Coming to Grips with White Knuckles Part 5

Your bamboo pole knows every ploy but is a slender craft ill-equipped to sparring blows from every quarter, the undergrowth necessitates.

The closeness of the clammy night heaved about like so much rotting fruit will draw the ants . . . devouring like that abundance of cold, yellow eyes-- the firefly swarms that mock your heavy steel machete arm.

Across the drift of darkness and the insect life you bat in swarms, the ultimate danger is not in the cayman giant or his reptilian cousin named of copper wire, the Anaconda; or even mindless holes, thick black ooze that throttles a victim . . . but the two legged form coming, searching . . . a spectre on hind quarters with a bolo knife stepping free of that beaded circle, the inner camp.

PONDICHERRY

Chess pieces resting upon the jade mantle piece see sampans move quietly thru warm night, rich bundles of bougainvillaea crowd market squares where deck chairs extend to the Persian Gulf.

Leisured gentlemen finger walking canes, hold eyelids thick as goblets, sharp tridents beside private lairs.

Skin in puffy whiteness bulges under lamp's white glare, becomes copra gathered miles from Pondicherry, sesame oil in rotting casks.

And the Indian heat, closing with cert.i.tude akin to the trance of the snake charmer, holds his flute poised with the Bengali lancer riding a slow crop over the prostrate polo ball.

THE CLEARING THAT IS THE TREES

"They know they are going to the filth of numbers and laws, to the games anyone can play, and the work without fruit."

Lorca

I want to go walking in troubled marshes where cold gray coves leave off the mind and the scent of rushes twist the wind as fall covers dungeons of angry sparrows.

I want to go quickly to troubled marshes, hear the squeak of brackish waters over crocks of sponge bubbles crabbing their surface.

I desire stands of dead brush to wave in grave solemnity, whimpering little houses off forest glades to flicker out lamps with large dogs poised on verandahs like stone gargoyles.

I want to handle anguish as if it were an interesting bauble plucked from the shallows, a curious snail with ritual markings or a mauve sh.e.l.lfish caught in swift eddies as the tide goes out.

I want to examine canker introspection as a peevish child might faint tracings on an old stone lodged in the most forgotten corner of a graveyard; sample its wonders fingering the many indentations with more than slight awe or hear the cras.h.i.+ng of waves far off from the physical restraint of the marsh or this forgotten burial plot so near an angry sea.

Then, awaken as if from a dream, rub troubled memories from my eyes but never the brain for on winter nights just before retiring as the wind stirs packets of snow or the moon is chased by skeletal hounds along Gretal trees, there will come the realization another day is thru with another night to pilot away fresh brush & rubble before emerging, at night's end, from the clearing that is the trees.

HUMBOLDT'S CURRENT

Cresta roja wine --colour of arterial blood, vena cava of the alcoholic soul.

And seeing bottles bob in mainstreams of men's blood to pistol whip their reddened eyes, Humboldt's current becomes a rash of drinking, a map that charts more b.l.o.o.d.y lies.

The thirst that pa.s.seth all human understanding, (an alternate Biblical rendering) certainly body heat surpa.s.ses Vulcan's bellows adding new faces to Delirium Tremens.

THE GINGHAM DREAM UTTERANCE

As I watch the clouds a.s.semble, steam-s.h.i.+p fas.h.i.+on, with funnels to alert pa.s.sersby, I realize the Romanovs tore silk & riches from every bazaar leaving the bright spot of this evening studded with emerald marks.

A dot in the ocean is a spark upon which minnows play, their silver bellies upturned to imitate the moon's white shawl.

I am wanting in the delights of the reef narrowly hauled from rambunctious depths, the tiniest splashes of green, yellow, blue darting in an upturned fish's tail.

An octopus rock commands squadrons of fingerlings while the eisel fish decorates a steeper, coral garden.

Jet black sand crowns the lagoon volcanic ages' past the innocence of this spurting palm while mounds of pitch dark ants deposit slivers of rich eggs.

After a fas.h.i.+on, onyx enamours pearl and pearl ivory as cays and atolls are swept to the wiggle of sun's dance on white sand. Eel-like islands are only pomegranates undigested by the moon.

The amber breath of growing leaves is rich dark coffee stolen as in a smile.

Almond drink is refres.h.i.+ng as the tips of cloven hooves to the dried earth.

One might hesitate to watch firm nipples being given as broaches to a king but the sandpiper is a river barge commanding slow access to the next water.

Near barely lit lamps alongside make-s.h.i.+ft beds, a woman with olive skin prepares her toilet.

Hatchet brown birds beseech her with brittle songs stolen from one wing.

A cathedral bowl lies overturned in the warm twilight of lovers kneeling before the growing strength of day.

Stone stars are flattened by the glare of sun and sh.e.l.l encrusted beaches bear a pa.s.sing resemblance to chalices strung around an avuncular stretch of land.

Perhaps in the hunted meadow near red spined caterpillars feeding near the larvae of the elephant hawkmoth, a cistern will open the earth and drink as a thirsty spoon.

JUNIPER TREES

Sitting as Buddha on a chocolate juniper --the theme of madness thirty cinnamon centres Ophelia squares; Brunelleschi floating down a fallen river on nougats, perhaps onyx pears.

The sleek eyes of a cat stare floodlit topaz, ocelot rings round her burning mask.

And sipping dry wine Beaujolais, decantered Anjou with iron doors not Ghiberti's fas.h.i.+oning but sweet meadows waving fresh, summer gra.s.s.

And I at the garnet Buddha box-- a cold winter day pledging choices pale, juniper tree the carnival log egging up thick cordial; the inlaid satin box hovering about silent, apple wedge a child's fantasy, orgeat or bordeaux, lactose fudge, bon appet.i.t syrupy taste of Burgundy cherry.

The axe ring of squirting tissue with drone of pa.s.sing feet up finger stairs until the rustle of cloth crosses the turquoise box, clamours almond cl.u.s.ters into the courtyard cafe.

DISTEMPER

Looking into the gla.s.sy crucifix of water.

slits of rock form stigmata across creviced limestone-- green pools with an occasional fish pa.s.sing air bubbles to the top the eerie night crumbling under shafts of starlight with the smell of hemlock pods & cedar bringing nard and precious stone within crowns of natural thorn-- this body of muskeg pressed onto aromatic herbs then borne away along the road to a wooded Calvary and the sense of Christ in that light at dawn.

NIGHT WINDS