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.
bars at your back,
and their stripes
permanently etched
into one's field of vision.
so much so,
that you feel they're
a ubiquitous feature
of the world beyond.
the cage should be a hated place,
but one can grow to love the cage.
the cage is shelter.
the cage is delivery address
for food & water disbursements.
the cage forms rollbars --
like on a dune buggy --
protection in the event
of a sudden & unexpected crash.
the cage offers one a range --
narrow as it might be --
of distances at which one's captor
may be kept,
and, as long as the cage is shut,
that gives one a delightful
illusion of control.
what a hated place a cage should be,
and yet how conflicted are the captives?
The herd is on the march.
They lumber with slow
determination.
The young achieve
playful swagger,
but aren't allowed
too wide of the line.
I wonder whether they're
going someplace good?
Wandering through a new city,
I come upon a bridge:
its rails loaded with locks.
They call them "love locks."
It gets me wondering how many locks
long outlived the love they memorialized?
How many were lust locks --
linked to the bridge before
the couple really knew each other's
vexing peccadillos?
How many were like ill-advised back tattoos,
a lover's name - someone one met in Vegas -
and whose name one wouldn't
otherwise remember,
were it not inked across one's spine
in a 120-point flame-festooned font?
the big, brass bell hasn't rung in years the stiffest storm winds can't budge it it stands with clamorous potential -- unrung
A mongoose crosses the road. My mind makes it Rikki Tikki Tavi. Is there a cobra in the tall grass? Is this a heroic mongoose? The mongoose disappears from sight, and I'm left with no answers.
Not by hearing or listening,
but by feeling the rhythm,
body / mind resonating to it,
being effortlessly attuned to it:
That is how the music transports one --
how it changes one's mind.
The city sees like Santa Claus.
Every misdeed is captured.
Every lost soul is whereabouts known --
known but not shared.
The city sees all,
but it does keep secrets...
sometimes.
the !n(tro)verted yogi 