Only the curve of the roof-line 
betrays the unveiling 
knot of figures, 

marks indelibly these five Chinese. 
Anonymous in dark coats 
bundled against the oblique rain 

that falls from the mottled 
red of a raw sky, 
silhouettes cross a court 

blurred of detail, as if the rain 
had dissolved everything that lacked 
permanences of form. 

They walk with backs 
all turned in resignation, 
tired from carrying 

the red weight of the sky. 

 

—Poem originally published in Houston Poetry Fest Anthology 1990; appears here with author’s permission.

 

A Chinese Court by David Chorlton

Painting copyrighted © by the artist. All rights reserved.
Appears here with his permission.

Image above is a photograph (© 2022) by Gary S. Rosin of the framed, matted painting, with antireflective glass (frame not shown). The painting is part of Rosin’s personal collection. Photograph appears here with his permission.

David Chorlton

is a poet, painter, and photographer who was born in Austria but grew up in Manchester, close to rain and the northern English industrial zone. In his early 20s he returned to Vienna, from which he enjoyed many trips around Europe to enjoy and paint its landscapes and towns.

In 1978, he moved from Vienna, Austria with his wife to Phoenix, Arizona, where his fascination with the desert and wildlife grew, along with his interest in writing poetry. His poems often reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His poetry and paintings have appeared in more than 200 publications online and in print. He likes to see his poems in unexpected places, and one of them is interred, with desert legume seeds from Boyce Thompson Arboretum (Superior, Arizona), in the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway.

Chorlton is the author of more than a dozen books and chapbooks, most recently a collection of his watercolors and poems, The Inner Mountain (Cholla Needles Press, 2022); a long poem, Speech Scroll (Cholla Needles Press, 2020); Reading T. S. Eliot to a Bird (Hoot ’n Waddle, 2018); and Bird on a Wire (Presa Press, 2017). The Bitter Oleander Press published in 2017 his translation of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant, Shatter the Bell in My Ear. His books, A Field Guide to Fire (2015), Selected Poems (2014), and The Devil’s Sonata (2012) were published by FutureCycle Press.

As much as he loves Arizona and the Southwest, he has strong memories of Vienna, and that city is the setting for his one work of fiction: The Taste of Fog (Rain Mountain Press, 2011).

Aside from writing and painting, Chorlton enjoys watching birds and editing the quarterly publication of his local Audubon Society chapter. He often reads a poem for Maricopa Audubon meetings, and one of his poems appears in the British Museum’s anthology, Birds.

Artist’s website: http://www.davidchorlton.mysite.com/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Five poems and a painting by David Chorlton in Moonday Poetry (2021)

⚡ Indecision and three other poems in Softblow

⚡ The Crossing and In Line, two paintings in Poppy Road Review (9 March 2014)

⚡ Ahwatukee poet David Chorlton writes with an eye for nature by R. Dockum in Ahwatukee Foothills News (11 September 2018)

Gary S. Rosin’s

poetry and haiga have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various literary and poetry magazines such as Concho River Review, Eastern Structures, Failed Haiku, Harbinger Asylum, KYSO Flash, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Poetry24, The Legal Studies Forum, The Lift, The Wild Word, and Visions International; as well as in several anthologies, including contemporary haibun (Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022), Faery Footprints (Fae Corp Publishing), Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga (Dos Gatos Press), Texas Poetry Calendar (Kallisto Gaia Press), Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston (Mutabilis Press), and elsewhere.

His poem “Viewing the Dead” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Two of his poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008) (offprint).

Selections of Gary’s poetry and photography can be found at his website, 4P Creations: http://4pcreations.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Out of the Haze, collaborative haiga with photograph by George Digalakis and poem by Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 8, June 2021); nominated for, and selected for publication in, Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022)

⚡ Featured Poet: Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 7, March 2021)

⚡ Crossing Kansas in The Wild Word (7 February 2020); includes audio of Rosin reading his poem

⚡ Two Readings: “Apparition” and “Black Dogs” by Gary S. Rosin for Texas Poetry Calendar 2015 at the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas (20 September 2014); see also Black Dogs here in MacQ (Issue 12, March 2022).