The water churns --
no smooth laminar flow.
Each molecule fights its way
down the mountain.
Sloshing up into evaporation, or
dragged, swirling, across
the rocky bottom.
This is no mighty, muddy river
in a gentle glide.
It's pretty chaos;
just the kind I'm used to.
The mountain feels like it flows as much as the river that sits beside (or more so -- i.e. more smoothly.) The contours of a half-buried fist -- rounded knuckles and fingerbones -- sit in the mountainside, as if jutting out of sand, but soft & green. It looks like the whole hand could lift out of that mountainous topography, and flick away the buildings on the bank, or pluck canoes out of the river. (But now the water is too low and chaotic for any craft to pass.) So, maybe the ancient mountain monster will just put up its dukes to the world, shaking that great, green, soft fist.
A fire flares
up Mosque Road.
Orange flames burn brightly
beyond the ovals lit by
feeble streetlamps.
Some fat 's hit the fire,
and the smoke 's
rising high.
The throngs have arrived --
hungry & huddled,
with tiny plates of
jiggly cubed meat.
The pious --
angry stomachs,
vibrating to sundown
&
Impious Instagrammers
(or, at least, substantially less pious,)
having their eighth tiny meal
of the day
(some spit into a bucket, Hollywood-style.)
All gathered to break bread --
except there is no bread
(save the occasional roomali roti)
So, instead, they bite basa or mutton
or chicken or camel or prawns --
all smoky
all devoured.
This machine can flow,
moving over, around,
& through.
Skin conforms to the contours
of musculature.
Muscle binds to bone,
muscle that thickens
and lengthens and ripples
and pulses.
Bones that flex and recoil.
But that machine can flow --
over, around, and through.
It can cause air to pop
and water to slosh
and earth to tremor.
It crawls through liquid,
slices through gases,
and slams the solids,
but can move over, around,
and through.
Stand on a hill and howl.
Don't wait for the perfect moon.
Gather your thoughts,
& wash the:
cliches,
doublespeak,
technocratic jargon, and
weasel words
out of mind & mouth.
(Those shitty words, phrases,
and qualifiers are heavy,
and will weigh down
your message &
keep it from sailing.)
Then, belt it out.
Let your words fly.
Express your authentic self.
Huff & Puff,
and let the bricks fall
where they may.
What passes through me?
I can't say.
But I feel it move,
causing bone reverberation
of a subtle kind.
I feel it deep within,
but it fades quickly.
I'm moved, but to what,
I can't say.
All I know is that something
has passed through me,
and made me feel like a ghost.
Each of us lives a life improbable, the gift of an ancestor who struggled through some terror which killed others. We each have an iron impulse to maintain a cracking grip on life, but some won't ever be pried away, growing like the stunted pine that juts from the mountainside: gnarled but indestructible. Live improbably with your life improbable.
I I remember Spring: tight and tender buds, soon to blossom clouds -- low & swollen, & rain scent in the air
II I remember Summers: the season of freedom... and mosquitoes, but, also, fireflies exploration & calamine lotion
III I remember the Fall: harvest time Grain chaff in the air axle grease on the wind Canadian geese Honk-Honk-Honk-ing in wedge formation
IV
I remember winters:
snow days
snow drifts
the feel of the first morning
of the season in which
one woke up to a blanketing snow,
having gone to bed with
pathetic matted grass
It's dark. But the neon burns, and bright signs color the night, and that color shines against wet surfaces. The color seems to float, and when I walk past it shifts, morphs, and flows, becoming alive. And it -- those bright primary colors -- might just be creeping towards me like a killer kindergarten clown. I turn to see the colors swirling, swirling but not advancing. I stare into the color paisleys as they dance yin-yang do-si-do's around the puddle. I'm entranced & soothed, and no longer fear the colors will attack, turning me vibrant.
I glimpsed your ghost,
but for a moment
in the middle of the night
just as I opened my eyes.
You stood stock still --
right there at the foot of my bed.
I couldn't make out your expression
in the short time before you faded.
In the morning, I learned
that you died that night.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 