Taiwan Providence

  The mantra of the air con  When I call on it to brisk me Wakeful eyes stare at bedroom skies It comes alive with wishing sounds Of the coolest oscillation in my head The smooth machine friendly bed partner When I'm alone with the light red   Oh it is winding up the spiral helix  Rising the whistle of excitement As I lie grabbing anything too cold To not let me fall through the soggy bottom Of lukewarm loneliness and despondency  Sharing the platform with freedom and liberty Going hand in hand with my singularity   How wonderful it would feel to wrap My arms around your wing'ed flaps Touch your goosebumped body As air con envelops us in a cocoon  Makes us smooth, sleek    Your breath in my ear not cold or metallic But pleasing and steady with regular humanity   The steady hum of the air con turns me on Back up through the stages I descend Cool air heights of the pen in hand Living in t...

  Plum rains won’t quench Lantan Lake, But typhoons will work it out in this year of drought. Incessant downpours will come so hard and long That we will stay indoors, Windows rattling, doors howling So much so that Lantan’s waterline rings, Like the age of a tree shaped vertically, Will become a memory sliced perpendicularly. As every inlet is covered over, beaches vanish. As the lake gets bloated. Spillway channel fills to the rim Tumbling down the slope to the valley below Viaduct useless for such spillage Into Renyitan Reservoir haphazardly Through a highway over the dam Then randomly into Bazhang River wham bam! Meandering water snake skirting Chiayi Into the Taiwan’s Strait, like a tsunami. Yes, that August deluge is hard to imagine In the throes of water-rationed parched Formosa One-hundred degree days of electrical strain In the thick and thin of life’s vicissitude, But those bends and growth signal change The amazing landscape ...

  How do I restart my hand machine When pictures cannot be deleted Stuck in my mind like loves illusion Unmoving nor going away Going nowhere until I make some space Change the location for better reception No about face w ith nothing to lose All the lights lit And no silver ball to bump off of Left with a memory before farewell The feeling that will dwell Something to see when I close my eyes Something to recall from afar Something like love beyond reason The only reason to come or go Like a crescent moon over my head It is hard to see unless I am prostrate How I wish I could be with you to see The illuminated ceiling stars That I will soon be remembering imagining  seeing you in my dreams    May 19, 2021

Some have a dog to keep them company Someone to go out and be with them Take her for walks or places to explore A place a friend would not disagree going Call her by name when she dawdles Wait for her when she is distracted   If I could rent a dog to keep me company It would not be fair to say goodbye For she would be more than a child or wife Till death I would need to be in her life A child grows and a wife sometimes stops Being a part of her best friend’s life   I have thought about how to walk with a cat Or a bird on my shoulder to claw me till home A turtle and slowly get used to its gait A hedgehog, fish, snail or mouse enclosed An invisible deejay radio talk show  mate None of whom would be a good on a date   I’ll go to the roof and drink with the moon Instead of staying alone in the dark of night Watching  one by one street lights turn on Another evening with no one beginning  With all the freedom a ...

  See first live rendition here Can a transplanted tree afford to lose rain To a local shrub with roots so deep? Wide and far in its reach To the sandy soil of the settler’s beach Where an ancient ship wrecked at sea Spilled its seeds on fertile soil Grew a forest in a far flung land Bearing fruit carried away Depleted and thinned towards extinction A foreign tree lost its distinction Without maintenance Till a leaf in the breeze was all that remained And the sweet taste that bloomed was soon forgotten Becoming an eyesore not worth kindling As lonely it had become as could be Yet just north across the tropic of Cancer In a temperate zone with a kind of its own So much density the forest did see With its own kind thriving naturally Through storms and droughts and falling outs   Wandering offspring in wind settling in Unpicked fruit fallen to the ground For anyone who’d lost their doubt This is how culture comes about As ship-wreck...

  Can I write a poem in the dark? What would it look like in the light? Riding alone on cheerleader road I can almost see the stars through the haze Almost hear the rocket ship roar But hear instead frogs calling for mates A distant dog’s bark from across a field Geckos scolding mosquitoes darting   Bats finding their target by echo But I am up the broken path Near an old freshwater gully Only a lit backyard window to guide On this traitorous moonless night Riding a reckless bike With no constellation in sight Not a spark to ignite   May 6, 2021

  See live first rendition here Shimmering emerald lake water  yielding  To an outcropping of exposed sediment Chirpity chirpitum songbird connecting me To where retirees’ conundrum come from Like that man with a camera on an orange-blossom tree Or me on a bench with paper, books, and a pencil With the audacity to think anyone would care what I see That we are doing anything more than living leisurely Not what the egret needs for infinity But a place to be wanted, fulfilling others’ needs With a winding perimeter road on the long way home How long have I longed to be without obligations? With only willful commitments guiding me And matter to someone I love.   The trickle called Han River? A token Like the leg propped on my thigh on the sofa; What is it compared to this vast lake? Or the caress of a lover giving more than she takes It means more to a pensioner than unsocial security The hideaways and trails to the shoreline and hi...

she wishes to be half as naive as me innocence but innocence that comes naturally in this complicated world with a lot of selfish people Innocence that you have to cling to as an ideal. stuck in a world she struggled to win and fight as I did for forty years and other places. innocence leading children into a beautiful world where that they can be happy like I think she feels happy being with me and losing her self in my innocence but just as it's a struggle for me to face reality things in a conventional way protect myself without becoming anybody's meal ticket l ticket

  Am I any more than an ant scurrying down a tree Bringing sustenance to feed the queen? Or any less a man without a community At least ants have a network, a family A culture born of closeness and affinity  But no matter how long I sit here The culture will not grow on me; Only mold and rot in the morning shade   Unlike me, ants needn’t be brave; Though they’ll be gone before I go away. Am I less than an ant not knowing when to leave? A tree of impossible girth with no bark to cling How can I climb higher without stressing desire? And seem tall in a forest of obscure specifics Above bigger pictures from a treetop view Looking down, I could tell an ant a thing or two   May 4, 2021