PONDICHERRY
Chess pieces resting upon the jade mantle piece
see sampans move quietly
thru warm night,
rich bundles of bougainvillaea crowd market squares
where deck chairs extend
to the Persian Gulf.
Leisured gentlemen
finger walking canes,
hold eyelids thick as goblets,
sharp tridents beside private lairs.
Skin in puffy whiteness bulges under
lamp's white glare, becomes copra gathered
miles from Pondicherry, sesame
oil in rotting casks.
And the Indian heat, closing with certitude
akin to the trance of the snake charmer,
holds his flute poised with the Bengali lancer
riding a slow crop over the prostrate polo ball.
[42]
THE CLEARING THAT IS THE TREES
"They know they are going to the filth of numbers and laws,
to the games anyone can play, and the work without fruit."
Lorca
I want to go walking in troubled marshes
where cold gray coves leave off the mind
and the scent of rushes twist the wind
as fall covers dungeons of angry sparrows.
I want to go quickly to troubled marshes,
hear the squeak of brackish waters
over crocks of sponge bubbles crabbing
their surface.
I desire stands of dead brush
to wave in grave solemnity,
whimpering little houses
off forest glades to flicker
out lamps with
large dogs poised on verandahs
like stone gargoyles.
I want to handle anguish as if
it were an interesting bauble
plucked from the shallows,
a curious snail with ritual markings
or a mauve shellfish
caught in swift eddies
as the tide goes out.
I want to examine canker introspection
as a peevish child might
faint tracings on an old stone
lodged in the most forgotten
corner of a graveyard;
sample its wonders
fingering the many indentations
with more than slight awe
or hear the crashing of waves
far off from the physical restraint
of the marsh or this forgotten
burial plot so near an angry sea.
Then, awaken as if from a dream,
rub troubled memories from my eyes
but never the brain
for on winter nights just before
retiring as the wind stirs packets
of snow or the moon is chased
by skeletal hounds along Gretal trees,
there will come the realization
another day is thru
with another night to pilot away
fresh brush & rubble
before emerging, at night's end,
from the clearing that is
the trees.
[43]
HUMBOLDT'S CURRENT
Cresta roja wine
--colour of
arterial blood,
vena cava of
the alcoholic soul.
And seeing bottles bob
in mainstreams of men's blood
to pistol whip their reddened eyes,
Humboldt's current becomes a rash of drinking,
a map that charts more bloody lies.
The thirst that passeth
all human understanding,
(an alternate Biblical rendering)
certainly body heat surpasses
Vulcan's bellows
adding new faces to Delirium Tremens.
[44]