he was anxious for a soak(like a junky for their next fix never thinking it could possibly be a hot shot a perverse joke to appease and livenup a hardened streetcorner pusher they may or may not have scored)  

he soaked in hot water in an oversized clawfoot bathtub that he found and shipped west out of a Midwestern farmhouse scheduled to be razed    

it must have suffered a share of young children drowning

at six foot bending his knees slightly he easily immersed himself underwater

but he knew how to swim

 

he had the cast iron tub refinished  coloured it an appealing scarlet red

at night  particularly under candlelight  it turned purple and when the deep water was still it reflected the ceiling above and other things he wasnt keen on seeing

he soaked

          head submerged  chin mouth and nose like a snorkel

and wend his way through his jumbled spasmodic thoughts the array of problems that perplexed him which he illumined setting blazing krieg lights on them bleaching out any hope of refuge for niggling shadows or accessories who wanted to interfere with or infect his thinking

cutting them to the quick

if the forefront of his therapy didnt assuage his thoughts troubles or musings  then what came to him what he heard were the rantings of petty mermaids whales singing like aliens obliviously and indifferent to the mermaids whines

the erotic scolding and encouragement the rutting sounds of narwhals

the seduction of Sirens

but when their vocalisations became too intense or provocative he disengaged he pushed himself up by his feet to either side of the overflow under the spigot 

it was a practised haste that removed his ears from their plaintive or suddenly urgent voices

on occasions despite utter Reason he was struck then saddened that he couldnt talk to Odysseus and examine the abrasions and ropeburns on his flesh from being lashed to the mast of his ship or as he hoped there werent any and Odysseus had resisted the Sirens despite the labor Homers text exacted  as if Man was a slave to his pleasures and desires and could not bear them without submitting to them

wretched Weaklings

twinned to the Odysseus occasions there were those other things he wasnt keen on seeing who displaced and unhinged themselves from the capture and confines of simple mirrors that hung in houses were carried in compacts and obscene in freakshow funhouses

things that wore the caricatured skins of creatures who innocently beheld themselves in them and did not understand the thinnest of veils between their earthly presence and reality and the mockery the disdain and detest of those things

monsters that no one guessed at              

the gruesome murderers who always surprised their neighbors 

                                                  Infections

who watched from the other side of the silver

he was freakish about his glass

he overhung them with fabric cloaked them minimised their access to him

he took solace seeing them in the deep hot water in a medium they couldnt confound

and would admit that if he couldnt unsee them 

                                       then at least they swam and swirled helplessly

unsubstantial phantoms

high winds scouring a blue sky

     

1722,  Friday,  27  5. 16

1236,  Sunday,  29  5. 16