Reginald Postman becomes Regular Mailman

"And it would be like saying that to anyone. Some words carry the same import wherever they are sent—regular mail or special delivery—yet other words are so generic that the way they're sent defines their meaning. Which are which? Is it really possible to tell?

"People are just complex words: layers of meaning, and the routes and paths they travel, accumulate and gather in the corners of dance halls, growing into contorted brain-like dust bunnies, shifting nervously toward their purpose. Of course, that purpose is only discovered when it is reached, no sentence ever complete 'til it is punctuated, and then only as punctuation ever is, a marking of rhythm and really a pause in the infinite. Do people really know where the period goes until there is one to be marked?" he wondered out loud.

A Song for Hiroshima, 2004

I didn't want to leave you,
But we knew it had to be;
That the time had come for me to go
To make my life complete.

We write on the wall to show we've been
Down here all the while,
Then the morning comes
And we put it all away.

Let's raise a glass
To all the plastic
People who come and go;
Let's shine our shoes
And walk away,
For miles until we're home.

I ran my hand along the rail,
Weathered, cracked, and smooth;
I chose my words carefully,
Knowing that I would
Not be here the next night,
Or hundreds after that,
That I had to leave
That one last time
Into the blinding light.

Let's all choke back
Those last good-byes,
And head off on our way,
Let's close our eyes
And stagger out
Into the final day.

I find myself sitting here on the other side
Of the big ball we call home
There’s not a day that goes by
Without dreaming of what is gone.
There’ll come a time, when I’ll be back,
Singing the same old song;
'Til that day arrives,
I sit here all alone

Breath

The music of song has eroded with the years;
the music of the spheres deafening now.
Language of the world showing itself from beneath
the film of artifice, spread
lightly,
blanketing
the sound life makes
as her perspective scrapes leaves
cleans away days,
plays at renewal,
coughs up past reliances,
whets teeth with words—
sheer wish, steep face drop—
ends puddling intransitive verbs
in the corners of well-trained thoughts.

Tokyo—May 22, 2008

Tokyo remains. The weight of it sustains and settles the city deeper into history. The randomness of it all, the anonymity, allows us never to learn anything about it. Standards are high, and evenly spread; relative terms like good, fine, fast, and clean, bear little weight when describing things to do or to eat, for example, because what those conditions mean to us depends on what we need now—right now. Planning becomes self-defeating when everything we need remains ubiquitous and plentiful.

Life shatters entropically, though. Transportation develops into a life giving and affirming force, because it is something to learn. Survival remains simple; and the city's inertia defies failure.

The laziness of the recumbent goddess lies spread arrogant on the plains and swampland. Quietly asserting her authority she breeds prolifically and consumes voraciously. She maintains a blue blanket of smoke that insulates her, and lives immune to its smothering. Ungrateful and unwelcome supplicants suffocate.