Bibi ka Maqbara; Aurangabad
What a thing it is to be trapped under a shadow. To be grand, but not the grandest. To be old, but not the oldest. To argue your distinction, but be too similar to avoid comparison to the marvel. Better to be a shoddy original than a second-rate colossus.
Feel the breeze upon your face.
Let it be all you know.
Don't ponder atmospheric lows.
Just feel the breeze upon your face,
and know:
There is a breeze.
(Though it may not be
what you think it is.)
You have a face.
(Though it may not be
what you think it is.)
Mongooses or Mongeese?
My Jamaican friend says,
"It's GEESE, mahn!"
But I can't tell whether that's
a Mon-guess [or a guess, mahn!]
I'd prefer a non-guess
on the mongoose's gees-i-ness,
lest I develop lexical queasiness.
It seems like it should be mongeese,
because "mongoose" is very
much like "goose."
[As my Jamaican friend would say,
"It's jus wit the 'Mon,' mahn!"]
On the other hand, a mongoose
don't look like no goose I've
ever seen.
bulging undulation of water, the rolling topsides of wave bumps catch a blazing white shimmer every square meter is in unending flux, shifting & rolling, growing & shrinking the wake of a ferry causes wave to roll into wave at odd angles, sending the ripples into a cross-hatched madness of bobbing water i watch for hours and the same sea never repeats
Remember the days
when you dreaded
a scratch at the back
of your throat --
harbinger of a cough
that you thought
would get you rushed off
to quarantine.
Or, at least, get a footlong swab
shoved through your nasal cavity.
Best case, it would put all eyes upon you,
as the public wondered whether
you were their Typhoid Mary --
(Except Mary was asymptomatic,
and - clearly - you were not.)
We all learned that the one cough
that one can never suppress
is the one that you desperately
wish to.
That cough won't be silenced.
What's this world?
It's energy playing a game,
a game whose goal is to be rid
of an intense burning sensation,
a burning sensation caused by
low-entropy energy sitting
around with nothing else to do
but burn brightly.
We, the wasters of energy, are
a soothing lotion to the universe,
expediting the making high-entropy,
soothing, tepid energy from
all those stars --
i.e. the universe's poison ivy.
Have you seen a tree bleed?
Yes. I've seen a tree bleed.
It bled bright red arterial blood...
or sap --
but not that sticky, very viscous
kind of sap that one knows from Maples.
This was the consistency of blood,
as well as its color.
It's disconcerting to see
the scratched bark of a tree
ooze a fluid so blood-like.
It makes one question
one's assumptions,
such as whether a tree feels:
a scratch or cut or the nail
pounded into its trunk to
hang something for one's
momentary convenience.
And when I see lover's initials
carved into a tree, I now can't help
but wonder how the lovers would feel
about the tree's initials being carved
into their flesh.
Trains are done running.
Shops are shuttered,
except in the red-light districts
where the neon circuits burn.
Food carts are set up
under streetlamps,
sending out plumes of
fried food & grilled meat aroma.
Plumes meant to catch drunken strollers
looking for an affordable bad idea.
Tonight, the city accommodates all,
finding a bad idea to
fit each price range.
Walt Whitman saw the world
with its ubiquitous beauty
laid bare.
He saw it in dock workers
& painted ladies &
swimmers & walkers &
Presidents & paupers.
He saw it in every hue &
sinew, and danced it into hymns.
license to speak
is
license to think.
the jester can say,
apparently in jest,
what he feels to be real,
and, if he does so with
sufficient linguistic dexterity
to not be murdered by the monarch,
he has fool's wisdom.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 