Rains have come & gone.
Neon red shape-shifts
across the puddles,
and sparkles on glistening
roadways.
People converge
on those rain slick streets,
expecting to be fed.
Vendors work crinkling tarps,
trying to remove them without
sloshing standing water --
working with controlled haste.
Fires are lit and dialed in.
Soon plumes of aroma
from street food delicacies
will stretch down the street:
Silently calling & bewitching.
What a moment!
When you realize
that your lips had been more numb
than from Szechwan peppercorns,
and that numbness
has slid into paralysis.
You are dying:
death by Fugu --
poison blowfish.
Your heart will stop.
You will keel over,
falling from your stool
at the sushi counter.
A booth-dweller,
seeing you bounce off
an adjacent patron,
wonders why you don't
bring your arms up to catch yourself,
but - of course - they're dangling
uselessly,
and so you land face first.
The booth-dweller cringes.
There's nothing to be done for you.
You had the nerve
to try the Fugu!
But, while Fugu life is exhilarating;
Fugu death is inglorious.
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and none else, The day what belongs to the day -- at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
So many cultures
make their dead
cross a river.
The Greeks' Styx.
The Hindus' Vaitarna.
The Norse Gjȍll.
The Gnostic's Hiṭpon.
The Japanese Sanzu-no-Kawa.
The Mesopotamians' Hubur.
Taoists cross Naihe Bridge --
over what (I'm not sure,
but) is probably a river.
No rest for the dead?
It seems kind of rude.
Bohemians gathered around the absinthe bottles, the light hitting the bottles shone a radioactive shade of green. That green light threw blotches against walls & floors & people & anything else there was to illuminate. The more they drank, the less green the mottling -- not because the empty glass was clear, & didn't refract, or spray green, but because the splotches turned every color -- every color there is -- and the colors danced around the increasingly amorphous surfaces. Until, at last, everyone was asleep, and visions of Green Fairies danced in their dreams.
Eight arms
seeking eight
different states
of being.
Winding sinuously
toward eight
different ends.
Wrapping opposing
limbs around
antipodal objectives,
it risks tearing
itself in twain…
but knows better.
With lazy mazy motion the fish slips through its watery world. With no apparent purpose but to trace out a route through dreamland.
Orange orbs cut with fearful faces: Burning brightly - daily & nightly - As menacing medicine for the cringe-impaired, The ones who never get scared -- unless a banal ball, blazing & brainless, (and in a manner all but painless) replaced the head of their town's barber.
I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
One foot in the river. One foot on the shore. Both feet sunk in the mud. The fisherman casts his net with perfect flick and spin, muck extruding between toes. The sling is the one quick part of the movement: quick, but unrushed. The net is hauled back, slowly and methodically, pressing out excess water while offering no escape route. How many casts per day? As many as are necessary. There are other fishers, out on languidly rocking boats, casting out in the river. And in rivers everywhere: in the Mekong, the Amazon, the Euphrates, and the Mississippi Delta. Everywhere, they are casting.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 