Day Five
Day Five
refuge
a day’s fast on roof tiles
among the street’s calls
it was a fitful sleep brought me
ineffably distant hills
the pavement smoking
call dusk
mists wreathe
in mountainous day
edges dull green
damp in the courtyard below
watch birds diving
out of rooftops rising
deserted
all red flags now
fresh at the breezes
how tawdry old prayers
limp swaying in clouds
sign the decaying order
by the window opposite
man of my age sits smoking
child in the window too
bobbing agitated as if full of questions
behind – a wife cooking
all the one room
refuge in bed
for the loose bowelled voyeur
smoke manages its way to clouds
as if there were no distance at all
hear rain on a tin roof
telling me home
beggars of
elbow pinchers
grubbing
great unwashed
ingenious folk
hard to see how they do it
where the limbs and the timber attach
to what end
meld with the pilgrims
who will say they are not?
I place a biscuit in the beggar’s bowl
discover the child
only seemed to be hungry
the busking chant
which makes pilgrim mendicant
or is it the other way around?
the way won’t be told
nor will names be named
so why not sit down in the road
take what comes?
compassion is all we humans require
it has to be bodied, a home
a traveller’s tale
meet Constipated Woman, meet Mr Squirt –
a third world travelling Jack Sprat and wife
toyed with the idea of a swap
but it’s best in the end to own your own ailments
dizzy days
on the tiles
sun struck
wind driven
weary we take the Jokhang circuit
old
see the black faced sheep
bleat for high pasture
take off the pressure and nothing runs right
even this Rolls Royce
of cheap Chinese fountain pens –
this hero
behaves erratically
now it’s come to the great wall
I have in mind
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