never written

There are poems
that are never written,
that simply move across
the mind
like skywriting
on a still day;
slowly the first word
drifts west,
the last letters dissolve
on the tongue,
and what is left
is the pure blue
of insight, without cloud
or comfort.
 - Linda Pastan
yama bato  Read more…

*

Here is a book of tongues.
Take it. (Dark leaves invade the air.)
Beware! I now know a language so beautiful and lethal
My mouth bleeds when I speak it.
 - Gwendolyn MacEwen  Read more…

Glock's Perfection

Jack walked up to Sister's II - All Day Breakfast & Bakery in Kampot, Cambodia, a sleepy old French port town.

American, slim, late 50's, chiseled face, crooked front teeth, in a Marine style camouflage cap with fake gold insignia, stained camouflage pants, dusty rubber and canvas military boots and a worn black t-shirt with a picture of a Glock automatic and ammo clip featuring a stenciled bullseye target and words, Glock.Perfection.

He stood in front of a display case. Baked goodies. Cinnamon rolls, brownies, banana cake, carrot cake, biscotti, chocolate fudge pie, chocolate chip cookies and apple pie.

One sister came out.

"Good morning how are you,"

Jack mumbled, "Does the apple pie have raisins in it?"

"No," she said.

"Let me have one slice."

"For here or take away?"

"Take away."

She put the pie on the glass counter, sliced a piece and put it in a styrofoam box. She slid the box into a plastic bag. She offered it to him.

He showed her a $10 bill.

"Oh, don't you have small money?" she said.

"That's a you problem, not a my problem."

She left to find change.

Jack turned to a stranger throwing bread crumbs to sparrows, "You'd think by now she'd have a float in the morning."

"Life gives you the test first and the lessons later," said the stranger.

"Yeah," Jack said, "they need more education and experience."

Two sparrows pecked at curbside crumbs.

The sister returned, handed him change and said, "I hope you enjoy the pie. It's fresh this morning."

An experienced Vietnamese woman collecting plastic and cardboard wearing a bamboo conical hat protecting her from intense sun pushed her daily savage salvage wagon past Sister's.

Jack took the bag, curled a lip in gratitude and walked in a different direction.

 

Blindness

Curious beginnings determined her artistic sense of form, coloring stories of her eternal village, the other world. Cutting, planting, harvesting, complete slow rhythm of life. Her skill shined with every new expression as her heart sings.

Her simple direct feeling is all sensation.

Art enables her this beauty. She describes what she draws. Her words fly through forests with resplendent peacocks, birds of paradise.

A blind conversation developed a through line. Turn a blind eye.

Blindness listened. Blindness heard muted laughter before intuition gestured pink floating word worlds.

Laughter danced with exhaled attachment.

So. Blindness danced on through late yellow faltering light penetrating bamboo leaves spreading themselves over banana baskets impaled on swinging posts.

A bike bell rang. A young girl sat quiet watching the V girl do her toenails. Cutting, and trimming, lemon/lime soak, cuticles, translucent before applying a silver hued glossy glean. Nail by nail.

Blindness solved the mystery of sight crying tears of silence. A van labeled UNIVERSE filled with blank faced white Europeans trapped behind glass held their rampant desires and expectations on laps. Fidgeting uncomfortable languages floated into inner ears. Assaulting their long painful strides navigating yesterday’s regrets tomorrow’s fear and today’s dead lines.

Blindness practiced Tai-chi with precision.

Blindness exchanged blue ink for a dark shade of green. A handheld hair dryer waved hot air over a shampooed head. Mirrors whispered empty secrets.

Elements of silence said farewell. A series of eyes investigated decompression while swallowing fresh yogurt with peach slices near afternoon’s languishing empty promises intent on discovering new, make it new day by day. Explanations have to end somewhere.

In her village, the other world, the one she never left, Blindness threaded new beginnings on her loom waiting for pressure and tightness between notes feeling sunlight dress saliva beads blending a weave, texture and design saying hello Beauty.

Ice please

In another incarnation they were naked in a meadow. I am blind. He is deaf. Millions have Usher syndrome.

We hold hands. Skin is our unified quantum field theory of tactile language. Beyond feeble illiterate words. Fate introduced us at an NGO charity ball, Save The Children Now & Forever.

Deaf is a famous concert pianist. Blind is an Angkor Wat explorer. She scaled 88 keys seeking tonal quality, perfect pitch and frequency. He explored her twin peaks, smooth geography, labyrinths, valleys, hall of dancers and thick topographical jungle foliage.

They had a tacit agreement to be gentle and kind together. Peel my skin like sweet aromatic fruit, she whispered. I am your skin mistress. One must sacrifice the peel to enjoy the fruit. Play my flute, he moaned.

*** 

Remember this, Leo said to Ice Girl in Banlung. In China we learn the less we do the fewer mistakes we make. The fewer mistakes we make the less we are criticized. I remain safe and happy. It’s called THE SYSTEM. Brainwashed. You see this in all Asian educational systems.

Students shuffle in, remove their brains, soak them in a cleaning solution, which is not the solution for fifty tedious minutes and replace said gray matter at the end of class. It’s endemic. Command and control procedures. Big Brother is watching you. Save face. The fear of public humiliation is greater than the fear of death. Karma is the universal law.

Ice Girl in Banlung

Flower's Hands

“What do you recall during the one-hour full body massage with blind Flower at Seeing Hands?”

”Her hands were all. Her hands were water, air, earth and fire. Soft gentle sensations. Learning, sensing, feeling her physical sense. Engaging her senses. Touch was her essence. She knew all the pressure points.”

“Soft, medium or hard," Flower asked.

During her therapeutic touch and go he discovered ideas and structure and form and literary vulgarity. He slowed down inside the labyrinth.

A writer is a dwarf, invisible and must survive.

Flower whispered, “I don’t like sleeping alone. It’s boring.”

It’s easy to remember loving Flower’s soft, deep real tactile sensations. She knew how to please a stranger’s skin. She lived in the middle way. Her middle way was breathing, and awareness. Her middle way was acceptance and loving kindness. Wisdom, patience and gratitude. Non-attachment.

“Eat the world with your blind eyes,” she said.

“Yes my Flower, yes.”

“Dead or blind, there’s no difference," Flower said. “People who cause you difficulties, you should think of them as very valuable teachers because they provide you with the opportunity to develop patience.”