In England we called them Rude boys:
revved-up young men roaring around town centres, windows wound down, music blaring, sawn-off exhausts gunning impatience. Zujiang New Town, Guangzhou has Rude Boys racing luxury cars with import tax tags worth ten times their cost, using the empty streets of the early hours, the barking engines echoing through tightly nested concrete towers, I am rich, so much richer than you, as bars vomit out expats and exhausted Trade Fair visitors gulping down fumes, envy. Published in #53 of The Journal, Spring 2018.
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Follow this link to go to the homepage of the Origami Poetry Project where there is hosted my mico-chap called 'The Waters of Oregon" (July 2018). Some of the poems are below as well.
Tamanawas For Chinook people, Tamanawas is a helpful spirit guardian. For two hours we tip-toe towards Tamanawas Falls, fine-footing through roots of century old Douglas Firs raveling around rocks, thousands of years still since they were spewed out of Mount Hood's magma mouth, first opening half a million years ago. We clamber over a recent rock slide reminding us briefly witnessing apes that even ancient elements move. The voice now is pounding water, recycled molecules millions of years older boring deeper into the rock, the misty froth spills around us. We take pictures, return to the car, the sun slipping June rays between dense trees as it has since there were trees and the sun billions of years ago. Driving back unaware of fate, I ask what that flashing yield 4-way junction sign means. A white truck edges out, doesn't stop. In a second we are shouting, screaming, veering into the other lane of traffic. Thank the Chinook god, Tamanawas, who guides the driver, Jill, waving a watery wand. No oncoming traffic. We skid to a stop in a gas station, panting, hearts beating, the truck shrinking away. Three seconds and we’re saved. The Singing Sea at Florence, OR No one is with us. No one is playing that instrument, a hollowed bone horn? No, the salty wind humming air over strings of stone, thousands of tons of sea defence boulders hauled in place by bored soldiers. On the abandoned beach beside us the litter of noisy nights when wind drummed hard, waving trunks bleached bone grey; jumbled graveyard, of broken limbs, weathered husks. The haunting humming goes on, the sea listening to its existence echoing inside discarded seashells. A song of salt wind and sand washed percussion; needing no audience, no applause. Hearing the Sea at Pacific City, OR It is not until we are leaving, cars bulging, backs turning, goodbyes rolling behind eyes, that I hear the sea growling from over grass toped dunes higher than the sandy houses, a barrier from the water, wind but not the long-feared tsunami brewing in faults. Such roaring I fear it really is the tsunami catching us after days denying geology tells the same time. No, this is the constant churning groan of that wind-licked sea wanting to be heard over our prayers for safe travels, rushed predictions for reunions. Louder as it hurries over dunes to wave us away, wish us back, dissolving footprints in the sand. Silent Comedy Father and son both dressed as Charlie Chaplin. waddling past the cafe, stop, a twirl of opportunity and they waddle over, begging cup tingling under every nose. Nobody knows their farce: how long it took to wash off the dust and blood, memories of fractured cities, sights blasted into memory. Now two poorly painted faces: felt-tip side burns and moustaches. Why Chaplin? Does the boy know him? At the last table a spit of angry German from the tattooed young woman, ending in Deutschland! The father Chaplin calmly breaks a vow of silence, thanks Germany, tugs his son onwards, cane twirling. #20, Spring 2018. The Old Man in the Café Bazar, Salzburg White receding hair, face lined in tectonic plates of sorrow forcing layers of life inwards. He sits alone, staring out the window. Jumps with a start if you look at him as if recognising a lost friend or his doppelganger fossilising. An elderly woman waddles over. He erupts into life, smile explode, laughter bubbling. His wife? No, just a friend sitting at another table. They exchange awareness of being still alive, then she recedes. He sinks back into coffee grounds. She leaves. For a last moment he is flowing again: smiles, a wave, then solidifying. A tremor when the waitress arrives, He pays, tips, smiles, crumbles. #21, Spring 2018. At Morden station a middle-
aged Chinese man in a suit holds up leaflets, lecturing the bus queue in strained English about Jesus, the Second Coming, Hell. He is inspired, perhaps, by the March day of sunshine, the open blue sky, the ripple of unexpected heat, uplifting feeling in his brain and body. No buses come. The queue does not flinch. Spring, early, stunning and silent. After ten minutes, he moves away, still holding up his leaflets, still lecturing in strained English. Suddenly a sharp wind slaps still faces, reminding everyone how early in Spring it really is. Published in South Bank Poetry Magazine, Issue 29, July 2018. Outside a mundane shopping maul
in Dresden a moment of magic: yellow leaves swirling in senseless circles, concentric confusion around the feet of two bald, gesturing men, talking in voice-less gulps, deaf to the quiet vortex under their feet; every other shopper blind. Published in Dawntreader 43, UK, July 2018. |
Poetry Biography:I have had over 70 poems published in the following worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Acta Victoriana (Canada), All the Sins (UK), The Amethyst Review (USA), Amsterdam Quarterly (NL) The Blue Nib (Ireland), Bolts of Silk, Borderless Journal, The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Bushfire Literature & Arts Review (US), Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), DASH (USA), Clackamas Literary Review (USA), Cooch Behar Anthology, Dawntreader, Dreamcatcher, The Dillydoun Review, Earth Love, The Ear (US), Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Ginosko, Gloom Cupboard, Hidden Channel, Inlandia Journal, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), Into the Void (Canada), The Journal, The Lakeview Journal (India), Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lunch Ticket (USA) The New Writer, One Hand Clapping, Orbis, Oregon English Journal (USA), The Passage Between, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom (India), Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), New Contrast (South Africa), One Hand Clapping, Opportunity Publishing, The Oregon English Journal (USA) Origami Poems Project (USA), The Paddock Review (USA), Panoplyzine (USA), Paper Swan Press, The Passage Between, The Peacock Journal (USA), Pens on Fire, Poetry Salzburg (Austria), Potomac Review, (USA) Prole, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Qutub Minar Review (India), Red Ink, Shiela-Na-Gig (USA), South Bank Poetry Magazine, Stand, Waterford Teachers Centre, (Ireland) We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), Weber - The Contemporary West Review (USA), Windfall (USA), Writing Magazine, Words for the Wild and Verbal Art (India). Archives
March 2024
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