#2503 -- this town is too old for me

 

2503

7.311

9.xi.26

this town is too old for me

Macao reprise

 

blown bubble of concrete

 

trip hazard city

 

they run a stream through the garden for a breeze

 

past shade

climbing where the hot air rises

no veranda but a cage

 

there’s a street of baby formular pharmacies

beauty and fitness reign

 

that’s money for you

 

sometimes aircon will leak through a crack –

the weather of a lost world

 

a building may stand to rot

 

only the blue collar workers can afford to smoke

it’s so they keep the sun at bay

 

life’s short, so sweet

 

Tour #77 stumbles through the Lisbon cobbling

each has a badge to say

 

there are too many words

they are too familiar

 

the town has torn itself down again

 

people with phones are about to collide

 

streets go where they will

 

have to make my own souvenirs here

 

I’m just one of the ancient sages  

 

past my use-by now

#2502 -- be kind to a self

 

2502

7.310

8.xi.26

be kind to a self

 

any will do

and sometimes they’re all among us

pinch and there’ll be skin

 

is there anything on my face?

 

ghost in the mirror

 

smoke – comes in the shape of a body

 

one and another and not

even eyeless insensate

 

be a slef yourself

why not?

 

an kindly so

take your time

it will come to you

 

some say ‘give it away’

they’re just dreaming

   to be a tree

 or wing it

 

be kind to a self

you have one you know

perhaps several, maybe many

best yet next

just try

 

it’s as if we were here all along

 

#2501 -- woke with the blue

 

2501

7.309

7.xi.26

woke with the blue

 

old urge

in a head and elswhere

 

stepped out abroad

if there’s a world

 

they were sweeping the leaves of a morning

 

I would look up

 

find myself in a garden

 

and until last of light

 

walking away and towards

 

have known that spark

 

lost myself among the stars

#2500 -- in the belly

 

2500

7.308

6.xi.26

in the belly

 

I am the same as the mountain

I am as with the tree

I am as gone as any cloud

as empty as the air we breathe

 

that’s to be nothing at all

 

fix an eye on this

 

we are all victims of  the unknown

 

I am just as tall as the tale I can tell

it’s a fish this big that caught me

it’s the sea that threw me back

 

#2499 -- there is an art

2499

7.307

5.xi.26

there is an art

 

there is an art of seeing through

… people, things, a proposition

 

there are walls you must imagine

            or else

 

there is a street not there, never was

 

this is the way to unsay

 

these are the steps never taken

 

names with no place now

            empty air

 

the glance with least suspicion

       a vacancy of eyes

 

I have to persuade myself

   that I’m here

 

this is the way of the wish 

#2498 -- dusk, urgent

 

2498

7.306

4.xi.26

dusk, urgent

 

the trimming of hedges

and the sweeping of leaves

the tending of first shoots

 

scarecrows of the field come to life

ghosts of old bicycles pass

 

my cloud in the shape of a cloud

 

under the street run of since rain

 

smoke telling autumn

 

an open window and these wings

 

little fire and the sun’s last

 

the scratching down of such lines

 

little snub nosed van pulls in

 

from the least world one looks out

to chart the change of light

#2497 -- Arashiyama

 

2497

7.305

3.xi.26

Arashiyama

 

what if the mountain were made of a storm?

 

leaves fled the tree

 

hear the river

come down to it

along beside

 

up trudge

at times be lit

 

there are its narrow streets

walls mud

 

what if a roof were told of cloud?

 

if a tree were all days before?

 

what if the day blew off?

 

night crouched just here

hid from the stars

 

what if the grass grew over the clock?

 

time is a picture of the clock run dry

 

old knowledge is the place now gone

 

lamps yet to show our faith that the sun

 

what if the dark were a dream

close your eyes!

 

ask!

 

what if the storm were a mountain?

as often at sea we are

 

the singing of children – none so wise

a first sutra

 

unfold the hours just here

so scribe

 

what if the moment passed?