The Silverman Shuffle : Union Square, NYC

The silverman stands still waiting for a drop of money in his postal service container. I explain to the children how a typewriter works and thus ruin a line. He must stay so still for so long the silverman. It was raining today and the square is not so busy. But the sun is trying to come out. The clouds are burning away and the day is being the day. How long can he stand still and staring with no one around? No one walking in front to even pause and look out of sheer curiosity. He's got an iron will but his smile is fading. It takes many muscles to hold that up. The kids throw coins into the spittoon of a fountain and one needs to tie his shoe because it is time to go. Once you are outside and sitting you - buttons for a dollar, buy three and get one free.

The silverman takes his show to the shade or he's going to sweat all his silver off. Black leather hat photographer. The lone man mystic exalting the word of god to no one. His congregation: a woman purple jacket tweaked face silent; the corduroy book reader. These are all. God, I give you one day, just one day God. And everyone goes about their business. A man sweeps water. His hair is curly fuzzed close to his head. Texting on a bike, slowly fixed-gear ratios. Drummer starts to drum by the tall man on green iron horseback. The squirrels are bold and domestic, sit on their haunches expectant. Hardcore billing forty hours a week. Floating conversations pass on quick walking feet. Umbrella, a mustache, a sachel. The old man walks white-haired. Brown green faded floral girls with curly hair. Cowbell syncopation. Business suit, earphone, suitcase. God and women! My first record man, very good music, where do you live? Barcelona. Fifteen songs for five dollars, this is how I survive.

My mind so slow and the black preacher speaking salvations and dalmations. Damnations, pardon. A man carries a stone like a waiter upon his shoulder upturned hand and walking. Another crosses his path carrying a box of Cholula sauce like a waiter, on his shoulder, upturned hand and walking. Where the hell are you man? At a concert? no sweat, see you later. You go on the internet, I'm sure. Sometimes, yeah.

Tall Buildings, Lost Words : Central Park, NYC

The wind is blowing up a gale and it will rain like hell here on us at the park. I dig and dodge unemployment and find a stoop on a hill. A raised point of view to see the people passing by on 59th street. The wind blows the paper bows the paper down towards my direction and keeps me from my words, from seeing them, but it doesn't matter much. The street yells and yells and grumbles and groans. Buses, trucks, cars, honks and the endless profusion of traffic. I feel like I must yell these words into the typewriter for them to be heard by the restless paper. Underneath the ground, through the rock and soil I feel the train passing by. When the rain comes I am fucked.

Walked from east 56th street all the way to seventh avenue, from second. All industry and cold fashion. All money and sleekness, sanitation. Sheer metal and the occasional tumble of litter, quickly snatched up by maintenance. Not a lick of personality to be found except for the occasional out of place homeless person. A large number (9) sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. The playboy enterprise headquarters and a bunch of clocks that tell us how relative time is to the world. And here, it's more of the same. Tall faceless buildings. Like the stone pyramid walls. Showing the might, the grandeur, the aerodomesticity of today's modern corporate world. It is all about projecting an image, and the image is rapid. It is momentum with force, all constructed. A cute girl is inappropriately dressed for the wind and from my view I enjoy the sight of advantageous cleavage.

Through the trees, the window of my view, I sit and see and type. The clacks quickly taken and pushed the opposite direction of my eyes by the wind. Jalapeno chips in my backpack and picking particles out of molars. Rustling green and white flowered blossoms of weed plants. All grass bending the direction of nature. But really, nothing to speak of at all. Three men in black suits lean with red ties against a black car that is no doubt also wearing a red tie. Flashdancers on top of the yellowcab. Baldor food truck and the ground beneath my ass starts to shake again.

Banjosushi Collage : Union Square Park, NYC

Lunch in the big city and I have a mini-bottle of Henessey. Craned neck and a spittoon of a fountain at Union Square where the tomatoes are passed down from generation to generation and arrive at the farmer's market for 5 dollars apiece. Some guy in green iron on a horse up high. Tom Waits in the right ear and the sound of buzz. The buzzing sound of street traffic and mumbled conversation. Last cigarette smoked. Baby gobbling an orange passing by on a stroller. Umbrellas, tents and tree shade. Where is everyone going? Some to work. Some have found a bed on a bench.

Subway woman exits with flowers to deliver. Old wrinkled woman, grey short hair, striking a jagged pose, speaks with jagged words of age. And I in this isolated inlet, not drunk enough to go careening in the street with my typing fingers. Also not drunk enough to take the leftover sushi Whole Foods has left on the edge of the trash. There are scroungier people who need it.

Everyone looking, buying , eating. Bags handed and hanging from wrists. Brown leather slippers. White rubber slippers, and the sun finds its way through my tree. Big red bag with more sushi. If she leaves some on the edge of the trash, then fuck it, I am going for it.

And what are we selling? Baguettes? Honey? Comics and books? Paintings? Original and copied art? Photos of skyscrapers and black and white antiques?

A big blue scarf covering up cleavage. A pity.

Hunchbacked, headphoned gremlin rummaging through bag, squinting into the infinity of his bag, struggling with the zipper function of his eternal bag.

Provocative pigeons and forward squirrels.

She eats her sushi with chopsticks, speckled, Dalmatian-shirted, sitting on the steps of this spittoon of a fountain. Blue-green-grey metal walkway. Trees are pure green of trees.

Hand-made hugging salt shakers?

Scrounging pigeons, raptor clawed. I know where there is some sushi if they are hip enough for it.

The hunchback changes his headphones for a phone. He dials with girth, holds the phone up to his large cyclops eye and shaky-dials a number for five minutes. You'll get there old fellow!

Got to keep an eye on this woman with the sushi. She's on her next package and girls have trouble finishing their meals. That's why they are the best dinner companions. Her hair is still wet, darker than her dry brown hair would be, and her Dalmatian shirt is slightly fluttering light in the breeze. But she doesn't slow down on the sushi. What a champ.

And the steady flowing stream of walking people going by hardly catches the eye for more than a second or two. So much walking cloth. I need a Snapple!

Banjo tuning. Fountain spewing. What are you doing?

"I wish I was born in the grave. My lady was a knife on the shore."

And who stands watching the stomping fellow who changed into his banjo hat not a while ago to play his banjo? Woman plucking her teeth with a plastic spoon, staring off at nothing in particular. Phones filming and people standing. Old man, tweed suit, beard white, and the string keeps breaking. Pipes next to me on a table, free if you smoke weed and are a poet, which I claim to be. And who else is watching? The Obama face of Hope pinned against the red-curtained table across. Levi's brown bag with tight jeans and a big camera standing next to him. White Sox hat, grim-staring goatee, slightly shaved, Buddy Holly glasses. Conspiring old couple, not so old, just conspiring in the corner with their nice clothes and shiny shoes. Maroon shirt, black-belted brown pants. Big sunglasses, pink shade. Mocha Latte. Broken strings, music is over. But come buy some pipes!

White shirt tattoo peaking out of the top, black on black. Somebody buy a baguette! A bagel! An Obama shirt! My god! This is a recession. Show the love.

Tall brown buildings. I will watch the pipe shop. People tsking and tasking about their day. All bunches of bags. Big gray trash bags piled by the trash can. Green breeze still blowing. DVDs, Jesus! The man laughing tears walking all by himself. Looks like he's crying. Vegetable ivory pipe head. When they say they'll be back, will they be back? FREE INK CARTRIDGES on the yellow backpack sign.

My page flutters in the wind and all the words are wiped off with trying to read them. A gang of orange-clad bikers begin their course check. Helmets orange and everything. Black bike shorts under the floral skirt, walking quick. Scarves, lettuce. Nothing happening until the banjo player gets back. Holy Moly! That thick mustache and the odd grasping lovers on the left. They should be wearing that mustache.

A Garibaldi Comedy : Washington Square Park, NYC

A tree leans in to hear a saxophonist, bass, and drums. Bicycle backpack walks against the traffic. Next to the pick nick tables people are eating their wraps and sandwiches. Baby strollers and baby carriages. Everyone in Washington Square Park pleased by a pleasant day. Who has to go to work soon? I feel sorry for you.

'Keep park clean' green leaf umbrella vendor. Garibaldi pulls out a sword and nobody knows who he is. High heels look like hammers, plucking out nails with each step. Electric egg-shaped cockpit of the car parked picking up the trash, the maintenance man. And the jazz goes on. Muted bass and drums. And the tree leans in to hear it.

Camera and fuzzy microphone next to the fountain. A table full of ladies: '...you would love it. It's a romance novel...'

Fuck it. We can sit our Pepsi's right here to play cards. Lip-dangling cigarette.

Bags and hats. Hats and bags walking by tagging rides on bipeds.

Hi, we were waiting. You were waiting? I was waiting. But at least they all found each other here by the pick nick tables.

Big Union Jack peace sign shirt. Woman, black and green, pudgy, short red hair, photos the jazz band as the tree gives them shade, leaning in to hear.

Put your hands together for the tenor sax, for the alto sax, for the Arlo Fullman flowing on the base. They do indeed have sells for CD's only 10 dollars or best offer/interesting trade like those black shades on the water-bottle-swinging youth clustered around other youths.

Another camera crew by Garibaldi, but not interested in his frozen bumbling sword extraction. They film moving people. Motion. Groups of Asian walkers, ladies short-shorted, showing thighs, head-phone-corded, belly-bouncing joggers. The little egg car patrols back, yellow-yolked and white. Girl with the shawl makes an aside, interrupting her drinking motion, deferring beverage to comment. Confident conversation from the white shirt, large-pecked. Personal pizza box tossed in the trash. The look after the picture is taken by a couple: don't we look darling? my hair is out of place, I've always had a fat face.

Garibaldi photo moment. His chance to show what he is made of. Just get that sword out Baldi! So close to an epic pose but too brittle boned to be timely.

Cream suit, back pack, black pinstripes, flannel, jeans, jeans, jeans.

Gossip talk at the table and the man has little to say: but she knew she fucked up...she knew what she...yeah and she...but shouldn't she...well I thought she...

"Stop that, Oscar." The dog barks twice more before obeying.

Water bottle, water bottle, iced tea, iced tea, blue floral shirt down to the knees, sandwich.

Pleased to meet you, I have a purple bag, and you? Pleasure is all mine, I have a green one.

Bubbles blown back into the face of a rail-sitter, thin as a rail, nose also like a rail. White pants with too many pockets. Colored shirt with too many colors. Too busy, the lines. Simplify! Pony tail tall. Grey-old walking. Time's a wasting. What are you doing here and where did you get those pants? What a skirt! I should put down this clunker and flirt with her. Cowgirl chique. Hat, bandanna, and boots. Green cotton candy! never in my life...

Once again, we play all the fucking time here in this motherfucking park, you guys get up and lean in like this tree here.

.
.
.

Yoga-quick : Bryant Park, NYC

The yoga has begun and the babbled amalgamated voices are usurped by the voice recording through the speakers. Grey gravel shuffled by feet, unnumbered, walking encumbered. Feet on chairs resting in black shoes. A field of people inhale and exhale in unison, lie on their backs. The fountain: sprinklingly weak, unassuming. Trees, traffic, buildings. Satchel and a man walking, coffee-holding. Waving bald man. Backpacked companion takes a picture. Black dress, bare-back triangles showing.

Right hand to the left and hold.

Wow, that big green building with two runners in the window. Like a big aquarium. Aquarium green, housing so many ecosystems and recirculated air.

Everyone in the field on their hands and knees, looking up to the sky. On the exhale they look down. I look around. I look around. For what? for what is quick. For a glossed description. Ah! there is a Goethe here, by the carousel. And a Gertrude Stein sits among her rolls of stone girth, silent.

If you want to do yoga here, prepare to get your picture taken. If you are a building here, prepare to get your picture taken.

When they exhale, they raise their rumps to the sky, towards me and all who are behind them. They all look quite good from this distance. Good, fit and flexible, but this is only distance's deception. All right legs up! Some pigeons hold a pow-wow while tearing up stale bagel strips. Screech metal breaks, low rumbled bus moans, big truck mumbles, bark of the cop cars, dopplered honk. Rattling bag, skiffing step. The wall of buildings split in one place, through to the sky towards Port Authority, marked by the weak fountain.

Yet still we have not arrived at what is quick., what is essential, living, viscid. It is my own fog, my own haze, my own intentionality of method. But! there is a lazy security guard stroll. His lazy jaw chewing gum, sweat-wiping towel, blue-green, tucked in his blue shoulder-strap. The trees are always the quickest. They abide by the breeze, are rooted and flow naturally, while all around is construction.

Up hands! Fingers stretched. Others just lie on the grass. I would quite like a cigarette to put this all in perspective. Here we are! The carousel has been caroused! And there we have all the fun of life. Around, with no destination, up and down on a frozen animal, up and down these yoga breaths. With lights and sound the carousel turns, a tired metaphor before it even began.

Two lovers lie, the man's head on her belly her hand on his chest. Eyes closed resting against the grass. A girl in a blue dress photographs what she sees. A much clearer picture than these black and white odd shapes. Now she strokes his hairs. Light, wired curls. The woman in the black waves to the black building holding to her ear a black phone. a pink-shirted stretch. Do these humans on this page have necks? breath? yes, the inhale and exhale, the turning craned looks of walkers and passers by. The graying hair on the man who just sat down, wide, sloped nose and perma-scowl side-mouth lines. The girl now has a book as someone asks where they are eating. She is not as resting as her blue-jeaned lover with the wire-curly hair, though she still finds a hand to stroke his face, the goatee and the brow, specifically. Large leaves, green leaves, red leaves, vines in a big pot.

Slovenia is the only country that has 'love' in the name.

Blue skirt Alenka now has a name and is taking pictures again. Green white weathered tent top, carousel stopped spinning. And another, a man with a gray pony tail. Grey under auburn. The ding and we are done with another line. Big brown bag strung across the shoulder. These heavy words are not so quick, they fall heavy, unflowing. Today has been a sweaty day for words.

And now they roll up their mats, fix their wedgies, adjust their leotards. Burgundy colors on the umbrellas. A pale yellow folding from the long brunette hair. Both flowing and flapping in concordant motion. Little pink shoes trip and fall. All the fit women now yoga-walk themselves over to their new destination, spiritually cleansed and deflatulated. And all the while the constant churning noise of people. People, cars, and horns.

The sun is pale yellow, like the flapping brunette's blanket sinking in the split between buildings, soaking in haze and cloud. The old woman, neck-clinging hair, hoola-hoops black orange stripes and rotates slowly clockwise as it wobbles and falls around her knees. The little pink shoes play in a purple dress, being photographed playing with a tab from that food-trodden grey gravel. A dog and a toddler. My good god. How wholesome. The dog is brimming with affection. The toddler loves the dog. Alenka loves to take pictures. The dog wags nervously and looks to his owner. Everyone has fun at someone else's expense.

Urbanal : Morningside Park, NYC

Urban parks. What are the animals in an urban park? We have the graceful pigeon: the winged vermin. We have ducks in the green water, bread-gobbling. There is the occasional smaller bird I will call the diminutive sparrow. There is the large fly, ceaseless in its plotting, rubbing hands in evil contemplation. And there are humans walking dogs, picking up poop with plastic-bagged hands.

The trees are beautiful, splotched with greens, tall, leafy, handsome. Some wisps by the water, by the water falling green-foamy from the rocks up by the caution tape. And the soothing sound of rushing water aided by the soothing sounds of groaning traffic. A dump truck, a maintenance vehicle. Their flatulent gasps and groans. And to my left, more caution tape, yellow, black bold type, circumfrencing the playground, yellow and blue with all the floor stripped. No way to walk up the ramp or across the bridge with no floors anymore.

Mmm, hear that jack hammer in the background? And the dump truck is on the move again. Car alarms and buildings rising above the oh so green trees responding to the breeze and dappling shade down to us who wish to not sit in the heat.

The diminutive sparrows rustle in the dirt. They take dirt baths and fidget amongst themselves while the greater pigeons walk bobble-headed and pecking.

NO TRESPASSING. DANGER. These are the signs on the island in the middle of the green-grown lake.

The lamp posts are on and illuminating nothing but their own bulb's shape. Sirens and dump trucks. A bus honks. The sirens come closer, rattling their repeated warnings. The caution tape rattles in the wind, whipped and fluttering rattled ribbon of plastic. A coffee cup rolls back and forth on the ground as if a skiff on the calm high seas.

A small survey of the immediate vicinity around me yields: a Heineken bottle cap, a large bolt, a few cigarette butts, a shirt tag, various coiled pieces of string, a red expanded rubber band, more bottle caps, bits of plastic bags, and an assortment of different-colored foil scraps. Ah yes, and there is dirt, some leaves un-greening, and small rocks. One must learn to not look too closely, for to do so would be to miss the beauty of an urban space of green. An urban park is meant to be an amalgamation of these things. These things which seem so out of place, yet accepted by the pigeons, the trees, the grass, and diminutive sparrows, who harbor no resentment, who preen and let fall their feathers and leaves and abide by the sun.

And there is the field being sprayed by exuberant jets, by the sprinkler spouting catharsis. The baseball backstop and all the surrounding benches around the walkway giving walkers a place to plant themselves and view what? The plants perhaps? Their own regaining breath? It all fits quite nicely with the occasional surging cicada call.

And here I sit with all of it, half-content, half-annoyed but for that epic silent greenness provided by these indifferent trees, watching people without a blink come and go, being perched on by pigeons and diminutive sparrow creatures, seeing time unwind in such a slow process that the rise and fall of a building occurs like the dawn of each morning. And truly, these Harlem building fit in well. These trees fit in well. And I find I myself can fit in well, for a time, in a state, because I am here and waiting for it all to make sense beyond mere circumstance.

And if I look with the eyeless eyes of a tree, I can see the sidewalks crumbled with overgrown roots, the lamp posts swallowed up by vines, the buildings half-crumbled in dilapidation, grass grown over the bottle caps and butts, the benches stained with rain upon rain, and all that used to walk here gains an ancient mystery more beautiful that what walks now, but as the woman walking by the road has just said: "...and that's a nasty-ass waterfall, but it's all good."

An Uncommon Long Cable : Central Park, NYC

Quaint, we will begin quaint. By the trash can in the grass next to the roadside. Gravel crunching runners and bicycle wheels. Some grape juice and a few boxes of paper. A gate, some trees and a walkway.

"Where are these suckers?" Two bikers lost ahead. The buildings behind the sparse screen of trees, beyond the reservoir. Me, sitting patiently in a tie and a nice shirt: two dollars from the army of salvation. White dog. Glasses man. I love--heart--excuse me. I heart New York. Harry Potter conversation from a real life Ron Weasley. Kids kicking dust and interested in T-Rex. Electronic.

There is a bridge to the left built with large leafy swoops and colored the underside of a two-toned leaf. That grey-green subtle latticework of the underside of leaves. This man running, I type to his steps. So much green silence but for my own clacking. Distant city roars. Airplanes, a siren. Distant.

Large breasts find no rest on a jogger. Those rhythmic bosoms jouncing jollily with each progressive step. The bulky white man has dainty hands and a grass stain on his shirt.

The things that are quick. The parts of people that are quick.

The woman: pointy elbowed, bouncing blond pony tail. Walkers unquick but for their flannel. Woman in the sun, skin showing bony, skin-bathing, book-reading. Helicopters, helicopters, birds in the distance, buildings, helicopters. Back again so soon the quick, thin girl with the bobbing, bouncing pony tail. The walking man smells what's in his hand. Is it bark? Hashish? Feces? I long to know! and it is about time to light a cigarette...

Holy Moses and Karl Malone! here I am all alone with a cigarette and some burgundy, watching the clouds over me...

How to pee in Central Park: lie on your side as if you were sleeping. Unzip and unfurl. you must wait for the bursts and hope the dribble dries before you leave.

Once a cup is done it is time to move on. Dribble be damned! at least I have long shirt ends.

A bit more of humanity at the great lawn. Great shade under the great trees. Great breeze where children play on the grass. Where a fowl-mouthed, sour-mouthed man walks his golden retriever and a man sings incoherence while doing pull-ups next to the swing set. Just a half-a-cup's worth of time where the cops ride slow with sirens silent but red and blue flashing.

Again the look for the quick and it isn't always with humans. Bark formations of bent trees, slow in attaining, are quick with static aura; brown-green silent pulsating photosynthesis. Yes, these trees are quite quick. A girl jogs, her hair swishes. A man walks his bike. A man walks his dog. Everyone is going somewhere for a short while. Stroller. Red shirt striped white. Lollipop plucked out of salivated mouth. Cell phone. Cell phone. Cell phone. Hot pink woman unquick and sitting globy and leaning. Bad-form push-ups from the shirtless man parked bike to the right.

Stroller rides! That dad is quick! We'll get from here to there in a jiffy! Just jump on son and I'll pedal our little one across the whole damn park like lightning, scooter style.

Quick on the lawn the arch of Frisbee and the clap of mitts making catches. Floating orbs slow in motion for the minute of flight but sucked into leather-gloved oblivion, absolute for half a second.

The tall gawking bird-man is quick as a whip, his jerky step and headphones intent with stork legs bent (forward of course) but his eyes covered by sunglasses.

Slow, holding hands, both hunched, father-daughter saunter. Slow-coasting bald man grey-sweated shirt meandering two-wheeled. Kids and badminton. So nicely dressed, they must be English: Let's have tea in the gallery with father's mistress. Oh do! let's!

Time to go, I'm getting slow, let's hear what Herman Melville says: "There are your iron fists, hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the world is anchored anywhere, if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable."

Delhi to Darjeeling : A Train, India

Rail road tracks. Gravel.

A family sitting by a tree. Wrapped in cloths, colorful.

A trainful of black hair. Brown skin. Mustaches. Nice pants. A cane. A saunter. A lift and dip, carrying a bag on the shoulder. It is pink. A green and white fence. Picketed. A tractor on yellow grass.

"Chai, chai."

Two butterflies. Paper cups on the ground. An egg carton.

Slowly moving now.

Concrete. Trees. Dirt. Clods. Rocks. Shade surrounding cows. Tails shaking off flies. Blue wall. Bricks. Small houses. Tarp windows. Wheat. Grain. Tall fields of yellow grass. Metal boxes. Telephone wires connected. Signs. Posts. Trails through and around the fields. An old bicycle. A pow-wow. Grass huts. Leather seats. A laptop. A window. A motion picture viewer. A life in time lapse. Clothes hung on the wire. Mounds of dung, fuel for fire. A watering hole housing black cows. A spinning wheel. Colors of clothes: yellow, orange, green, blue. Those old bikes: Rusted and wheel-guarded. A train passes by creating a kinetoscope with the space between cars.

"Chai, chai."

Bony oxen tilling. The whip. Dry ground. The houses: blue, green, aqua, pink, shades of purple and yellow dilapidation. Advertisements on the side of living quarters. Stairs and another
station.

"Chai, chai."

Iron. Metal. Steel. This modern age: plastic. Where has all the wood gone? Where is the excitement of a hand holding a hand? Of two on a motor bike? Of that wrap of green plastic caught in tree branches? Of fat water buffalos? Of black water?

What do five children do along the roadside? We pass too fast to see. And if we stopped, there would be no telling how long it would take for them to get on with it.

And that man's jeans on the up and down of peddling. And that tank of gas on the back of the bike. And the tree cradles. Dry saplings' leaves.

Took a shit over the hole, squatting. The hole that leads to the unmoving tracks as I move above them. I shat on that two-dimensional strip of DNA. On that spinal column. On the nerve network of Indian transport. Where someone's sweat dripped with toil. Over which countless passengers have accepted and refused the the call of: "Chai, chai."

A man tied by a rope and handcuffed to a man with a rifle. Handshakes and briefcases. Glasses, baldness, exchange of currency. That paper of many colors. One-faced, however.

Baby crying. A cigarette-browed furrow. A large rumbling motor on a three-wheeled cart. White-tiled drinking fountain. Clothes splashed purple and yellow. Holi. One white front pocket protruding, stuffed with a camera, a pen, and glasses.

The black crow gawk-mouthed on the water pipe. The motorbike black-crowed on the roadside. The tree post buried in the cemetery. The houses hovelled in clusters. Walls, bricks touching skin to skin. Men waiting to cross colorful lines of clothes. Another stop. These empty spaces filled by a single child's protests.

"Chai, chai."

Shoe polisher looking over his shoulder. Rucksacks. Potato sacks. Red and blue checkered uniforms. Dopplered train horn and blue streaks. Another group of close-stacked houses. Red-brown brick. Yellow, white, sandy. Crumbled wall. New wall. Tall, conical smoke-stack. All the large white words incomprehensible on the walls old and new. Blue, pink, blue, blue. Blue is more than "blue." There are many blues. Bundles of threshing. Green water. Green broccoli trees. Stooping saris in a field of dirt. A goat and a man with a burden on his head.

STEEL AUTHORITY OF INDIA LIMITED: SAIL WAREHOUSE, KANPUR

A cow in the train station. Words I do not understand. No use to sit and wonder why. A yellow-shirted child falls. His mom in the pink sari picks him up. He has fat cheeks and a crying face. Smiles and laughter on the youths walking down the ramp. Fashionable jeans. Striped shirt, pink and black. Ritzy shirt, shiny-white. Shiny shoes, black. Nice clothes, worn and dirty. A man kicks a large can. It rolls along, red. The baby in white with the only inspired eyes. A man with a yellow cloth on his head. He sits in a fenced-in median which provides room for covered bikes and boxes. Bananas and apples. GOEL AND GOEL fruit/juice stall.

"Chai, chai."

Old woman squatting, waiting. Young woman squatting, waiting. Burlap sacks stacked and brimming. A cow on the tracks. VINYAK TRAVELS. PEPSICO. FREE HARDWARE AND NETWORKING. Monkey in the window sill. Low flying kite jerks. The boy and his laughing smile. Side-saddled sari woman on the motor bike. Tree trunks painted red and white. Splashing sunlight through the branches, through the window into the moving car. Jostled and jiggled gently. Low thud and rumble. Bundles of branches carried on top of heads. A broken candlestick held together by the wick. And an unbroken candlestick.

CHANDARI. Red barns. Blue and green fence. Another train and the flashes of light between the cars and on this paper. Lightning illuminations of the scrawling pen shadow. The reflection of my own knee displaced into the scenery. A floating phantom.

"Chai, chai."

A foundation in rubble. The red bricks overgrown by shrubs and grass. Cricket. Small child swings and misses. Bathing-wet water buffalos. White birds with long legs. A child pulling a large goat unsuccessfully. Goats, goats, goats, cow.

"Chai, chai."

A group of people in cars, trucks, bikes, shoes, waiting for the red and white striped arm to raise. Strobe lighting once more from a crossing train. Open space. Patches of grass in geometrics. Polygons of grass. Tall, short, green, brown, gold, grey. A pink-flowered bush bursting the sides of the tracks wide open with incomprehensible potentialities and then gone as the landscape escapes my sight.

"Chai, chai."

The only way to comprehend is by ingestion.