A New Poem

So I am working with a new blog editor on my Mac. It’s supposed to be the best one usable for a Mac and it is sorely inferior to the Windows Live Editor - not even close. Nonetheless I am gonna slog through and try and get caught up with all the posting I missed on our last trip. In the meantime here’s a new piece I am working on:

 

The Big Bang

 

I am carrying plastic thermoses of tea 

on the dusty backstreets of Dhaka 

before the sun climbs hazy orange into sky.

I am selling knock off headphones in Hong Kong's lady market.

I am pulling noodles Lanzhou style 

folding and stretching elastic dough in a small Halal shop in Shanghai. 

I am herding ducks in Vietnam,

Driving a cab in Singapore,

Walking a tightrope as entertainment for tourists

in a folk village outside of Seoul, Korea.

I am just like you.

I am taking offerings to temple in Bali.

I am showing you my deformities 

tapping with a pale fingernail on your taxi’s window in Delhi.

I gather palm oil nuts into a burlap bag in Duri, Sumatra. 

I lunch on Wall Street,

Shine shoes at LAX,

Sleep in a yurt on the steppes, 

my horse pawing the frozen earth with a front hoof.

I am just like you.

I am waiting to be found out, 

called onto the carpet, 

my rib cage rendered open,

and exposed as a fraud.

Just like you,

I have no idea how I got here.

Just like you,

I am everywhere.

I inhale atoms over thirteen billion years old 

in order to talk about the weather

with someone next to me,

and whom I will never know.

I close my eyes nearly every night

and, in doing so,

forget that I exist.

Sometimes I need an alarm clock to wake up

and I wake up

confused.

 

I am just like you.

I am making it up as I go along

michael salinger