All The Same

“Mist or pollution?” I ask

crossing the murky morning bridge.

My friend shrugs. “Both.”

Cross the bridge or not – we’re a part of it.

Surrounded by it. Inhaling it.

Everyday the same crossing,

misted and obscured.

The students ahead disappear.

Mask up or change your routine.

Why the trepidation?

It’s a part of you all the same.

The motions. The breaths in and out.

This crossing and the rituals before and after.

Cross the bridge – You already have

put feet all over it and joined the mist.

“Too early for all that,” she says

reading my mind. “Cross or not,

you’ve crossed it all the same.”

 

AJG

Some thoughts while crossing the bridge to class in the morning. 

Just a Moment

Just a moment.

Take a break right here to break it.

Shatter it, in fact. Sweep it up,

grind it to dust underfoot and blow it

into the path of an oncoming car.

Watch it swirl up, twist past my face

then disappear without even a wince.

It’s not real like glass or crystal, right?

Not something you need to replace.

Just break it and make another.

Like we’ve done to so much else.

No one will look back at this and pause

wasting more precious time.

Walk on or wait up for me.

Look back or don’t. Ain’t much to see.

I’m just standing, not caught up in anything.

Staring down the reflections.

A moment. That is all I need.

 

Goldbot

Move

Ride the zebra across.

Blur your pasts and futures into the present.

We barely recognise those next to us.

I know you, but not this street or its language of

hashed lines and dashes. I came here sure of reasons,

uncertain of consequences. Like you, perhaps.

Is that something we keep

as our faces distort in each other’s stride?

The crossing here’s risky. No looking. No help anyway:

All the signs and symbols are meaningless.

Don’t look down and if you don’t stumble

don’t smile yet – It’ll come. Just move forward.

Keep going. Don’t stop moving towards something.

Don’t look back or you’ll never escape,

if that was your reason for crossing.

Just look straight if you had a reason

for moving forward at all.

_____________________________

Goldbot – Xiamen 2015.

A poem and photograph from a Photo/Poetry project in Xiamen, China.

Picture courtesy of Asaka a local photographer from Xiamen.

Ski Ramp Progress

The roofs slope the same way

sliding up like ski ramps to the sky.

Old and new. Older and newer.

Their same ambitions and fates

like that of everything’s. Just conditional.

No comment on progress or decay or rebirth.

All is one thing in another form.

Who cares to remember? Nostalgia

is the present disease of the past.

Keep aiming up and looking that way

keep no foot on the rubble of our memories.

They are no foundations for the future.

Just features for photos on Sunday afternoons.

Like clouds, they are what you say they are.

Think no more of them and look for meanings

only in the pillows of smog above us.

1/10/2015 – Taken in Jimei, Xiamen, China.

Been a long time to share my poetry on this blog…mostly since I have lived in China…though I still have words written and stories to tell, I will start sharing some more and reading yours. Goldbot.

Daily Reports – China – 13th of April 2015

Boredom.

Filled the kettle but forgot to turn it on.

Forgot I was even making tea.

*

Confusion

So many languages half learnt. Even my own.

Still trying to find the right words.

*

Laziness

All the things waiting on my bed and sofa.

I just keep sitting.

*

AJG

The Fixer

Electric kettle was on all night

now the tea tastes like metal.

Add some extra sugar.

Computer won’t charge

so now I’m on my phone

staring through a tiny window to the world.

Back’s sore from yesterday-

it’ll need a stretch.

Lost my key, but a new one’s just a dollar.

Looking around I realise

there’s a solution to all my problems.

Keep searching.

One day I’ll find something

that I just can’t fix.

*

AJG – 13/04/15

Reports – China – 9/4/2015

A long time in between posts. Been settling into another country and compiling my poetry from Central America/Thailand/Japan into a collection. I am going to start up my daily poetic reports from my new home in China.

Here are some from 09/04/15…back in April!

______________________________________________

The eleven foot curtain heaves against the desk.

It puffs out its chest as much as I’d like to.

I take a deep breathe but it falls short or shallow

one of those, either way not enough. Less than I’d like.

More than I need. Less than I want and can get.

More than I deserve, I suppose. Probably like that

for all of us and everything.

_______________________________________

Want to go out but

no one to talk to and nowhere to go

forced back to writing.

________________________________________

Leaning over the railing six floors up

leaves hold palms up to catch me

so tempted just to see how they’d feel

and the fullness of the air as well

breezing as I flew past

too excited I have to pull back

forgetting the ground

_______________

AJG

A Part Of It All

Blue skies from sci-fi epics.

Clouds stationary battleships

no attacks in sight.

The sun a bathing god

reclining in all its power.

Absorb its light and ride along

neck bent to witness it all.

The story has just begun.

Bubbles rise up inside

bursting and popping excitedly

as I realise

I am a part of this all.

*

AJG

I Am Charlie

Life was there

standing before them

drawing

with weapons they drew

AKs, guns, everything

so much power

and still they couldn’t speak

no matter what noise they made

just dripping red

red red red ink

enough ink that we couldn’t hear it

enough that we know

that

that all we could hear

was the silence they made

and how loud

through all of the silence

they had made us.

Last Night in Manila

Bus trip, shower and shave.

The night is paved with possibilities.

Jeepneys march on and taxis prowl.

Rum and wine are poured.

A breeze brushes hair

the humidity is moved along unwillingly.

It’ll be back but tonight we have reprieve.

With only hours left and the only relief

for our expectations is to leave everything here

money, courtesy, friends, foes, ladyboys,

nightcrawlers, dignity and memories,

Manila, they’re yours.

*

AJG