Sometimes to get to the past you have to travel, eyes shutting, can’t help it, earing ringing from tiredness and caffeine, and the road, the endless road at night, the roadlamps and the blinking lights, and the halogen lamps and the chugachugachuga of a worn out suspension down the potholed 5. The gas station drinks […]
MoreA East Side Cinderella sits waiting For a cab that will never come Holding a borrowed black umbrella A suitcase And a stolen gun A picture of a boy reading “to all tomorrow’s parties” Between finger and thumb A crackerjack ring, a toy car of tin And a promise of things That won’t ever be […]
MoreTents on Geary, Tents on O’Farrell. Tents on Union. Tents on Civic. No tents on California. No tents in the Marina. A few tents on the Embarcadero More on Willow. No tents on Russian Hill Where it is an eternal May Tents in the ‘Loin: All work, no pay. Tents in Mission, But none in […]
MoreCass Lake Minnesota winds along in a gentle bustling flow of summer life. Wood and bait is sold, pontoons and boats transported, campfires made and deer spring alongside the roads and sometimes into them. I went to use the laundry service at a casino truck stop, the woman serving behind the counter looking shocked and […]
MoreWho anointed Basho with curses of wandering, Who bade him lay down in fields all flowering. Who commanded him sleep while sakura blossomed, Who told him to wait winter out while spring it floundered? Who gave voice to the plover, the keening of the loon? Who invited him to stare into darkness only to find […]
MoreMarket shrine: man claps. “Protect these children!” he cries: Wooden prayers. Wind blows.
MoreI have never had much money, there was a period in my youth where I spent a little on clothes, but mostly clothes were free, or very cheap, I rarely had more than three changes of clothes – and still don’t, all my money went on guitars, drugs and travel. What I wore really didn’t […]
MoreCute is a harsh mistress who demands a heavy price from her followers. The word cute is amusingly close in sound to the word for scary, I wander around Japan Town snorting with laughter as legions of devotees pick up a small gudetama egg charm and shout KO-WHY! KOwai…one less i, an ‘o’ not a […]
MoreSummer in Kyoto, the heat sinks over the day early. Not the bleaching heat of the California desert, nor the hot and bothered blustery seaside heat of the Oregon coast, but a heavy, swamping, wet, earthy, fragrant verdant heat. Mosquitos everywhere, the Japanese call them Ka (sounds like the word car) , the short sharp […]
MoreIt has been just another diamond day, just another blade of grass spent wandering round Japantown with the Boy, a languid trip to a bookshop (the truly lovely Forest Books at 1748 Buchanan – see my post Zen and the artful beauty of the independent bookstore) to buy a copy of Basho, shopping for daikon […]
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