Three swifts burst above the clipped shrubbery
outside the Forbidden palace. They play in dives and swirls, too fast for snapping camera. They fly without knowing the famous protests, tanks, crushed national memory. They fly without meeting in the air, now five of them as May grows seconds longer, the tourists with airy memories, bored military police with huge toy guns, little Chinese boys dressed as Superman, hawkers selling Mao's Little Red Book. Perhaps the flapping red flags amuse them as they move with such watery ease, now eight of them hinting summer, scathing pass immoveable cultural relics dressed by the immoveable face of Mao. He does not blink and miss them Like I do. Two hours later, a group circle around the Hutong, quietly collecting under vague cumulonimbus shapes as if to chase away the smog, the encroaching cranes, the grinding jaws of the city, snapping at the history hidden in allies. Just haze and no swift can move the haze. Fade, they can only fade. Published in Poetry Salzburg, September 2017.
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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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