The hot tea cup

She handed me

Burns my fingers

But I don’t move it;

Let it sit that way

Almost enjoying

The consistent dose

Of pain

And its unsubtle reminder

Of all

There is left

To do.

I wanted to write

About the volcano for you–

Its burned out black caldera

And a purple lake, but

I was set upon by vendors

Hucksters and street merchants

And left in a burst

Of disgust and guilt

Before making any in depth account

So, too, the massage

Down at the Fun Club

In which she squirted warm oil

Out on me like mayonnaise

And asked before any real satisfaction

Was delivered if I wanted

“Something special…”

I squirmed and writhed

And escaped into the maelstrom

Of two stroke scooters

Driven by mad men and women

A Third World human onslaught;

Chickens in cages piled high

On trucks–didn’t want

To eat them ever again, after seeing

The looks on their fated faces

But I did, later that night

With rice, red curry and green tea

Left to face all my contradictions, hopes

And needs, in a city

That would not comply

With my expectations–

Do they ever, any more?

Or has it all become

A grand illusion

That we will someday

Get exactly

What we want…

Everyone’s waiting

For someone else

In the rock maze at Legian

Once a ritual–now, a game–

Build stone by stone

In a time

When red monkeys

terrorized the place

And Dutch galleons

Tied up horizons between clouds

Sails swollen

With conquest and commerce

Now–it’s a parade of pink

Sapphire and canary colored

Candy wrappers, smashed

Cigarette packs the shape

Of exclamations and footpaths aimed

Past burger-fattened Buddhas;

In gardens of uncertain fruit

The sparrow-size wasps

Prey upon–here

The birds call out

As if waiting, too

For a new type of worm

To emerge from the ooze;

The left over pulp of nights

In their pungent curbside piles

Which scavengers pick among

For clues, for salvation and for food…

The white caps are like pleas

 Releaseed from a sea

That long ago made its deal

With the sailors and statesmen

And now, it wants

Back out.

Driving on Bali

Is like being in a school

Of human fish;

Everyone’s got to move

At the exact same moment

Or it would result

In one giant pile up;

A world just inches apart

every move

needs to work

In synch

With the driver ahead

Or the one behind

And all of them

On all sides

And somehow,

It does.

That kid

Is screaming again

Out by the pool;

Loud, piercing shrieks

Day after day–

His parents

Can’t seem to stop him

He must think

He’s on a kiddie talk show

Where he’s got his chance

Before his peers

To explain how hard it is

To be an infant;

All the confusion

The waiting for food

The blurry shapes

That don’t make sense

Coming in–going out

Of view

There he goes again—

“Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Something about all of this

Uncensored venting

Makes me want

To be young again.

Turning to the end

Of former days

Where everything becomes

A beginning

Of what time is left;

What remains

Cycles of blue, the tides

And shells of old they leave–

Bits of white and pink

Cast like reconsidered moments

In the wake of waves

The innocent reminiscences

We might make

On summer days, as this

Half a life from origin

Grey bridges of the east;

Long Island Sound and bays–

The lagoon mud left

Horseshoe crabs stranded

Where we played…

I didn’t understand

Their stillness then

As well as I do now–

Half a life closer

Half a life away.

Monkeys in streets

Like beings returned by evolution

To life on all fours; a man

Chased one with a knobby stick

Protesting, as the jungle

Infringed on the town;

Nature come undone

The smokey hoardes, relentless vendors

Stacked like decks of cards

To be shuffled

And shuffled again

Until none of it makes sense

Never did and never would

In the survival of the fittest

A universe of apocalypse

Temples for benevolent gods

Who err and often miss

With their rancid, psychedelic flowers

Arranged by acolytes

In humble boxes–

The day it all came out

We descended the serpentine trail

Past dwellings ringed with rot

Beckoning us in and on and down

Towards pools of river water

Collected like cupped hand mirrors

From another era–Gaugin

Was not so lucky;

The painted rice fields and their ducks

In wooden shacks with oblong windows

Like prisons for feathered creatures;

The day it all came out

And there was nothing

Left to do but nod in agreement

With the concensus

And then blend

Right back, like brushstrokes

Into the crowd.

It is dark red

The light at the corner

Then green, and maybe

They are one and the same;

Green and red

Before the dull knife edge

Carves them away

To a vapor of exhaust

The dip of a blue paddle

In the aquamarine ocean

A baffling memory

Of all you’ve not forgotten

Or been able to resolve

As the Buddha smiles

With the weight of clouds, there

Above–they’re floating;

Reflections of something uncertain, sunk

In a lost rain puddle

A copper penny at the bottom

Of a pocket; a rupee as it turns out;

An errant news report

On some channel, barely audible

From a back room, about

How Wars are over–

Oh, how could they say that

In an unintelligible language…

How could they be

So wrong?

The soft swath

Of fading light

Against your afternoon skin;

No angle better aligned–

Not budding leaves to sun

Nor moonrise on Mojave sand

Those will never know

Such line–and you

Don’t understand I’m looking

At the landscape like this

But then, you do–

It’s a design

No one could make

And everyone owns;

Your face, an epitome

Of rainforest swallowed effigies

Carved for fertility

The ancient civilizations

In their mystery

Will not give up–

Neither will you, yours…

Held in oblivious repose

For another million years

To keep.

I’ll stay up

Until the words

Don’t make sense;

Just letters on a page

Like this

Without reference

Skies without a horizon

And no ending to them;

Blue before grey

That leads to sun someday

But today

Is not the one

A flute played

By disembodied lips

Like those Magritte painted

In blue and red, opening

To emptiness, light

Without bulb or source

Or globe…

I’ll stay up

Until these fall into place

Until the stars in the sky

Are explained–tomorrow

Next year, or in

A future century

When they’ll laugh

And have pity for us

And all the questions

We asked.