Playground of pleasure
you never remember visiting
yet excavated,
again and again,
despite
considerable will
and
inconsiderate willingness.
Receipts from guest house camouflage,
and trails of bedrooms' lingering perfume,
openly and defiantly recite the lettering
for you.
Of all the things you have known and mostly not,
the all but silent taste
of forgotten generations
pleases you most;
but, somehow,
the echo still
finds a way
to inflict
with the silence
of corner store
needles.
Language is seductive,
and so deceitful,
for it no longer sketches with blood:
long ago it bowed
to the mercy salesman
with their electronic ink,
held together
by no more
than dried up,
school boy
paste.
Of all the things you have known and mostly not...
Of all the places you have journeyed and will never go...
Simple dishonesty
still
cuts
the
deepest
path
marking
memory
more
than
time
ever
could.
Like the banished child staring through the fence.
Like caressing night staring through the window.
Like sleepless dawn staring through the clock.
Like the sound of rain without the sound of them.
Whoever they once were.
Whoever they might be.
Now.
Korea Town, Los Angeles - 6/27/06
