Han River Poems : 2019

Thursday, December 12, 2019

No Skating Away on Han River

No skating away on Han River

Paths to familiar places never frozen

Like Joni Mitchell’s Christmas tantrum

Where else can I harmlessly roam?

Get lost in the maze of her amazing grace

Ride the bike slowly and never skate on

Why would I miss the lover I harm?

The ride up the river became a highway

Though noon birds sing brightly with river reeds

Factory hum drowns their song like tinnitus

Inside or outside my head full of sound

Gets me into the mood indigo

Returns me forever to icicle bicycle

In silent winter air that cannot be found

Rest in peace with Fredriksson, please

End Per Gessle’s masterpiece of pain

Shatter the ice for the broken-hearted

No hard Joni River to skate away now

Transformative power of skipping stones

Pristine egrets in tandem’s winter epic

Must have been good if we lost it somehow.

Warm the hand of my pretty skater

Melt the snowflakes before saying goodbye

With swooping frost on my forest phoenix

Flying relaxed like egrets on a joyride

In the afterglow of a tamed typhoon calm

The river’s ripples flow gently by our side

Only sprinters have something from which to hide

Highways and ice capades faster than rivers

Fish, egrets, feet and turtles defrosted

Get somewhere fast that must have been love

No pines to cut down and decorate

Or ice to slip on in the fast lane

Listen to your heart if she is calling for you

Treasure your best baby before it is too late

December 12, 2019

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Tuesday, November 26, 2019

I Know a Beach Where It Never Ends

The wind is blowing in the wrong direction,

But the sun still sets in the west.

We were called in to repair others errors,

Victim of their own superstitions,

But ended up discrediting ourselves.

They, forever deformed.

In a vain attempt at treatment,

After the most careful consideration,

We strove upward, only to get bad names,

For lack of their proper fengshui.

There was no way out but resignation,

Property returned to its original state.

We set them adrift with their element,

In a current they will not see coming.

On our raft of vicissitude with disinclined neighbors,

Unable to pull together and cooperate,

Taiwanese culture, dilapidated and lost,

We, their foreign whipping post, never more.

Doing what we can to ignore ignorance,

By listening to music through ear buds,

Playing pinball, drinking tequila, reading books,

But it invades us like seeping tea,

Stranded in HGTV, Travel Channel,

Watching baseball before we unravel.

Stay off the chaotic streets.

Find safe places to eat.

Me and my lady, will not be beat.

Ride my bicycle to the pool,

She to Pilates and yoga class,

Without connections, it can be cruel.

Without close friends to be distracted,

Laugh and get drunk and high,

It is not easy in Taiwan.

Losing social graces conforming to the norm,

There is nowhere civil to go,

Never on a crowded weekend; oh no!

Only Mandarin textbooks reach me,

The dividing line to which I teach

And the pleasures of McDonald’s meet-ups

Far away from our condo

A place language can be exchanged

Without exchange, nothing to arrange.

Life for a retired expat can be strange,

With careless indifference everywhere.

Superstitious ghost money burning,

Uncooperative neighbors, sloppy drivers,

Cars and scooters road rules circumvented.

Walkers without sidewalks, parking how one pleases…

If only I had someone to make it easy,

Some face to face distraction,

To supplement my faceless Facebook friends...

Though I write in rhyme, I read alone

Like hash marks on a prison wall

Out of Taiwan must I go to a land I can believe in?

I am going to China to see for myself.

What have I got to lose?

But it would mean losing you, my love,

You would not join me ‘cross the Strait.

How could I go where you would not follow,

Or lead somewhere we both cannot feel better?

Another place in Taiwan, you cannot forget,

With clean breezy air and dry sunshine,

We stood on a beach at sunset, do you remember when?
I know a beach in Penghu where it never ends.

Let the wind blow in the wrong direction,

The sun still rises in the east; sets in the west.

November 26. 2019

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Wednesday, November 20, 2019

No Rest until Every Apologist Deleted

Weather before a typhoon, so warm and calm

Even though it is out of season

What could be wrong?

That white sailing object is not an egret;

A sense of security has some doubt.

Like a younger child learning from the elders,

Mistaken Taiwan rain will pour out,

Wetter than blue puddles in Hong Kong,

Stronger than the Bolivian rightist coup,

Colder than the sleet that coats Midwestern States.

The sun shines bright before a typhoon storms.

Rain lasts into the night when it is gone.

The white object, floating, is a Christ supreme

Full of contradictory swirling blowhards,

Dead to nourish crops resurrection

What a privileged life is

Drenched through and through, a twisted point of view,

The coming typhoon will rip you from your staunches,

Throw you up and cast you out

cleansing wind, and closure.

Your corporate power usurped,

Your stock markets crashed

Like Dorothy’s house on your capitalist witch falls.

So clear the sky before the typhoon storms.

So different when typhoon winds are spent.

The air so clean to see mountain’s majesty;

The throne of nature’s supremacy,

After God’s hand smacks your foolish faces

With hundred kilometer-per-hour debris,

Deader than an unfriended Facebook deletion.

November 21, 2019

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Sunday, November 3, 2019

Sitting Between Two Cranes

Strollers pass on a lonely dyke

Their chatting pausing, smiling back

Acknowledging I am here.

Sitting between two cranes,
Along the river

A river that does not care if I am here,

It does not stop to look
or care if it gets the connection

Do I keep rolling any differently than a river?

That comes and goes,

Through velvet mornings and midnight haze,

If you were here on this bench,

I would pass it to you;

I would not mind.

November 3, 2019

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Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Near the Rainbow Bridge

Birds enjoy the last full rays of sun

Bathing on the riverside

Or hunting sustenance for little ones

Till the sun dips low in the skyline

Between high-risers

Over reflecting water
and when the sun is out of sight

Bats fly from under the bridge

Swooping and scooping up gnats that hatched

As orange clouds are silhouetted

Daylight is forgotten

The evening wedded to a neon rainbow

As the last lonely egret on the wing

Head tucked into her neck

Flies to the nest in the tropical brush

For a night long quiet recuperation

And the dawn of tomorrow’s song

October 23, 2019

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Where After

Such a waste of nourishment

To cremate a body!

Yet why bury someone

For maggots and worms to squirm in?

Why embalm them?

To look good at a funeral?

No other benefit from the leathery mannequin.

A good place to be put is

On a hillside in Tibet for wildlife to chew,

Or in a valley seeping in soil like compost

With consequences that keep on giving

When we reach the end of living.

Oct. 23, 2019

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Monday, October 21, 2019

When the Balance of Love Teeters

When the balance of love teeters

Tips to one side with spirit intact

And physical world encumbrances

Dry, peel off, and flake away

Like cosmetics off a pretty face

Discrepancies balloon

One circle bulges as the other dwindle

With a horrible hiss of pin-pricked air

And flies to destinations off limits

Landing in restaurants too spicy for taste

Where fidgety feet get busy
Looking for holes in the wall

Ready to exhume wire-cutters of escape

Until four eyes meet in irreversible love

On the outer limits of our twilight zone

Well beyond petty corporal desire

Like animals, fuss less, closer to nature

Proceed unhindered into heaven

Koans unravel in greater truths

How heat stays warm when fire dies

And nothing can be furthered

Once mist has evaporated

Least we keep a front of distraction

Our spiritual coexistence
No longer parasitic passion

October 20, 2019

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Saturday, October 19, 2019

A Foreign Language Test

He who works so hard into a stupor

Falls asleep in a chair unknowingly exhausted

That slave to commitment is not me

As I glide from sensation to sensation

When my fidgety feet start a-tapping

Up from my seat to open another door

Attending my wake to witness more

Occurrences like from an oracle arise

Magically written the answers in foreign words

Of which I knew or guessed unsure

Is it I cannot hear clearly what is said?

Or is it the calling I do not listen

But results are revelations

Of how distracted I was or made to be

Here it comes again

Drum roll please

Onward experiences untold

Without motivation for a bank roll

To the drummer I differentiate

See what comes, no need to wait

In any case concentrate

Onward with passion

In an occupied fashion

October 19, 2019

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Thursday, October 10, 2019

In a Twilighted Taichung Sky

a migrating flock of white birds south

in nonchalant formation high

across a twilighted Taichung sky

as fruit bats do the loop-de-loo

hunting gnats at water view

over the swirling bended Han

flowing westward through the city

under a colored neon span

bridging the wash where the temple stands

annexing a new zone of projects

where one day may i pass

swallowing bugs with no mask

or Thai massage my aching bone

in memory of a sun down low

magenta darkened seething clouds

on my knee with exile freedom

crackling chicharrones, an empty canteen

who can refill my dream?

who can hear my scream?

only the bats winging back to their nests

know the thrill of going home

after sunsets

October 10, 2019

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Thursday, September 5, 2019

Through Earth's Wasteland on a Moving Train

Through earth's wasteland on a moving train,

Looking out the window at a strange terrain.

From the other direction, a train comes passing,

Makes me look faster with the world going backwards.

Dilapidated gains causing memory pains.

Where once millions of bright flowers bloomed,

Now is bathed in dim light’s dreary gloom.

One Guard at the gate with no one to communicate,

Arriving on time finding the dawn late.

Once there was a peaceful horizon

When Yasser met Menachem and England returned Hong Kong.

Then Obama flashed his shiny teeth,

Chewing us into the belly of the beast.

Hopeful dreams became tarnished, unpolished,

As the Owner of dogs shortened our leashes,

Tied us to fence posts water out of reaches.

The stories that we told before optimism slipped away,

Are there no more songs for us to sing today?

The relentless dripping of a drying Willow Wash,

Love River’s algae re-polluting,

As our wind is catching sail, distancing us,

Our world’s recovery in the infirmary.

As science finds solutions, pundits find denial.

Nature overtaken, revival overthrown,

Putting into doubt humanity’s survival,

Remedial education in a corner all alone,

Who tried to break this old man's bones?

Knick knack paddy whack, keeping all my bones,

She’ll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes.

Growing and knowing right from wrong,

With the world in revision, let's stay strong.

Reaching fruition, multiplication,

As the numb world falls into delusional fearing,

See clearly the inches and fractions cohering.

Gaining passion with every movement bold,

The new world emerging from the shell of the old.

September 5, 2019

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Sunday, September 1, 2019

dragonflies doused with blue dye

dragonflies doused with blue dye
for the morrow they're arrested
fireflies' laser beams confusion
of their facial recognition
escaping charges of treason
for their serious insurrection
sonic streams of guttural sounds
water canon spray when found
then they all fall down
stirred, not shaken, Molotov cocktails
mockery from the British Monarchy.
a colonial colonoscopy...
but it cannot reach me
on the river's edge
only set on fire that heap of rubbish
across the South China Sea.
i sit here peacefully by a Taiwan river
colluding with nature
as an army of ants
crawls up my pants
preparing to liberate some egg-fu-young
a recipe from old Hong Kong
dropped from the tip of this expat's tongue
far from the madding throng.

September 1, 2019

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

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Porgy, Bess, Melville, and Me

Skies are blue; not a cloud drifts by.

Air is cool and dry.

There's a gentle breeze going nowhere.

Eastern mountains from fog unfurled.

Standing water in every pot’s dish

Emptied so mosquitoes cannot.

Birds pass by palm tree hands

Under commercial jets smaller than gnats.

Understand another typhoon is on the way,

So I want to take a long bike ride,
Do that today and go swimming tomorrow

Knowing rain and wind may come
Barreling in, bulls eye, over Taichung.

Til the giant ball of moisture blows by

Tomorrow

When we make two trips to the hospital;

For her to have a blood test and

Then in the evening a consultation.

I walked to pick a paperback
Edition of Moby Dick

Because carrying a ten-pound illustrated volume,

From the bathroom towel rack

To read a page each dump,

Wasn’t cutting it;

It would take two years to finish it,

If I stop at illustrations.

Returned I to read in the cafeteria

Of the cancer building basement.

The greatest novel in English literature,

From a writer who died an unrealized master,

Alcoholic, pauper, clerk,

Reduced to unwanted fodder on a foreign bookshelf,

Free on Kindle,

And read on a toilet?

I can remedy that!

Put it in my pocket where it belongs,

Thick as it is,

Ride to a shady spot

Near three decommissioned tanks

On a retired sugarcane railroad.

Saturday evening's ballgame will be cancelled.

"An American in Paris" show in jeopardy

The Summer of Gershwin, a washout,

Reduced to a single blog entry.

Only relish each side of Porgy & Bess

In the living room

Time to digest each troubled survivor of Charleston,

Feel the pain of Bess blind-sided by Crown

No island picnic after seeing Porgy’s light;

Feel her tears after a week in delirium,

Back to the man who would takes her any way

Isn’t that what couples are best at?

When it rains all summer

And the excursions are to the hospital.

August 22, 2019

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