wheel

You won’t go

running round

with me.

You are barefoot

on the cobblestone

like a rickshaw

runner in saigon.

You won’t float

with me in a

silken haze, living in

opium dreams for

nights and days.

You won’t know me now

to the end of time,

in an orientalist house

with mats and gowns.

You won’t dress in

black and poppy,

dark haired lady,

and languored fan

in a singer sargent 

portrait painting.

You tap the

oxen tied to the wheel,

you want some

rice for the

next meal.  You

won’t hold me 

in a whirling storm,

ending when

the pipe’s

white smoke

is completely gone.

 

Reviews

[kitty blur]

I have to agree with the last reviewer: I definitely felt a reference to yin and yang, but there is also a discord that I felt between the two, like they could never fit together nicely. I felt like the narrator was aware of the sadness of his situation, but that he had come to terms with it. I don't think the narrator will leave this woman although he is not as connected to her as he wishes he could be. I pictured him looking at her through a window as she set out to get the rice. Maybe he's sipping tea, maybe he's just blinking slow and looking at this woman that is both his and not his. Fantastic.

[. serah .]

-- i feel that with exquisite and infinitely poetic images you brought out a rather perplexing dimension of the yin and yang equation... -- it seems to me that the narrator of this piece feels abandoned but doesn't quite know why... or the reason hasn't been shared with him yet (if there is one)...