Sunday, December 30, 2018

Bobbie Kitten's Recovery


What did they do to you, Bobbie dear?
Who scared you; why were you born here?
Did they gang up on you or was one cat guilty?
Did you hurt yourself, young and silly?

Bobbie was bopping all around the house,
Like a ricochet shadow after a mouse.
Climbing chairs of fabric like a spider,
No one was exempt sitting beside her.

Bobbie hobbled into the study to escape,
Leaving her overnight on the patio was a mistake.
She played in another cat’s territory,
That was the end of her happy flurry.

Bobbie limped to her food dish,
But food was not her wish.  
She wanted aloneness to heal her heart,
A day of solitude that tore us apart.

Bobbie is four months old,
Gleaming fur like midnight gold.
If a kitten could cry, her tears would fall,
She did not deserve what happened at all.

It could not have been Nala, eighteen and reclined,
Or Cookie Dough hissing at one not her kind.
Tanuki baby-sat little sister with glee,
Must have been Latte that made Bobbie flee.

Does Latte remember youth put in his place,
By a cat-punch from Tanuki onto his face.
Four fascinating tails for a bob-tail to toy,
Only Latte was annoyed by her joy.

Passive-aggressive Cookie; how about that? 
May have made Bobbie skat. 
Feminine feline gingerly snapped pride, 
Did the Jekyll and Hyde jellicle make Bobbie hide?

Bobbie is safe now from another attack,
When she is older and stronger she will go back.
For now she can rest assured regaining her cool,
Through human intervention she has time to retool.

Sleep little Bobbie, your confidence retain,
Your ball of silky fur unchanged remains. 
Dart you will again like a pinball, bumpers lit,
Over chairs and sofa, between our legs fit.

Take heart, little rascal, time heals all wounds,
Arise with the dawn from your tiny gloom.
Regenerate and prowl your feline story,
A new year tomorrow promises glory.  

December 31, 2018

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
Purchase "Unnatural Beauty;Poems from the Han Riverside" here.
Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Saturday, December 29, 2018

My voice ends out of my mouth

My voice ends out of my mouth
Her clothes end when she puts them on
But my money goes a long way 
Want something done?
I ask, pay them first
But life has done what it wants from the start
Not asking my heart's desire

Without manager’s permission, do it myself
Pay the gardener for the grass
Doesn't sound good for long but
Sounds great before the words fall on the lawn
Unpublished, unheard
In my head on my page
Stroking myself before becoming absurd
Organize where allowed

What I want is what I need
Not all it has is for me
So if idiosyncratic, surprisingly easy
Keeps the needy away 
I fight whether or not it agrees
It is the way of life; the Tao Te Ching
Solo is what I sing
Harmony is what she brings

Unless coincidence
Useless the insistence
 Give assistance asked 
Gladly I would 
 Bothersome persistence bothers me  
More than the world
Opining pine for no one's agreement
What I do, I do for free

Thanks to Cecilie for the rewrite.

December 30, 2018
                    www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Sunday, December 23, 2018

Leaving Her

Low on energy, running out of time
To tell her what has been on your mind
You asked once so why say again
“Alright already,” she said to comply
As your mood slips swiftly by
Who else but a husband would try?

Is she there for herself at home?
Your bike balanced on an uphill ride 
Slowed by unseen pavement cracks 
Where flowers once sprouted after rain
Tires getting flat, without a phone or hat 
Without a song; not even that 

A new kitten while you were gone
Should have rejected it all along
For a fan to blow the exhaust
As the wind of changes grow
Smoke from a shopping channel frying pan
A self-extinguished glow

When half-truths sound like lies
Passionless untouched desire
No need to pity her condition
Because pleasing her is your pleasure
Everything you would do expires
Your service is no longer required

You made her happy, didn't you? 
No role model were you for her to mimic
You thought, unprompted, she would be kind
Stop for you upon a dime
Every whim, unashamed
She should want to do the same

Chances get slimmer for you to be heard
Speaking for you, misinterpreted
Of her interests, you're an intersession
Are you on her mind or 
Is she pocketing your point-of-view
Like a ghost does in a cask of witches’ brew?

May she take your advice without calling it hers
May she be nice without doing you a favor
Aim to please you for your labor
All the love you've grown to share
Not treat you like a child, carefully
Or ignore you pain-in-the assfully

You are going to leave her one day 
That woman gambling on your rambling
Without a dollar or a song
One day you will be moving on
Where the weather suits your soul
And nothing warm turns cold

December 23, 2018
www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
Purchase "Unnatural Beauty;Poems from the Han Riverside" here.

Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.


Thursday, December 6, 2018

I did not know enough of spite


I did not know enough of spite
Marrying the next one after a loss
A woman to get me through the night
Lonely for love at any cost
Not knowing wrong from right

Children cannot change a wife
Though they remain when love goes
Sweet throughout a shattered life
Gently underlying though 
The twinkling light when there is strife

Wealthy bait would have me caught
Enraged in her gilded cage send
After winning a freedom hard fought
On the winding road near the bend
From bartered love she sold and bought

Escaping from a shallow grave
Flushed from her crashed ship ashore
Fighting tides like an orphan brave
Places with pretty faces more
Swimming hard through trenchant waves

December 2, 2018 

red and white triangles flagging the wind


red and white triangles flag the river wind
on a slender bamboo pole cemented in the ledge
in Taichung's elected clean-air promise  
two graceful egrets swoopfully play over the gap
in one last ride before the collapse
near the sugar plantation, abandoned, a super highway
pylons tower over a dream home monolithic
the slice of nature dreamed becoming a dream
the illusion of free men stays on track
through the work of gangster wintermelon, red and black
implodes locals, drawing them out
nothing that affects expats with the knack
this American isn’t turning back

i sold my soul overseas for food and shelter 
no more believable than a common liar
paraded like a soot-faced Buddha on the commercial strip
in a civilized darkness holier than any distant brightness
with the illusion of water crawling over steps
descending endlessly and gently into the river unnoticed
on touchstones of transit for sunning turtles
with human stride up to the ankles
 good sense not to immerse myself
nothing but puffy clouds and green mountains
and scooters breaking laws no one obeys
 liberty of litter stretched as far as the eye
to watch Taiwan pop naturally by

12-6-18

                             www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
                                          Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved

Sunday, November 11, 2018

The rich will renew Malibu


「fire burning house in malibu photo」çš„Ã¥œ–片搜尋結æžœ

There is no overtime in flames
Or anything left behind
When the bike flies up the river
As the wind downstream dies
The rich will renew Malibu
Once the fire is through

Stealthily bomb the workers
The ones they do not see
I am sitting by the riverside
They cannot injure me
For all the back and forth our voting
Give us fires of foreboding 

The egret waits and wades the river
In incorruptible instinct
Unaware of nature’s beauty
To nature does its duty
and I try to emulate its glide
Mount the bike and take a ride

So on hot ember keep the faith
But cannot quench the thirst
Come too far to renounce an error
The mistaken messiah lasts forever
Sitting by the riverside pen in hand
I live in sync with eternity grand

Nov. 11, 2018
www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
Purchase more "Unnatural Beauty;Poems from the Han Riverside" here.
Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Taiwan; Where Rain Trees Flame Gold



Matted and slippery on the streets
Fallen leaves wetted, strewn
Odorous Pumpkin pulp air swoons

A child learning how to walk through
Jack-o-lantern funny faces
From sour-cider cyber places

Cinnamon innocence with nonchalance
Grandpa costumed for an apple dumpling
To a Renaissance-family coupling


Indigenous trees of flaming lanterns  
A distance up the orchard slope
Find delinquent seas of nature’s hope

Egrets glide through banks of gold
Rain trees pour on Han River path
Taiwan-Pittsburgh, bring me forth

Oriental beauty in her bones
Carmine warmth the natives know
How lanterns on the rain trees grow


 Hybrid heart of sweet persimmon
A granddaughter her parents have given
Pomegranate Chinese apple raven

In silvery dreams fulfilled, adorned
Crispy in the autumn night
Candles flicker, every light

Where love and two together made one
Under one high-arched crested moon
So near so near, so soon so soon

October 13, 2018
www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

                      Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.


Monday, September 10, 2018

almost like a September morning in Brooklyn.

the wind direction changed the other day
from the south to the northwest 
and with it brought clear clean skies 
and cool strong breeze
almost like a September morning in Brooklyn 
i can almost see teenagers and teachers
returning to high school after summer
but i hear it is ninety-five degrees in Brooklyn
and the classrooms, auditorium, and cafeteria 
still have no fans or air conditioning
i would much rather be in Taichung 
i cannot go back again
the place is not the same
as sure as i live 
with the first sign of fall
a brisk wind from the north
sends ripples to waves and waters white
as the Han rushes to beat it south
before more expats abandon Taipei
before more waterlogged southerns
push not north enough past Taichung
here i stay to ride my bicycle
resigned to pedal harder upstream 
remembering the dream
that brought me to Taiwan
on China's back door 
the Cultural Revolution i never saw 
and urges for going nevermore

September 9, 2018
 www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
                      Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Sunday, September 9, 2018

What Washes Up on Penghu Shores

western wind lashes flatland
and rain splashes coral limestone 
 melting walls, collapsing roofs of sand
abandoned homes left alone
  in the salty breeze 
become a tourist zone
 with no better fishing hole
living where the tide is low
in the Penghu archipelago

but now junks with cash bait
 and fishermen with ambition
to Chinese rendezvous wait
better to naturally disintegrate  
 than fall into shadows of toppled canyons
to tumble down in hate 
i would rather breeze across these islands 
than like grains of sand blasted 
from Manhattan and Long to Staten 

on countless Penghu shores
simplified characters appear washed up 
on plastic labels consumers bore
 typhoon west wind wanders 
counter-clockwise from Taiwan
as invasive investors ponder
empty tombs of living rooms
eighteen-percenters disgusted 
their casino bay doomed
without a resolution
Magong is better suited
   with less foreign pollution  
trapped in a heart-shaped weir
  let the future wait    
before it is late here
 forgo a modern state   
choose to die like seven beauties 
rather then be by pirates raped
in a windswept mind i shall sustain 
like gentle lapping waves 
 weathering my life the same
September 9, 2018
                            www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
                      Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.