In the silver slips of morning,
fog draped across the land.
Shore definition is fleeting;
no glimpse of strand from strand.
Yet ducks and gulls fly by the nose,
quacks and screeches lend a hand
to we blind few who lean on sight,
and, hence, have lost the land.
contrail-crossed cool blue skies-
contrails catching hints of some pink-orange hue
amber sunlight sails in sideways,
so all surfaces either glow warmth,
or hunch in dank shadow
no foul winds blow through the cold air and cleansing rays, so the city is psychically scrubbed
bold buildings and muscular mansions age with a grace rarely seen in our kind, but known in the weathered silver-hairs who draw envious glances to their last breath
even the haunting neo-Gothic rooftops and grotesque gargoyles only pull the city from sweet to charming
at the seashore
breath syncs to lapping waves
sea teachings
in between
the inhale and exhale
lies stillness
a breath missed
life takes a moment’s pause
mind is void
slow the breath
drawing each instant out
slow your world
breath control
lets one drop the sails
in rough seas
cloud fallen
resting on muddy ground
and limp dry grass
lulled to sleep
staring out a window
into the fog
faint edges
reality is swallowed
by the fog
foggy morn
black branch scribbles
in the gray
what shapes become,
edges softened and deformed,
fog monsters
I asked, “Why are you gluing shards back into pottery?
He said, “Because fuck entropy, that’s why!”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him entropy was alive and well, given the energy he was devoting to the task.
But he was like that.
If you asked, “Why do you want to go riding in a hot-air balloon?”
He’d say, “‘Cause, fuck gravity, that’s why!”
He didn’t like that there was a set of rules that he wasn’t free to ignore —
regardless of whether he had any inclination not to comply, otherwise —
Maybe it wasn’t him.
Maybe, it’s the defining characteristic of being human:
being pissed off that there are things that aren’t at all under one’s control.
Lest you think you know rivers —
just water meandering mountain to sea;
there are strange rivers in this world.
There’s a river in Cambodia, the Tonlé Sap, that yearly switches its direction.
The Okavango can’t be bothered to get to a sea, an ocean, or even a lake. Instead, it becomes a desert swamp — obstinately creating a thing one might be forgiven for thinking impossible.
There are blood red rivers and licorice black rivers.
There are rivers that take a holiday, and rivers that only show up for the 100 year flood.
There are rivers that look like they’re barely moving that can sweep a man to his death.
Rivers with dolphins. Rivers with fish too fat to swim. Rivers with creatures, Mesozoic-ugly.
A river in India, the Sarasvati, up and disappeared.
There are rivers that aren’t even rivers, but metaphors for that which we think eternal but which vanishes each instant to be replaced by a look-alike.
There are strange rivers.
lights blinking
colors bold and bright
inner child wakes
shops shuttered
hunched against frigid wind
lone soul stands
inner sanctum
a fire sparks and glows
skin flushes
a tinseled tree:
tropical dissonance
in Kuala Lumpur
pine, wood smoke,
& a vinyl bike seat
holiday scents
winter forest
light of the rising sun
passes straight through
needle litter
carpeting the forest floor
copper clean
straight trunks
standing tall and tidy
lack character
spring brings blossoms
but how can the trees trust
spring sometimes lies
the gnarled tree
stunted and deformed
stands post-storm
It’s disconcerting, discovering one is a pimp.
Don’t get me wrong;
-I’ve never slapped a ho’
-I’ve never even called anyone a ho’
-To the best of my recollection,
I’ve not even thought anyone a ho’
I’m empathetic to honest work reviled.
But I’ve known the hard-handed hustle of a product that’s felt about in much different terms than it’s talked about — felt an act of masochism but called “working late.”
-a product the customer wishes — with every fiber of his being — he didn’t need.
-a product around which distractions grow like weeds through the cracks of a post-apocalyptic sidewalk.
-a product the customer wishes he could fast-forward to the end-bliss, escaping the awkward preliminaries.
-a skill that the customer tells himself he’s good at, knowing if he had skills, monetary transactions wouldn’t be necessary.
I’ve dealt virtue like it was a vice.
“Psst, Buddy, want some clarity?
“I won’t tell a soul you’re out here looking.”
I’ve pimped mindfulness and wellness — unrepentantly.
Water snakes writhe in a plastic pan of clear water.
Massively muscled fish lie eye-up, tail jutting over air, as torsos rest on a bed of shaved ice.
The stout fish lie next to a more flexible species that are nestled into each other, which — in turn — are next to eels that are tangled in each other.
A cat alternately stalks and sprints, testing the air with an upturned nose and the safety of approach with timid feet.
Eyes up, the cat considers a plot to leap-snatch a tiger prawn.
When, like manna from heaven, a small fish — so fresh that it’s capable of “plotting” its escape in muscle spasms more than with its ill-oxygenated fish brain — flips itself off the shallow tin tray onto the ground.
The cat, an instinct-guided missile, snatches the fish in its jaws and runs through a narrow gap in the wall to a favorable dining haunt.
