I Have Seen the Fire - Visual Poem to Las Vegas

Las Vegas Poem - Return to Chaos

Leaving Bangkok and the risk of unknown spaces, I arrive in Los Angeles, wondering if the realm of adventure which I had embraced would remain while under the brightness of a common language and stale culture. The people I encounter in the airport knock my mind and I feel a shiver on my skin - rudeness, aggression, anger, and an ugly sarcasm dents the memories of the easy and slow faces belonging to Thailand and Indonesia. I remember Mo telling me that Chicago was an ugly city, and I projected it onto buildings, streets, and broken gray skies, not recognizing that Mo was perhaps referring to its people. I do not venture past the airport gate, and so miss an opportunity to find a friendly face and other fragments of beauty and kindness, thus leaving my sour impression of LA intact.

A few hours later I am riding a courtesy van through the hot and dusty streets of Las Vegas. The people here have an added cruelty of greed which can be seen lingering in the dull shine of colorless eyes. I am now on home soil, but the land gives no ease or comfort, and I decide to seek it at a poker table. It is the rules which define the game which attract me. Chaos arrives in random cards along with the faces and words, but these are navigated easily enough.

I gaze at the men, anticipation brightening their tired eyes, sitting around the clean, felted table, seeing various cultures shaped into the color and curve of their faces - Asian, Indian, Spanish, European, American, all are seeking solace here, but for varied reasons. I doubt I am the only one who comes not for potential monetary gain, but rather grasping for an odd sense of fulfullment through the discovery of a world where correct decisions and noble ambitions are rewarded with a peaceful mind and a quiet heart. I have learned that to accept the cards and the faces which are delivered to this morning, church-like room, will bring, if only for a few moments, meaning and happiness, a potential Toaist lesson dealt with every hand.

Luck or bad luck arises from the attitudes and reflections of my mind. As the cards arrive and leave, I experience a wide range of images and colors, pushing away fear, greed, anger, as I would a poor hand into the muck. Even with a set of rules in place, each moment allows for a foolish act or word to pass from me to the table. If I remain silent too long, throw every hand away, the faces which gaze upon me will make note. It occurs to me that I could be dealt weak cards for an eternity, it is within the range of possibility, but as likely as flipping a coin which comes up heads forever. Perhaps every person at the table hates the sight of me. I check myself and find no hatred for the faces which surround me. I look at my cards, throw them away. I say nothing. As the game continues to be shuffled and dealt, words are exchanged, which are hazards to my freedom. A single response leads to another, and expectations soon arise. To remain unaffected and free, I push the closeness of the words and people away. I imagine this to be the point where the hatred begins - am I too good to speak, to become part of the group?

My thoughts are interupted by the arrival of an ace and a king. I am required to act differently from the past, and the men will watch closely as I do. I feel my pulse quicken, a sign that danger has approached and is following along like a purple shadow. “When surrounded by people act as if you are alone in a field”. I breathe, seeing trees and sky. Birds fly quickly with grace through tangles of branches. Fear is absent as I feel with slow moving fingers the smoothness of the round chips. Instead of raising, I simply push the minimum amount past the line on the table, nevertheless, it is still an action which is closely observed. A talkative man who is on the button announces confidently that he is raising. I look at his face and sense that he will soon attemt to intimidate me, but he has little chance because fear is nowhere inside my heart. I think about my ability to correctly read the emotions and desires in another, and wonder if he instead could be holding two jacks. The man in the big blind calls, and I am again required to act. I sense the confidence in my heart rising like a morning sun. I consider raising. Should I push all in? I breathe and decide not to act quickly. All of my future cards could be trash, so this may be the only important decision I will be required to make. I decide to call, and wait for the cards which the dealer will bring to the table. They come, and I see an Ace. With alarming immediacy the man in the big blind announces he is all in. I straighten my back so that I can breathe deeply. I don't look at the man's face, or anything else. In this moment of stress I seek my intuition and the clues inside my heart, attempting to get a sense of what just happened, and what the correct response is to be - I am searching for the truth. A simple yes or no question repeats - does he have a better hand than me? Other questions surface - would he push all in with a single pair? Does he have two pair, or a set? Is he on a draw? All I have is one pair, but it is the best possible one pair - not great, not bad. I continue to seek and an image comes into focus that I have a better chance of winning than losing, and although it is against logic to call, I do so anyways. The man on the button says “oh well” and mucks his cards, and the man in the big blind turns over one pair of Aces, with a 5 kicker. I show him my Ace and King and am surprised by his graciousness as he sincerely nods his head and says “nice hand”.

As I move away from the completed tournament, $550 clutched inside my hand, I am already missing the rules of the game. My legs are weak from sitting at the cramped table, and I feel a desire for food. Outside the hall, walking alone in the achingly bright desert sunlight, the sky cloudless and blue, images of faces, cards, emotions, mix with my immersion into solitude. There is no need to talk, the chaos has returned, and I am free.

Lost - A Poem to Bangkok

I have returned to Bangkok, a city which I know nothing about. Knowing nothing, I feel the freshness, wonder, awe, the smallest things having a significance which fades under the scrutiny of a bulky knowledge which grows day by day. The time to wander the streets is now, before the sin of knowing clouds my eyes and jades my heart.

I walk along Rama IV, seeing things which make my memory jump. A restaurant sign, a bus bench where a man had slept with his arm twisted into his bicycle, a mangy dog roaming the same small patch of white bedazzled concrete. My aim is to wander streets which I do not know the names of, to arrive with a body which is not my own, wondering about a planet which may or may not be earth.

The MRT station is nearby, I am looking forward to shedding the afternoon heat in the cool and dark subterranean tunnels. I walk in, a security guard looks passively at my bag before waving me through. I buy a token from the self serve machine, press the black plastic disk on the shining metal gate and walk down a flight of stairs to the platform. The cold yellowish light makes me squint and I feel exposed. I stand beside a shiny tiled wall to remove myself from the gaze of unseen eyes. I can't stop my own self from gazing, the passing moments becoming more significant in ways which are just beyond my understanding, and this makes me want to look at things and people which are raw and exposed in this anonymous tunnel.

The beauty of time is coming on, I crave the sense of it, a world resembling a panorama painting altered with every glance and tug. What do others see, are they wondering about love and beauty and the pulse of their lives? I sense the peculiar plight of existence, everyone living inside their own station of time, and I wonder - does anyone else pull the sublime beauty of it from an underground corner wall?

I can't escape the sexual charge of women, they forever lure me inside their red rooms of desire - greedily eyeing bare white legs, pink cheeks, full hips, shining black hair. My eyes pass to dull metal and stone and the patterns of light tacked onto surfaces. I remember there is a camera in my hand, such a wonderful thing, and the time inside this room can now be etched onto...something. Two people stand in the yellow gloom, there they are, close by, but their time cannot be touched or photographed. No one else is photographing, and I wonder what my own shade of time looks like, trapped and frozen. The train rolls into the station....

The train rolls and I am thinking of painters because life looks as if it is a clearly colored dream at the moment - sharp lines blending with light and I don't know if things are alive or if oiled paint is being squeezed upon my senses. My breath quickens for an instant when I see the thick, curved legs of a woman standing in the train. I use the camera to gather the time into my small hands - I close my eyes for a moment to concentrate upon her image, the erotic beauty washed and absorbed, reassembled - is her warm flesh to be touched and admired, or is it merely a yearning fantasy which is locked outside of time?

I want to stand up and photograph each sagging and deflated face in the car, intently look into their past and future, but I don't. I know they are real, they must be...

I am standing in an anonymous station, gazing at a map secured to a gray blue wall, wondering where to go. Although I desire the uncertainty of lostness, I can't rid myself of the desire to have a plan. I will ride another train, move deeper into this exotic dream city, but where to go?...

I ride an escalator, ahead of me is a figure in black which bends into the light, while a stream of blurred faces pass quickly down the other side. I make a photograph because it seems significant.

I am going to another train, this one above ground. I will alight at the Victory Monument because I like the name...

The train is packed tight, I give my seat to an old woman with missing teeth. I am in the midst of lostness, having untied my anchor to the known and familiar. Abandoned,spongy buildings pass, and I again think of Chicago. Poor folk living on the fringes in weedy streets enclosed by busted window warehouse lots, its fate sucking at the feet of rich flower gardens and perfected lawns of the sparkling tinted window washed skyscraping works of art...

Planless now as I gaze at Victory Monument and photograph it.

The heat and intense light make me squint, invisible sweat beads forming on my neck. Four months ago I stood on this same platform, wondering where to throw my empty water bottle. Bangkok does not have many public trash cans, yet somehow the city remains clean. I carried my full pack, the heat and vastness of strange streets a burden. Later in the day I jumped a train to Chiang Mai, a swift and painless escape, but today is different. I have a small pack, the heat does not seem so terrible, and I aim fearlessly for the center of nothingness. I make more photographs, looking out from the platform to the street below. My mind brings forth images from twenty years ago, where I stand on a train platform in Chicago, camera hanging from neck, gazing into the gray and black markings of a rain slicked Wells Street. I become nostalgic - how did I come so far, travel so long - shouldn't I be exploring some other planet? I remember the picture of a man with bulky gray hat, moist cigar held arrogantly with sharpened fingers, walking like a god among steel beams and mortals. At the top of the picture a woman with white shoes comes on fast but she never makes it, her face forever lost. I connect that picture with the woman I met on a commuter train a few weeks later. She was in her 50's, alone and apart like myself. After talking we decided to see a film together at the Art Institute, an Italian black and white story made years ago. As we watched, our eyes distracted with autumn musings, the purple heaviness of the theater shadows eroded our separateness and for a few moments in the flickering electric twilight we were beautiful and happy. Later, walking on the long bridge under a cold and gray late October sky, Grant Park laid out like a banquet meal below, she asked "have you ever sold a photograph?" Shame crept quickly along my chilled skin as I struggled to explain that the pictures were somehow alive, taking up space like a dull stone, and what did it matter if nobody liked them? Much later the man with arrogant fingers holding the moist cigar would hang on an obscure Swiss gallery wall, bought like a pack of gum or jug of milk. I am taken away from my memories by movement below - buses, scooters, people, all on the move, reminding me that I too should be moving...

I walk down the station steps and find myself a part of something which until now I did not belong to. Light scatters and chases a three legged dog, a sour expression, a bag balanced atop a graying head - it settles into me and I swat it away like an unwanted fly. A row of buses stand idle and I decide to board one the color of rusty lime. The driver gives me a quizzing glance as I approach with hesitant steps, searching for my place among silent strangers. I stand beside a large window and gaze out into the yellow Bangkok heat. A man in a blue uniform moves to the center of the bus and opens a book of photographs. I listen to the words, a musical plea without pause. I glance quickly at a page of his picture book and turn away at once when I see the body and face of a deformed child laying bloody on a bed. A woman sitting nearby gives the man a look of skeptical scorn and I deduce that he will gather no sympathy, but as he approaches each passenger languid hands drop notes and coins into his purse. The bus throttles forward and the man and his book disappear into the white light. A man, his mouth covered in a blue mesh mask, stops beside me and asks for the fare. I hope, perhaps in vain, that the bus is traveling in the direction of the river, whose name I cannot remember. "Going to river", I say, and he does not understand. "River boat ride", and he nods, but my impression is he is as confused as I am as he hands me a red square of paper after I give him a 10 baht coin. The bus rolls and stops, people stepping on and off. The river is in sight - ! - it is wider than I had imagined, brown and muddy, a Buddhist version of the Mighty Mississippi. I exit and wander along in a neighborhood which reminds me of Buffalo, NY, dusty, faded, and tourist-less. I am lost, but I know where the river is, and my feet turn toward it...