Don’t gently touch my hair while I am sleeping. Please don’t blow sweet kisses on the hairline of my neck. You don’t sleep here any more now, do you? No. I feel the draught from the summer-open window. Please don’t breathe the words I cannot hear.
Poetry?
New Year
New, new, new.
Dreams are new and memories.
Time flew through the year
and here is another.
A time for renewal
like no other before
but more days should be so.
Chances we need to make and share.
New, new and not so new.
Do. Or don’t do.
Now your world is quiet or should be.
Slow down how time flew.
How did our paths meet?
So how did our paths meet?
Did I track you through the needle-green forest?
Perhaps.
Or did you follow my footprints along the dried earth
between the long grasses
across the river
in the dark?
I do not know or don’t remember.
But the lines of flame that come to an arrowhead
that meet and stop and flare and entwine
the lines of flame point to a destiny
where we have now arrived.
Handcuffs, lost happiness and burns on the carpet
I wake up cold, no blankets, and my heart’s a tip.
You’ve moved out,
leaving handcuffs,
lost happiness
and burns on the carpet.
You booked in to my heart for a short weekend visit
but then put up posters
and turned radiators high.
You said not to worry,
lots of places to go and people to see,
but then you dragged in an evergreen aluminium tree
and put a selfie from Venice on the top.
So what is there left?
Your fingerprints and footprints on the gentle pink paintwork,
your footprints and fingerprints on the remnants of rugs.
I look around
and call around
but my heart’s chambers echo.
You’ve moved out,
leaving handcuffs,
lost happiness
and burns on the carpet.
My ears are dull
My ears are dull.
They do not hear the single threads
you hear in the harmony.
You say that love has many voices –
love is many voices –
braided, sometimes tangled,
voices tied in rope together.
My eyes are dull.
They do not see the single colours
you see in the rainbow.
You say that love has many colours –
love is many colours –
winding, sometimes twisted,
colours kaleidoscoped together.
I hear the chorus, not the voices,
until your voice stands out from others.
I see the rainbow, not the colours,
but without your colour there is no rainbow.
My heart is full.
It feels the endless ribbons
of colour, of voice,
that hold our hearts together.
Daybreak makes my day
Daybreak makes my day;
the lowering of the winter evening brings a soft end to the struggle.
Then dreams until they are broken.
Airport
Leavers have it easy.
Arrowed doors pull them forward, hearts speeding.
Stayers, the wavers, don’t know when to turn and move away.
In the fall I fell for you
In the fall I fell for you.
In the fall you caught me.
In the fall I fell for you.
In my fall you caught me, you taught me, you held me, you plastered wounds I had thought incurable.
In the fall I fell for you.
I will never fall again.
(When I was) Young [Vietnam]
(When I was) young
clear imagination
flowed
(like a) spring stream
(through the)
holy green spring mountain meadows
thoughts (became) words
sparkling like fresh water
cool (on) your tongue
(In the) mid years
work (and) service (and) books
Thought River
slowed
(and)
swept lazy curves
stories strong
(and) details full
volume (depended on) season
Now
I (am) old
like you (my) reader
(are) you old(?)
River (of) Song
(is) silt
now
I plumb mud
(with) my fingers
sometimes (a) nugget
(like) this
Hoi An 151117
October strides in
October strides in,
her fisted gloves of red gold leaves
holding the foreboding frozen heart of winter.
She kicks the trees with wild swings;
Their branches sway and leaves blow in her face like tears.
She strides on and, in the distance behind her,
The echoed howls of winter wolves grow louder.
