magic spell
A notion of existence
Blessed, beloved simplicity.

I open a book
That I can touch.
Aromas and sounds
That carry me to you.

I open a book.
The long and mad
And dream that day.
That hour.

I open a book
Words shouting
Dragon jargon
Day after day.

I open a book
And see
The tilting fish,
speckled with barnacles.

I open a book
...to live
....to feel
..........to think.

I open a book.

6am in Xinxiang
Only the ants,
hardworking, lovesick and confused
occupy the spaces
between the common lines.
The street lights shine
in the black gutter by the road.

The moon, in constant conflct,
still up in the morning.
Greets the eye as reflections blaze.

And me,  still on my bed,
I look through my window.
The same still things,
Hopes in shining light
right outside these bars.

The few stars left, punctuate
this blissful solitude.
Time alone to heal
I lost so much in so little time.

Today I am sick.
Thinking is hard to come,
words as cutting pain.
Soul physicians,
should I disclose the
whole complaint,
and curse the sky.
Or watch the churches
burn and babies cry.
Sickness is a lonely place,
of distant echoes,
and long past.
Now I need to lie down
and close my eyes.
Letters of dust, blowing
around my room.
The nearest thing to life.

In the margins of returning light,
city backstreets in hard rain,
people at every junction.
Personal memories, none.
Lost hope burned in the rain.
The evening stars, a pattern of
sorrow.

Nothing good will come of this.

Once by the banks of the River Fen, nothing
fell out of place. You told me that you did not like
AC/DC, but we agreed it was hard in this city for
two guitars, bass and drums to see the point.

The sun was out and we could see forever,
a gentle breeze played with falling leaves,
creating landscapes of spilled remnants.
But you told me not to worry, they are just leaves.

We looked at the counterfeit buildings, and counterfeit trees,
and wondered about sound and silence.
And if human memories always find empty spaces,
in places where people no longer hear the buildings sing.

Now, a portrait of a moment, singular and more
precious, a breeze to ease the pain of stolen moments with you.
To drift in-between will never be enough,
but memories left to grow old.

The Treasury underfunds the National Health Service,
and you report that Taylor Swift, embodies
the values of Trump, while chemotherapy
drips over the ****** floor.

Norwegian police uncover more than
150 rapes and ****** assaults in Lapland,
and you tell us about another royal wedding,
another fade to white by blissful deceit.

What was once true, now no longer rebellion,
for those that struggle against the indifference of lies,
and a world of comforting illusion, that transgress the
victims soul.

Once truth was there to learn. now consent is black and white,
gender and experienced forced - a spectrum of gradual extinction,
no longer seeing things as they are - just as we are.

Seated musings of dim thoughts creeping day by day,
as Harvard professors, whose fierce words
are now confined to late night masquerades,
give you nothing to entice your mind.

Now in these solitary years, consent is left to perish,
a universe of want, as the Pope watches lifeless children
float by and the beautiful people smile.