Author: Simon Elmer

On the street of poetry and letters Young men pursue the spell of poetry Writing lines that will end in poverty On the street of poetry and letters Thoughts like towers rise upward to the stars Each door and stairwell blocked with iron bars On the street of poetry and letters Old men like dragons … Continue reading The Street of Poetry and Letters

Perform the Peacock Dance of the Dai People at an International Cultural Festival in the United States of America When pleasure is greatest, sorrow follows.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX— Tu Fu On seeing her perform I thought:So this is why god made women!Why men who don’t know how to be menWant to but can never be them;Why we, unsexed, … Continue reading On Seeing a Chinese Student

For here, where hope is in the future, The present doesn’t haunt the day With the authenticity of a past In which every bullet-pocked wall Is preserved under bullet-proof glass In Berlin’s New Museum And the copper piping left exposed In London’s warehouse conversions And the wooden floor uncarpeted In New York’s loft apartments. For … Continue reading The Ghost of Authenticity

What words should I use to describe the heather That grew on St. David’s Head this summer? Magenta and mauve, maroon and violet, Fuchsia, indigo, lavender and lilac. And the green of his halo of fern and grass The yellow chaplet of ragwort and gorse. But, oh, the purples of St. David’s heather Will bloom … Continue reading St. David’s Head

Film finished, I raise the shutter by my seat Seven-and-a-half hours out of Hong Kong And peer out, blinking through the dazzling light Onto the sun-lit brilliance below. My eyes Adjust to a landscape formed a million years ago Or maybe only ten: vast fractals of cream Flowing between banks of dried-up streams That once … Continue reading Over Kazakhstan

This prospect that between my eyelids seeps Grabs at my dry thoughts, seizes my heartbeat, Enters that place where my soul is waiting Pulls me, like a hare through a noose in the woods, From knotted undergrowth to baize of grass Into its green heaven. And this is where I want to stay, today, tomorrow … Continue reading In Green Heaven