Butterflies in Longji, China
Two yellow butterflies chase each other up their own tornado, a pursuit of passion, past my eye line, higher than the tree-sized bamboo, higher than the green mountain arm, muscled with forests, veined in paths bleeding through ancient rice terraces; higher than that ragged cloth of cloud that grumbles hungry June heat, then gulps up the loving pair. Black Kite Dreams Nobody notices her. Too busy shopping, on smartphones, hiding away from Hong Kong heat. She swoops down from the thermals, as sudden as a Jumbo Jet landing at old Kai Tak airport. Hunting, perhaps, or showing off how her tail feathers scoop air like a knife wielding hand, slicing left, right, low over a tree, up and around the trunk of a tower of concrete nests, She spirals three times, amazing the hazy air. Nobody notices. She disappears into dreams of trees. Falling Balloon A small Chinese girl drops her balloon. It falls, rolls away. She looks at it, reaching unable to reach, speechless. Parents busy building a robot with her old brother. No tears. I reach and pick up the balloon. I give it back and she accepts it, looking up at me like I’m an odd looking giant angel that helped her rescue her balloon. Author’s Statement on Beauty Beauty is yesterday and my memory of it. Beauty is a November day so brilliantly blue that even the roots of winter wither into forgetfulness. Beauty are the corridors of orange and yellow trees in the city park. So brightly colourful you forget the slow death that describes them. Beauty is the continually falling leaves, filling the air with fluttering action. Beauty are the leaves on the ground, the leaves of the last days fossilized in the frost. But more than that, because beauty is also the sound of laughter: a grown an snapping arms at falling trees, being a leaf-eating monster for his toddling son who giggles and runs, all limbs in waving steam-engine motion. The fact that this is a German garden, and the father and son Chinese and I am an English observer is also beautiful because it peels back our differences and reveals, beautifully, how alike we all are. We are all just children delighting in the world. This for me is beauty in its truest form. In Peacock Journal, 2016.
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Guangzhou
Welcome to the city cave, stalagmites of steel and concrete, we all fossilise inside or melt outside in acidic rain. Endless beeping, lights that gigolo the night bouncing purple light off low cloud or suffocating smog; you give up trying to know which. Wear a mask, soldier on. From a distance that city looks entombed. Commuting meets archaeology, you chisel your way home, down through damp layers of your chest. Aching head, sore eyes, screaming alveoli’s. Think of the residents, the real victims. Progress is lung cancer. Bet on a Blue Sky Unlikely to be found outside with the grey huff of Mainland coughing up over Macau. Take shelter in the world’s biggest casino as if the chances of winning, breathing healthily can be guaranteed. Dive below to the fake Venice: a shallow golden canal, Gondolas singing with well-tipped pride, punting along the sterile water bordered by high class Boutiques topped with pretend historical awnings, curving up, around into the painted blue sky ceiling smeared with clouds to dazzle shop-drunk tourists snapping smartphone pics of mime artists defying gravity. Above, the 24 hour chiming fates but no one betting on a blue sky, just factory-filled air and denial. In Eastlit, 2016. |
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), 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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