author : DJ Huppatz
upturned lotus leaf. competing crickets chirp & scratch. vibrating tones become background noise (pull it forward). sweet incense smells: to give thanks to bring luck to continue to bring forth the past & summon the future to the orange present-tip dropping gray & crumbling into ash. pinpricks in the curved blanket above our heads. when green becomes turquoise becomes crimson on a leaf’s underside. generation. regeneration. the river.
o survive among the red hibiscus one needs silvereye consciousness passivity & vibration sense. coconut palm trunks marked with time crack & warp abandoning capsules of watery milk. clicking bamboo blinds against the balcony. cauliflower clouds over the ocean.
there are potted plants: crimson frangipanis & palms for the tourists. blinded am i one unrepentant sun. the way foreign capital creates holes then penetrates them. you are sitting patiently crosslegged beneath the banyan tree carving a log’s knots & branches into spirits. clumsy orangetiled roof. in a painted scene from the mahabharata a river separates the world of the living from the world of the dead.
it is written on the back of a postcard: you are waving as you pass alone rowing on glassy water towards the mountains crinkled silhouettes in the misty distance growing tiny under blossoming clouds. fruit hidden in branches’ angles. sculpting sculpting how will you sing me? am i the oil slick collecting at the mouth of the river?
an incantation from unseen throats thickens the atmosphere before trailing into a quivering vibrato. you help people onto the bus with no doors. transformation. into smoke. weaving bamboo weaving bamboo mosscovered & matted with leaves waiting horizontal for the sky to crack. how will you write me? am i pouring concrete into your enveloping heat?
(SULFUR, No. 44, June 1999 and Overland, No. 158, Autumn 2000)
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