Han River Poems : September 2018

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

Purchase "Unnatural Beauty;Poems from the Han Riverside" here.

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

Purchase "Unnatural Beauty;Poems from the Han Riverside" here.