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

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

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                                          Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved

The rich will renew Malibu

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
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Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved

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

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

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

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

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