After every moment
Someone has to clean up.
Old ideas thrown away
New ones, emerge
Hidden, waiting.
For the street cleaners
of Xinxiang.
To recall the way it was.
Discarded remnants of
rusted arguments.
Litter the streets.
Each blade of grass a
compare and contrast,
a cause and effect.

For those who know less.
The days are painted in
remembered harsh light.
Like a slow passing train
it seems to never end.
But in this haunted twilight,
their are some determined
to look for comfort.
Not to you.

0:2:45 in Xinxiang
19:45 in Kiev
Waking before the alarm sounds.
An old poet lifts his eye,
and quits his lagging dream.
Come on Liverpool.

The Red Army expects
England expects.
We, who are English now watch CCTV5.
While others sleep in their beds,
dividing rich fields from doors of dark
and grimy alleys.

It's been a long cold winter.
A biting wind from the West.
The light in the leaves
finds a desolate wall.

The workers, who sing the blues.
Do you stop to listen?

The sanitary worker,
the taxi driver.
The farmer's hands,
and industrial workers.

Neon promises mean nothing.
Sleeping by the river,
fending off the blues.
Sub-health and sub-city
Constant companions.

In a well rehearsed voice.
With a melancholy tone.
They sing.....

' Nobody knows the trouble I've seen'

And the weary blues  
echo inside their heads.
Over and over again.

Dark days ahead.
Banners from the days gone by
flutter in the changing wind.
A comma, a semicolon, a word.
Weapons of mass education
compete with weapons of mass destruction.

Disaster, war, famine and fire.
All crashing and raving.
Demanding your attention..
Noble hero sings about an 'idiot wind'
A protagonist with his own brand of magic.

World on the brink.
Now, eat up your words.
Chew the poets, the writers
and those who write the songs.

Hold on to your fate.

I open a book
And in I hid.
Now, I am alone.
Nobody can find me.

I open a book.
And found a friend.
So I can share
The lonesome hours.

I open a book.
That empties any enemy
It leaves me confounded
At every turn.

I open a book
That casts a magic spell
A notion of existence
Blessed, beloved simplicity.

I open a book
That I can touch.
Aromas and sounds
That carry me to you.

I open a book.
The long and mad
And dream that day.
That hour.

I open a book
Words shouting
Dragon jargon
Day after day.

I open a book
And see
The tilting fish,
speckled with barnacles.

I open a book
...to live
....to feel
..........to think.

I open a book.

6am in Xinxiang
Only the ants,
hardworking, lovesick and confused
occupy the spaces
between the common lines.
The street lights shine
in the black gutter by the road.

The moon, in constant conflct,
still up in the morning.
Greets the eye as reflections blaze.

And me,  still on my bed,
I look through my window.
The same still things,
Hopes in shining light
right outside these bars.

The few stars left, punctuate
this blissful solitude.
Time alone to heal
I lost so much in so little time.

Today I am sick.
Thinking is hard to come,
words as cutting pain.
Soul physicians,
should I disclose the
whole complaint,
and curse the sky.
Or watch the churches
burn and babies cry.
Sickness is a lonely place,
of distant echoes,
and long past.
Now I need to lie down
and close my eyes.
Letters of dust, blowing
around my room.
The nearest thing to life.