The Cleaners

We clean in lieu

of conversation,

we sweep passed each other-

spectres in an untouching waltz

on finely cracked thin ice.

weightless

loveless

apart

Our flat, like lustrous crystal

in a museum of such things-

polished brilliant but unused,

to be looked at, not touched;
a home of ghosts and echoes.

dustless

lustless

empty  

Finding Out There Were Mountains

the mountains here are wild;

you'd never know if you didn't get out of the city

which can consume you as it almost did me.

for the first six months of my living here,

I truly believed the entire island to be a metropolis.

I knew my way around town, Taoyuan,

having purposely lost myself a few times

on my motorbike- my Sanyang one-fifty.

I would ride around; I quite enjoyed being lost,

until I'd see something I recognized

and doing it this way the city soon took shape,

like a forming jigsaw puzzle.

it was on one of these adventures

when as lost as I'd ever been,

I reached an interesting cusp,

where the relentless city gave up as

up until then I had never dreamt it would.

In its place cut a deep valley;

the road I was on, the number seven,
wound down into it.

I could make out a river in a huge floodplain,

making tributaries of itself and reforming

like a silver child with too much space to play in.

but it was the mountains on the other side of the valley

that ensnared my gaze and attention- steep and jungled,

and clearly the number seven cut into them.

I took a chance on the petrol I had left in my tank;

the gauge was broken and always showed full,

and made for them, popping out of the urban fizz

like a cork.

The Zen of Jim Morrison

I was counselled last night
by an energetic Jim Morrison
who refused to sit down
He listened intently to
the things that I had on my mind
and after seeming to think over each one
he'd hold up his arms like a champion
and shout, “Fuck it!”

Now to me in my dreams
this energetic Jim Morrison
pacing about- a panther in leather
seemed to have it all worked out
Each 'Fuck it' gave artful wings to a problem
and out of the tenth floor window it would flutter
Until finally I had none- I was reborn
Jim staggered and sat down like a preacher who'd just given up the spirit
one leg over the arm of the couch

I stood up to leave the room
but looking back I realised he was dying
His colour had left him and his breathing was laboured
“Jim Morrison, what can I do?” I asked
more aware of his celebrity and a little nervous
His head stooped and I had to push him back
to prevent him falling off the couch.
“Jesus Christ! Have I taught you nothing man?”
he slurred with a dying man's grin
“You know what to do.”

I did know what to do, sort of
“Fuck it?” I ventured tentatively
keeping one hand on his heavy shoulder
“Come on man!” he laughed and then coughed terribly
I took my hand off his shoulder and let James D Morrison of The Doors
fall unceremoniously onto the one side of his face; I'd never seen anyone look so dead
I raised my arms, clenched my fists and screamed, “Fuck it!”
This gave him wings, not the biggest or prettiest but they would do hopefully
I'd need more practice he muttered as he unfurled and stood up
“Fuck it friend,” he said with goodbye in his blue-grey eyes

Then he stage-dived out of the open window  

A Lonely Tendency

My telephone directory,

a paper brick of names;

the portal to almost anyone,

under the beige plastic phone

in the unlit passage.

I stand beside it,

a spec next to an ever-faster turning planet;

the chance to climb on long past,

receiver in my older hand

like a revolver with one bullet,

racking to remember

a name I knew once

from a face I can still almost see,

before clicking it back down;

a now daily resignation...

Drowning

I've told you before

I remember nearly drowning once

- made small by swells

that had seemed tame from the sand

just moments before.

Screaming for someone,

my voice stolen by marbled effervescence

and vastness- shoulders surrendering.

That time the rip took me back in.

I was lucky.

This place is a sea too you know.

Don't forget its depth.

Its basalty bed rests in cold darkness

fathoms below the streets, the lights

and our ever-treading soles. 

Waves sweep through windows

and the rip swipes your feet from
the surest of floors

- a phantom peril.

You called out, didn't you?

As loudly as you could have,

and yet almost imperceptibly

-many decibels below

the noise, the talk and the metal tides.

Surface Tension

So fleet so fragile

happiness

transient as a paperclip

precariously at rest

on the meniscus of water

over a deep deep well

Poised perfectly still

meditating

on surface joys

the light, the warmth

the faces that care

yet fearing the snap will come

as science intended

to click through

the fine improbable film

and sink terminally to the bottom
where gravity holds all the cards
in the deep deep well 

Scootering Home in Summer

As this day dies

the light fades

like the lingering end

of a Cure song

Westward facing

windows catch

the sun's last rays

early evening embers

The wind on my face

cools as the day

breathes its last

I’ll be home soon 

Old Taiwan Homestead

The thick smell of wet feathers

hangs heavy as if from hooks

In the courtyard

cupped in a horseshoe of red-brick buildings

in front of a blue-plastic stool

a bucket a single glove and knife

Its blade sharpened to a coy thin smile

over many years

There are voices on the breeze

and from a line from gutter to red-tiled roof 

a child's clothes flap mischievously

among slower drying adult garments

that somberly swing and drip

onto sun-cracked concrete

There's no one to be seen  

Outlaws

Imagine for just this moment,

dream of it

if you can my love,

that this wasn't just a room
of stern circumstance and a bed,

and that standing here
we had a view

and a sure path behind us,

signed cobbled and lit;

a way home.

Picture a beckoning dusk,

an enchanted horizon,

splashed with impetuous colour,

peppered with possibility,

rolling enticingly away
to another day
in another place,

but always too,
just there,

a sure way home.

If it were so

and we were still us,

would you stay still right here,

to breath it all in,

or with me even chance ahead

to newer days and dusks? 

Or would you simply choose
my love,
to turn alone and run,

along the sure way home? 

Lying Here

Your soft supple words

punctuated with gentle

shushes

and a finger on my lips

when I try to speak

I understand

Morning light

needling through

holes in the curtains

like stars

Can't make out faces

in their dark folds yet

You know I couldn't

add to this

that my words

would crack

this transient

and fragile moment

and let the true day in

I understand

Principal Wang

A calligrapher's hands

folded like resting origami swans

neatly on his lap

Waiting for the Taiwan

high mountain Oolong tea

in the tiny steaming pot to steep

Sitting slightly reclined

in a hardwood armed chair

Legs crossed with a floating right shoe

that conducts an inaudible choir

I'm aware of the absence of time

as he waits for my answer  

At Surf's End

She surfs from tumbling

turquoise dunes
into a beaten irascible wash

Then with a looping arm

and an arcing mane

of glistening airborne sea

she falls

Her surfboard shoots up

an ankle-tethered rocket

breaching through salted spray

Surfacing serenely

she gathers it then wades

weightily towards the sands

and her time ashore

On Comedown Hill

On Comedown Hill

over a London that

comes into eye

like a quivering polaroid

in a brittle breeze

as the bubble we've been nursing

wastes away down to the

finest wispy threads

at least we have each other

Last night's basses

still pulse through

my cramping jaw

and as the first sun's ray

draws sweat from cadaver skin

no one says a word

I look to profiles for a friend

I fish for the faintest of nods

but realise I'm with strangers

In Sagan's Field

With my big feet

grounded to the Earth I know

I gaze up at my kids at play

in Carl Sagan's field

where wildflower suns

hold planets in orbital sway

They wave back at me

on my Pale Blue Dot

and I wonder how long they'll be

this able to frolic

without a care in the world

and free from its gravity

Bar Insomnia

Over and above the perennial
roar-hum of the air conditioning,
and the unpredictable plasticky
dropping of toys by the children who live upstairs,
my thoughts and worries charge,
like thirsty punters in a rowdy bar,
jostling their orders to the fore.

These things don’t matter,
you’ll see tomorrow,

says Matthew McConaughey,
who at first seems like a friend.
He saunters in, rain dripping
cinematically from the wavy rim of his Stetson,
easily orders a drink and hikes spurred boots heavily onto a table
to watch the fun and games.

I’ll be here all night!
Can someone please change the god awful music?

But the song’s set in stone.
It’s a virus I think I've picked up at the gym.

We found love in a hopeless place,
a hopeless place…

Each time it ends I put it back on,
in defiance of the flying empties and voices
that holler for me not to.

Play that one more time,
I will shoot you square between your eyes,

dares McConaughey with a tricky hand in his duster coat,
momentarily hushing the room.
But I call his bluff and he lets it go,
grinning coolly under his dipping hat.
The verses play out like a scratched CD,
skipping over words I don’t know.

I kick the sheets off,
and so goes the night.

When I Wobble

Dancing with my daughter

on a Friday home from work

She laughs

You look like a wobbly jelly

Like a wobbly daddy

I'm at my happiest when I wobble

I spin surprisingly successfully on my heel

She follows with a three-sixty jump

of toddler proportions

Her joy is more rigid

but enviably more pure

My thirteen year old son cringes from the couch

though there are still times he lets his guard down

He looks tellingly at the turned-off TV

Beads of sweat where her hair is clipped down

Ponytail a twirling celebration of its own

and her entire face in the making of a smile

Be Mankan

I journey to Mali
this evening

on the opening plucks
of Toumani Diabate's kora
with the long-set sun
still brushing the sky

I loiter in Bamako

on streets made purely

of song

with people along them

like smiling notes
sounding as they're seen

With Toumani and now

Ali Farka Touré

who tells me that death's alright

just leave something behind

something good

like music, like this song
anything... 

'Be Mankan'

“It's the blessings that make the tears fall”

As it plays out

Toumani grins and ambles off

kora in tow

Ali fades with a master's chuckle

and a humble wave

into an eve of silence

The tears fall 

A Recovered Wreck

I rest now on the rocks 

I was stricken on

Anchored 

I've made them my home

The waves that harassed and upended me

massage me now in their foam

The water I once feared

courses through me

Willing 

its life through my seams

The lighthouse whose bulbs once betrayed me

now adorns my hull with its beams

I'm Home

Your grin belies

what’s to come

Your eyes are truer

But there are other clues

The open magazine

Bikinied airbrushed

impossible bodies

flashing deriding smiles

The almost drunk

       cracked

glass of last week’s red

we’d meant to throw out

My preemptive

I love you Beautiful

flops humiliatingly

somewhere between us

Like a failed acrobat

on echoless hard wood

I want to run

both to you and away

I’m home

The Spring Picker

I told him how sometimes

I can finish a poem in minutes

Like my mind and fingers

are bedeviled

and I like it when it’s done

And that I’m usually surprised

by what it’s about

and why I’ve written it

But how other times

It’s an ordeal

Forty or so words

that I can labour over

for days

Visits to a thesaurus

Struggles with alliteration

meter and the like

Travail and only to

hate it when it’s done

My father who’s a poet

my favorite said he feels

there’s always a poem

some place in a poet

Being forged in the subconscious

Like an underground river

Bubbling forming forking

conjoining

in the pitch dark

Threading its way to the surface

to the light

Somewhere sometime

for whatever reason

Let it flow

I liked that

Happy Hour

A burgeoning smile

The faintest crescent

of a waxing moon

Spared some sky

by just this once

forgiving clouds

It’s been a while

since you shone so

A sliver of spirit

An ephemeral lake

on Namib sands

Banked with beginnings

blanketed with colour

Shoots of idle ideas  

It’s been a while

since you blossomed so

On Your Leaving

Empty boat

on a vast expanse

of fairly troubled water

Insignificant

though distressing

should you be watching

which you aren't

A raw wind

whips translucent crests

and drowned autumnal leaves

over the gunwale

and a clanking oar is wrestled loose

Sinking fading

like a memory

The true flight

of a squadron of geese

juxtaposes lower swallows

blown awry by the gusts

above the boat that's keeled over

exposing a keenly crafted hull

just below the chop

Mrs. Xu

Star anise

bubbles

from the opaque depth

of the pot on the stove

Like an expanding universe

Wooden spoon

dancing

Taps out a zestful tempo

on the silver rim

it rests on

Mrs. Xu

chopping

Here she shows her love

Lost in meditative concern

amid the wisps of steam

A Room in Chungking

On the gritty wall

askew

in sultry disrepair,

hangs Hokusai’s Great Wave.

Almost a  window once perhaps,

this place has won it over

Below

On crumpled sheets,

she cradles him like a cello
having fed him a teaspoon of sin.

Pallid tenderness he weeps he knows.

She sees and lets him go.

On her way out

She passes

three wrong clocks

that tick out a tinny gallop.  

London, New York, Hong Kong

She sighs,

"London, New York, Hong Kong." 

The Piano Lesson

Through the ceiling,

above my lazy fan,
sounds vividly

the knocking foot pedal,

and less distinctly
the tightly knitted notes.

Chopin perhaps,

but what do I know?

Her fingers stumble

over a gnarly etude

into a terse silence.
A distant yet sharp scolding

rises and sinks.

My fan stirs the dank air.
Plaster peels above
like an unreachable itch.

The failed notes repeat perfectly,

through different hands
but the same feet.

The thudding pedal belies

the piano learner’s obedience   

On Losing a Lake

Most of the children said

that once the lake dries up

and a cracked bed remains

the thing they will miss most

will be the reflections

they are used to seeing in the water

Catherine said she couldn’t imagine the peaks and the sky

not being rooted in an inverted image of themselves

That it was awful to think of them rising from the mere ground

I prompted the class in the direction

of being concerned for our source of fresh water being gone

What will we wash in?

How will farmers cope?

What will we drink?

But on a recount of raised hands after my intervention

the disappearance of the ability of the reservoir to reflect

won hands down again  

After class at my desk their answer made me think

of death and of losing you my love

I don’t know why but it did

And the sense of it came rushing in like a flood