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