The best place to
see life in Taiyuan
is to sit on the street.

Just by XueFu Park
on Tiyu road.

The arteries of the
city grasping for
space and meaning.
Husbands too tired to talk.
Wives waiting  for the next
episode.

Fireflies searching
for a neon light
Street cleaners who read
Hemingway.
Dancing ladies who
sing the old songs.

Taiyuan is alive
at night.

Once the Fen can breathe
no more and the dancing
ladies have lost their words,

Many more will sit by and watch
the shadows of their past reclaim
the streets of Taiyuan.

Unable to
move for fear of uncertainty.

How strange to see Kurt Cobain
In a Taiyuan Coffee Bar
War marched through my mind
I wanted to ask him
How he addressed the fog
How to treat the ghosts
Time and space describe
Nothing

Soon I will come to the end of my journey
and another statue will disappear.
But you see you cannot **** the sculptor
Only hire the black priest to wash away your sins.

Your unkind words mean nothing to me
Life runs through your fingers like white sand
and many unborn days disturb your mindfulness.
The black priest cannot help you.

I sing to the same stars in Taiyuan
that I once sang to in Albacete with the Brigada Abraham Lincoln.
Then the Spanish people grieved for our going.
You only grieve for the shade of the evening
And the silence of the Fen river.

Listening to  LCD Soundsystem.
and marking your work is not easy for me.

Their music resonates with your words.

The hypnotic sounds in 'All my Friends'.

Now I know you can think on a quite night

Transported to a place in which I am all wrapped
Not tight
Just a place
It is where it starts.

When the black dogs are massed against the dawn

What does it matter that no one listens to your chronicles of time.

Or remembers the low cold sky, that left you dark.

To you a room is a cell and those that sleep by the Fen have no tears for those who stay.

In this place there is a cruel famine of ideas, and each morning holds off its sunshine and birdsong.

In another place, far away a voice says that stars will fall from heaven. If not stars then dawns that will dazzle in your eyes.

The thing that I call living is just being satisfied.

They told me rain is rare in Dunhuang
and that sleeping dogs lie.

But today it rained.
And the dogs yearn for carnal pleasure in cheap hourly rooms.

The coffee bars are empty now and the dogs like me, indulge in living and could not care less what life was for.

It all begins with love, but not love tied to a tree.

I told  the dogs that it is easy to find reasons to satisfy your libido, they said nothing matters after.

So now I write down seductive, inconsequential words. And the dogs are free to find a blank space.

Ms Tong, a friend, was helping me today.
Few would.
I said to her " the only way out is through"
Robert Frost said this.
She smiled
" The painful slog through is necessary to come to the end"
She said this.

James Corden says
275 days and 11,660 people
died from gun violence
in America.
But I am not American
Shocking to me.
Don’t talk about
Five people shot in Kansas
Three dead
No news from Kansas today
When from the deep sky
Thoughts as simple as death
Words as hard as bullets
You will pile into the deep sky
And splash people to death
Before you see the unruly back roads
Of  your thoughts.

Wake-up and see your blood and mine
Are mingled.
From Las Vegas to Manchester
We give up the same breath
Metal from which the bullets are made
Before the greed of hollow men.

I met two snowmen in Taiyuan today.
At least they told me they were snowmen.
To be honest I was not sure.

We talked about the snow, the stars and bullet trains to Beijing.
The one with the hat did most of the talking he grew moody and distant  as the snow fell.

I wondered about the depth  of a snowman's life.
The quite one asked me about my life. I was about to answer,
when he told me he had once told his life he wanted space.

The snowman with the hat then asked me
" Do you think consciousness only exists when the snow falls?"
I knew then the rain would come soon.

11am from Taiyuan to Beijing.
Trees and buildings rushing by.
First Shijiazhuang then Gaobeidiandong.

A drizzling rain falls  like an early morning sadness. People in the city waiting for connections.

You asked me to show you meaning.
I looked at my phone.
That is all I need to know today.

Beijing is approaching
Yet you are so far away.
Endless buildings of delight and sadness.

And Du Mu asks " Where can a wine shop be found"?

The barren soil of Taiyuan
grows rich with silent souls.
A foreign darkness fills the
empty streets.
And only the moon betrays this
unfamiliar scene.
We refused to *****  through the
half-lit mornings by Yingze Park
Or give our voice to the midnight
air. Our shadows are not articulate in
silence. They are infused with life and are
not alone.

How do you characterize the whispering that is all around,
sometimes savage and sometimes urgent.
But always present in this tortured grove.

How do you acknowledge the pain and suffering
that lies along the river stem, the scars of brave ideas
and towers of dried and lifeless earth.

How to challenge the cursed indifference of those
whose minds are bound by walls of silence, whispered words
and love that promises.

I look around and feel I can’t stand alone
And if I live to be a hundred
We will look at them, at this great yesterday and know that we tried.

That’s how it starts

With you at my side, You and I,
With your lips touching mine, your lips
We can catch the moments in this desert

To bring light to all that once was dark.

This morning I talked with a professor about Kant, the 'highest good' and 'moral motivation'.
Last week only the Marxist stood by me as the dogs of Shanxi barked out stories of unrequited love.
They say the  sun  can do strange things to a man. No stranger things than here in Taiyuan.
So I asked the professor if there are limitations to happiness. He said 'happiness is about faith'
So I went and told the Marxist about the sun, Kant and happiness

I walked in Jinci Park today, listening to the echoes of the past wandering around the papered walls with memories of death open and unnamed.
 
Amid the cracked curtained windows and hurried echoes of the last battle, I saw three horsemen about to siege the winter.
 
Once their tempers and coming swords passed into times earth. Now their striding spirit vents noxious words to the ungainly tailless lizards who want a time when nobody thought.
 
Interpretations differ, but I said ‘Come and see’. Then I heard what sounded like a voice and saw the horsemen dancing under fire, lightning and thunder singing around them, hurried by the mountain and waiting for the sun to crush the day.
 
If it is true, and in this place I think it is, that letters and words are strange and urgent, then the siege of the cities is lost.
 
And what of freedoms vanguard and voices that merge with memories. What of words like bullets and thoughts as simple as death.
 
Forget them at your peril.
 
Imbalances can be corrected, heroines of great objectors created.
 
I walked in Jinci Park today, caught up in the spirit, the old trees whispered "Look around they are the last”. This was my temporary home and I was one of the last souls.

I have a Chinese friend that needs to go into hospital today.

She smiles everyday and hides her December gleam in the cold Taiyuan mornings.

But I know she is worried.

Now she needs to catch the courage in her eyes.

So last night I prayed for her.

And told her that one in never alone in a fight.

There is always a light that never goes out.

I tell you world that I am me
With a thousand challenges
every day.
SAD, CONFUSED, ALONE
OCEANS OF TEARS
Ten years after I was born
I still think of you
I don't know what else there might be
Only me
I always try to smile when the foreigners visit
I wonder if they can see just the anger in me
What more can I know
They say I was loved
But I don't why
You moved far away
You are a mother
A mother of two
But I no longer see my brother
And think of how we could have been
I wonder if you can see
What my mummy did to me.

Winter is here now in Taiyuan,
deserted banks of the River Fen.

I had stories to tell, about damming souls
and ducks still trying to find reasons to believe.

I wonder is water enjoyed by everyone.
And think of you still.