The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje Read Free Book Online Page B

room.
                   Creak and echo.
    Creak and echo. With absolute clarity
    he knows where he is.
Tin Roof
    She hesitated. ‘Are you being romantic now?
’
    ‘
I’m trying to tell you how I feel without exposing myself. You know what I mean?
’
    ELMORE LEONARD
             *
    You stand still for three days
    for a piece of wisdom
    and everything falls to the right place
    or wrong place
                             You speak
                   don’t know whether
    seraph or bitch
    flutters at your heart
    and look through windows
    for cue cards
    blazing in the sky.
                             The solution.
    This last year I was sure
    I was going to die
             *
    The geography of this room I know so well
    tonight I could rise in the dark
    sit at the table and write without light.
    I am here in the country of warm rains.
    A small cabin – a glass, wood,
    tin bucket on the Pacific Rim.
                   Geckoes climb
    the window to peer in,
    and all day the tirade pale blue waves
    touch the black shore of volcanic rock
    and fall to pieces here
             *
    How to arrive at this
    drowning
    on the edge of sea
                   (How to drive
    the Hana Road, he said—
    one hand on the beer
    one hand on your thigh
    and one eye for the road)
    Waves leap to this cliff all day
    and in the evening lose
    their pale blue
    he rises from the bed
    as wind from three directions
    falls, takes his place
    on the peninsula of sheets
    which also loses colour
    stands in the loose green kimono
    by a large window and gazes
    through gecko
    past the deadfall
    into sea,
                   the unknown magic he loves
    throws himself into
                             the blue heart
             *
    Tell me
    all you know
    about bamboo
    growing wild, green
    growing up into soft arches
    in the temple ground
    the traditions
    driven through hands
    through the heart
    during torture
    and most of all
                             this
    small bamboo pipe
    not quite horizontal
    that drips
    every ten seconds
    to a shallow bowl
    I love this
    being here
    not a word
    just the faint
    fall of liquid
    the boom of an iron buddhist bell
    in the heart rapid
    as ceremonial bamboo
             *
    A man buying wine
    Rainier beer at the store
    would he be satisfied with this?
    Cold showers, electric skillet,
    Red River
on tv
    Oh he could be
    (Do you want
                             to be happy and write?)
    He happens to love the stark
    luxury of this place
    – no armchairs, a fridge of beer and mangoes
                   Precipitation.
    To avoid a story      The refusal to move
    All our narratives of sleep
    a mild rumble to those inland
                   Illicit pockets of
                   the kimono
    Heart like a sleeve
             *
    The cabin
                   its tin roof
    a wind run radio
    catches the noise of the world.
    He focuses on the gecko
    almost transparent body
    how he feels now
    everything passing through him like light.
    In certain mirrors
    he cannot see himself at all.
    He is joyous and breaking down.
    The tug over the cliff.
    What protects him
    is the warmth in the sleeve
    that is all, really
             *
    We go to the stark places of the earth
    and find moral questions everywhere
    Will John Wayne and Montgomery Clift
    take their cattle to Missouri or Kansas?
    Tonight I lean over the Pacific
    and its blue wild silk
    ringed by