Sensuous pleasure
Human touch

I close my eyes
Darken hue

A stampede of thoughts
Streams of consciousness

Springsteen in Asbury Park
Aung San Sun kyi, a lost voice

Meeting with a philosopher
American friends

Judge Judy
And Poetic license

International conflicts
Blame the Russians

Rooney drink driving
Racist police and the NFL

PhD students
And Noam Chomsky

R.E.M
'The End Of the World as We know it'

BREXIT
Blame anyone but yourself

A mother giving birth in the street
To poor for St. Elsewhere

North Korea
Blame the Chinese

The beautiful woman next to me
Another day in paradise.

The man said something
Now the other foot.

Have you read the news today

44 Texans dead, 32 000 in shelters
Withering and falling like an autumn leaf in this season of grief.
Warm memories left to shed light into the darkness.
Bitter cold sadness consumes a nation.
Each day the news reports the loss  
of your gentle understanding ways.

But what of the others who's stories need to be told?

In the same season 1,200 people fought
for every breath they took, 40 million people
feel the pain of isolation as the tears of heaven fall
down in India, Nepal, Bangladesh , Pakistan and places
not easily found on the classroom walls in Bose, Idaho.

One dead in Texas equals 10 dead in London equals 100 dead in Turkey equals 1000 dead in Pakistan equals 10,000 dead in China.
Media coating news like sugar on a rotten apple
High arts to disfigure truth and news
Much easier to know about Kim Kardashian's Cher-Inspired Photo Shoot, than ask why  Colin Kaepernick cannot play football?


Have you read the news today?

Today is the first of September
The end of summer in Taiyuan
Hopes of love expired, summer lapsed away
Too impeccable to last.

The crickets put their songbooks away
The long march over for another year
Hearts moving, yet without a dream
Their music web will sing a different tune.

One last walk by the Fen
and memories of dizziness.
Faintly the steps begin to grieve
each one heavy with the waning light.

And now the cold kiss of a Shanxi winter
invites me to walk by its placid stream.
And drink its cooling breath
More vivid than the sunsets final glow.

Snap, snap, snap.

Filter out the sadness.
Love me, adore me
Feed me.
When the thrill is gone
I am still missing life.
It's not a problem
just trying to get
the right one.
Bleeding pigments of pink.
Society pushing,
am I too fat.
Portraits of hate
feeding tyranny.
Nostalgic filter
and the potency of
myth is addictive.
How to hide my soul
when I am king.
I can stop

Snap, snap, snap.

My neighbour invited me to a party today
for a man who died three years ago.
I did not know the man.
Was he famous?
Did he hurt people?
Or was he just a man in the wind?

He was a relative of my neighbour.
They gathered to celebrate and remember his life.
I wondered if anyone would come to celebrate and remember me when I die?

As I look who will I see drinking Belgium beer and talking about my poetry?
Will anyone say 'He was a man of constant sorrow, but a good father?

So I watched the people eat and drink and thought about my own death.
When will the shadows close in.
Will I begin to notice?
What will I feel?

So many people are abandoned in despair. Holding thoughts that no person should possess alone.
Wanting something better.
Death can seem an answer.

My neighbour offered my some Baijiu.
I smiled and politely say 'no thank you'.
The last thing I needed was to think about my own death and drink Baijiu!

As I left, still searching for my soul, I realised again, that weak winds and silent structures are all around us.
It is the small margin of moments, the walk through time that give us a chance of a good death.

So Shanxi TV want to interview me.
This is my chance.
To say something that people will
never forget.

" In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes" said Andy Warhol, well I have less time than him.

If you had five minutes of fame
what would you say?
You have waited all your life
for this moment.
The cameras are on you
and the world is waiting.

What would you say?

Would you speak of those
who fall into hell or those who
fall into heaven?

Maybe you would tell the world
that you love your country, but
dreamed last night that the dogs of
Fenyang barked no more.

Or maybe like Ji Xianlin, you would say something about growing flowers for the benefit of all.

What would you say?