Silk Road
金, the gold caged bodhi tree among monks one quick-tempered another on the phone another ten years old dying monks among dying tourists among red eaves and paper walls they speak of peppered chives and burnt tea (and a cat strutting across the floor) 火, the fire has long deserted t
the smell in my room
What if the smell in my room is not the brown skin samosa cold in the corner, grease leaking through wooden floors, or the curry my mother left dead on the desk next to the photos where sunlight from a distant summer is caught between some fat boy’s teeth, laughing with [&h
Crawling Order
forget about hands and knees– his chest is on the ground. he is flattening himself like sourdough naan as men in hats stand sentinel and impatient. this procedure takes all day he is heaving his bones–elbows bear the weight of stomach, ribcage, legs for the distance of one hundred and fif
Telling with my eyes
This piece was originally written by the hugely influential Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa. Despite his many contributions to Japanese literature, his work is seldom translated into foreign languages due to his ascetic values which kept it hidden from the public eye. This piece is an attempt to intro
Mimicry
Mimicry She stoops to worship Mimicry, old, borrowed and belly-full of what has already been the start and end of ideas. She rewrites Genesis with a stale bible; a tea-ringed, deadened […]
Mourning of the Fleeting Day
Time flies! Time flies! I say: take a drink. I know not the height of green heavens, nor the depth of yellow earth, only that the icy moon comes after the scorching sun, that they cook our mortal lives. Those who eat bears shall be fat, they that eat frogs shall be thin. To the […]
Eggshell
Today she has scarcely moved. If there is understanding then that is what she feels this chrysalis Sunday, where new quiet doesn’t boom anymore – his echoes are softer, and she dusts them off into the bubbling boiling with the eggs. Three timid spines crest the water. She raises them carefully,
Dusk Shadows
There’s a swell in the yellow assembly: bamboos rustle and hush, unable to contain their giggling at the wind’s rush as huddled and prone to sway as teenage girls – I am almost jealous of these young trees at the edge of the garden skimming stone and sky, knees knocking in the breeze, called t
Stockholm Syndrome
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea” (Genesis 1:26) Three fish are bored. They pass the time thinking. “Why are we here?” one asks. Another answers: “If we were not, then who would force those simple sea [