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.

It is 20:17 in Dunhuang, at least CCTV 13 says so.
I met a girl called 'Mathilda'

She offered me some Chicken soup.
And we talked about Jean Reno.

I asked her " Is it possible that a plant can be a friend?"
She smiled and told me that '"The killer is not so cold"

Lost in a clarion of whispering voices.
Mao Dun says that ‘you have the right to promote your own happiness’
Just like everyone else.
Weapons of mass consumption litter the streets
People afraid to ask why we are bereft of ideas
Left or right
Dark alleyways come alive with the words of Bob Dylan  
“How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To be without a home…..”

A place of constant energy
And personal experience
A sight nurtured to glorious vision
Now can only see translated images.
Faded to leave us in the dark
And questions of vulnerability, depth and analysis.
Have become a solemn species

Paths of beauty destroyed
By the wind blowing through their black world
A constant search for blindness
To fulfill their empty lives

Going anywhere is enough

But I am full of the ecstasy of life
Loud and clear streets

Knowledge, an unconstrained heaven
Often comes with showers of sound
From obscurity of thought
Gleams a star

A wind of change.

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 often sit in Migu’s in ceaseless memory.
A face devoid of thought or love.

Two old friends meeting again
remembering how the summer shone
Now to make winter by the Fen.

The women steps lightly into this place
Her pretty face pitiful in this silence.
I want to ask her ‘Are you alone?’

But now the noiseless dark descends
and punctuates the dead sleep of this cold grave.

Tonight I went to the park.

And saw a man who lived a life beyond life
Known to no one.

All of which delighted me.

In trivial movements that mean
a lived memory.

I saw too many who mourn a life too tamely spent.

Look longer, deeper now with accustomed eyes.

Just quick appearances but that is enough.

To show the fools that some men are giants
no longer chained down from the skies.

Now I am familiar
Making sense of my surroundings

My life is like this

I drink because of this

I can’t sleep because of this

But this is too simple
Cause and effect
No longer engaged with my life

Each moment
A cloud of absence

Now I want to meet the morning sun
Another day of bringing in the moment

At least I won't recall the names and faces of these sad occasions.

I the bird this morning
Standing on my windowsill
Confident and proud
A soul dancing in heaven
Lost in a lyrical dream.
The end of the grasslands
And stone becomes stone.

To sad to mourn it raised its
head to an imaginary sky.
Bringing darkness to a
momentary sun.

It serves the people,
never stopping
A one-time-hero

The dissatisfied
Those that wear tattered
uniforms
All ask
'What else there might be'
And climb to play the hero.

Standing still for ten seconds
But 10 seconds can be longer
An interval between the course
of war.

Now on the road again.

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 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 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.

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.

Today I went for coffee at M.Gateau's
'Yesterday Once More' was on the radio
Children running around in pink shirts,
twins I think.
Few elements of distrust.

I met a woman who knew about Karen Carpenter
Filled with fear at every bite she took
A deceitful relationship.

I met a man who said stars will fall from heaven
He told me he dreamt of missed connections
And misheard echoes of the past.

I met an old solider who said he had fought at Jarama
And tried to teach the children that he was not untrue.
I asked him about the death of Spain.

In another place - a place different from this
It would be easy to shut my eyes to war.

But then who would care for the children who have forgotten their dolls? And the poor who travel by night under the gaze of the great bear?

It is my choice to open my eyes and see the reflections in the mirror. The cursed indifference of all those who do nothing whilst  parents worry about their children dancing strange steps.

Now I show my fist until the pain has passed into time's earth.
And the lonely man can dance without rhythm.

Last night I was told it was the end of the world.
So I listened to R.E.M  just to tempt fate.
There was no earthquake.
Just thousands of white faces serving their own needs.

But there was a sudden blackness.

A moment when the stars where cancelled,
and I could see the last woman walking with
dignity along the dead banks of the Fen River.

At that moment I knew my fate.
I had always know this.
Emerson wrote " Deep in the man sits fast his fate".

But I refuse to sit still, to allow fate to become my master.

A living being, a chance to begin the proverbial new life, a back hole to start again.
The last kiss alone, remembering all.

Mankind is out but I am still here.

This is my fate.

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.

Would you be the sun or the moon?
I would be the moon
No one grows tired of the moon

Imperfect body
A dark side
Often hidden
All alone
Cloaks of silence
In a sea of stars

Peeking into the soul
In its North West scenery night
Old men know when there is no light.

A sorrowful woman who no longer
has to pretend, in the presence of the moon.

I am different from the sun

But she is devoted to me
We found comfort in the darkness
Mirrored in your being

I would be the moon.
I am the moon on Earth

In a dark human forest
I swore
I would never
love or believe
again.

Anger, drink
and mistrust
was my daily life.
A new friend.

You ask me why I find
it hard to trust, to love
even after all these years.

Easy to forgive
and forget, right!

Because, I am haunted
more by her memories
than new Chinese dreams.
I am the distant drums
of a distant love lost.