Vagabond in Hanoi
Wants us to drink rice liquor. Dinner table of a five-story townhouse. Works for the UN. Has been to my country. X bashful.
Just one of those if we must sir. Only if we must. Can of “Hanoi” goes to my head.
Five stories up, long way to go. Your wife eats lots of fruit. I can’t even. You say laughingly she abuses salt. So you know the sarcasm. Dipping it in it. Can’t get with it. Dizzying amount of food. Impressive pile of dumplings with nobody to impress.
Eyes lined up and jumping out the shuttle. Can see your anxiety. No sir I’m spic as a span or something like it. No biohazard here. This is this and this is that. Wave of the hand. Sitting on a tiny chair. Become well versed in the tiny chair. Rainy beauty and cement drenched in sweat.
No expectations. Lost in the head. Slip through this dark alley way. See your poverty. See your dignity, and iron bars, with water hanging, from every thing.
Create my strange comfort. I’ll sit in this smoky coffee shop even with the hate of smoke. Because this is a secret place. And only a secret feels right. My life is a selfishly guarded secret. Are you worthy of a glimpse?
I don’t mean that I’m worthy, only I cannot be bothered. Heavy metal, soft at the core, is a song that’s been sung. Cause we liked chrome pipes and colors candied. And I like arctic white and titanium, purple glow, chrome too. The stealth? A little twist on the ancestral breed.
Back at your house. The fear, having arrived; I understand. You can see that, if not, explicitly? Hope you don’t require the explicit.
There’s angel wings hawking atop that building, and X hates the hookah in the corner. But that was a useless room. The best room, six by six and hot water? Strange, windy cube. Place of the elements.
Like the Russian you say? Well she’s certainly got the Scottish in her. But only I detect the strange Australian lingual bent, with no reason to be. And I’m as English as they don’t come. But your family is large. And the fourth floor is for utility. One night I saw the meditation in the dark and the candles and the incense and I’ll just go by.
I’ll stay on the streets as long as I can but never to venture too far off. Not equipped nor ready. Police on the street treat me well. Always nod at the doorman. Fine city. Next hiding place. Approach and feel the awkward silence. Oh I know what you’re about, drown in this and out and away with you.
Hooks in fish mouths and I’m not the fish.
Sit here and see what I’ve writ.
He was gone
Before
He came
And he’ll do it
Again
Oh the world’s gone mad and that thing’s made it so. I’ll just sit here, write my guts out. Content with nothing, but God’s mercy.