IT'S ALL ABOUT THE POETRY, MAN

When I got home I noticed the elderly gentleman who always seems out of it up ahead. I had seen him earlier wandering around the neighborhood, which he often does. He has kinfolk who take care of him I suspect because he's always clean and has different clothes, but most of the time he's definitely lost. I have never encountered him quite there. Not on the same planet.

He's moving much slower than before. Old age.

Whenever I see him I always wish him a good day. I'm not sure whether he speaks English or Cantonese best, so I've used both. His response is usually something mumbled indistinctly, and I've heard him talking to invisible people in Cantonese, mostly.

There's always an air of things not having worked out as planned about him.


The other elderly Cantonese person I've encountered twice today is Tat Yee, whom I've known for decades. The first time was after my tea, when I was strolling down an alleyway smoking my pipe and he was loitering outside a nearby drinking establishment smoking his. When the bookseller and I went there for whiskey and a glass of tea he was still there -- over four hours later -- which seems like a productive way to enjoy one's retirement. Things probably didn't work out as planned for him either, but he's coping with it differently.

My friend the bookseller and I are somewhat anomalous, comparatively. We have things going on. He hosted the young poets last week and fed them crabs. He's more culturally lively than I am, by a very long mile.

While he was telling me about that dinner, I came up with an entirely new form of sonnet; two limericks, each with a longer third line to make them four liners, followed by two haiku.
I bet I could irritate bucket loads of people with that.
More than I already do.


One thing I mentioned which fair upset him was the recipe for the tobacco mixture called 'Hobbits Weed' (two parts BCA, one part Lane's Very Cherry, and one part Sutliff 1M), which is three quarters vanilla aromatic and loved by Gandalf wannabees who own churchwarden pipes. Smoked at every damned renaissance faire between here and Tierra Del Fuego.

If you smoke it around me I might recite sonnets to drive you away.


Tolkien was undoubtedly a very silly bugger.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================