Lord, It's the Samurai

www.asiansart.org/samurai1.html

Let the gleam of naked swordblades transport you to a time when samurai used them to slice noses off of an estimated 38,000 victims, buried in this mound in Kyoto, one of at least a couple such "nose tombs" in Japan.

Kemari at Tanzan Shrine

la via del tren subterraneo

All summer I roamed the vast expanses of the New York City transit system like a solitary cloud drifting with the wind, intoxicated by the elegant surrealist poetry posted in the graffiti-draped subway cars:


La via del tren subterraneo es peligrosa. Si el tren se para entre las estaciones, quedese adentro. No salga afuera. Siga los instrucciones de los operadores del tren o la policia.

a coney island of the mind

In the summer of 1968 I went to New York and discovered the subway. My first trip was out to Coney Island, in homage to Ferlinghetti. The sand was dirty and the roller coasters shabby.


Let's go


Come on


Let's go


Empty out our pockets


and disappear


Missing all our appointments


and turning up unshaven


years later


old cigarette papers


stuck to our pants


leaves in our hair.


Let us not


worry about the payments


anymore.


Let them come


and take it away


whatever it was


we were paying for.


And us with it.



--Junkman's Obbligato, Lawrence Ferlinghetti