no birds, nor boar
not even a squirrel,
yet poop abounds
quiet forest
bare trees and thick carpet
decay time
mushrooms grow
in dense clusters on stumps
ringed in moss
earthen hues
far as an eye can see
but for moss green
so short the day
slantwise sunshine from
dawn to dusk
Taken on December 17, 2019 at Pilisszentlászló, Hungary.
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
