of the station dog
doing penance for the last
three hundred years under
the tree of arrivals and departures
the dog opens his right eye
just long enough to look at and see
whether you’re a man or a demigod
or the eight armed railway timetable come
to stroke him on the head
with a healing hand
and to take him to heaven
the dog decides
the day is not yet.
and this the hourwhen I can call this city my own;when I like nothing betterthan to lie down here, at the exact centreof this traffic island(or trisland as I call it for short,and also to suggesta triangular island with rounded corners)that doubles as a parking loton working days,a corral for more than fifty cars,when it’s…
yesterdaywith a piece of chalkon the back of the twenty foottortoisesmudges under the bare feetand gets fainter all the time asthe children run.
Yesthats what it is.
the dividing lineif it existsis very thinat jejuriand every other stoneis god or his cousinthere is no cropother than godand god is harvested herearound the yearand round the clockout of the bad earthand the hard rockthat giant hunk of rockthe size of a bedroomis khandoba’s wife turned to stonethe crack that runs right acrossis the…
One by one the gods come to light.Amused bronze. Smiling stone. Unsurprised.For a moment the length of a matchstickgesture after gesture revives and dies.Stance after lost stance is foundand lost again.Who was that, you ask.The eight-arm goddess, the priest replies.A sceptic match coughs.You can count.But she has eighteen, you protest.All the same she is still…
It hinges around itself.It has no future.It is pinned down to no past.It’s a pun on the present.Its a little yellow butterfly.It has taken these wretched hillsunder its wings.Just a pinch of yellow,it opens before it closesand it closes before it owhere is it?
