Portrait in Ash
In summer, sweet crushed ice, and crickets pulsing through the night.
Brake lights, and always the blurred memory of nicotine.
I recall running through the glow, laughing, fingers splayed forward,
and the ensuing sharp admonishment.
Steel, flint and spark. Blackened linings and diminishment.
How many washings must one endure to accept an indelible soiling?
In retrospect, your body still resists.
Lovely smoke uncoiling towards the moon, residue of impurities
and substance. Desire, freed and returning.
You dwell underground. I gaze at the cloud-marred sky.
* * *
“Portrait in Ash” appears in Interval’s Night, a mini-digital chapbook, available for free download from Platypus Press.
O at the Edges 
Some memories will always be with us even after the source is gone! Great poem!!
Dwight
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So true, Dwight. Thank you.
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Your poem inspired me to do a spin off on the memory of smells in our life. I will post this evening. Thanks.
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Glad to be of service. š
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Really nice!
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Thank you, Daniel.
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You are a master. There is only One who can write Hai-kaji-bun and it is you! š
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Ha! Right now I’m more interested in a hot-dog-bun. I’m hungry!
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Ironically, the best hotdog I have ever eaten was in Reykjavik (Iceland), a fishing city, and the worst thing I have ever eaten was kƦstur hĆ”karl, rotten (“fermented”) shark meat… in the same city… a fishing city!
Bon appƩtit!
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Mine was a chili dog from a stand outside the J.C. Penney store in Barstow, California. I was ten years old and my dad bought us these glorious, messy, delicious dogs. š
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Best (mango) mousse ever? On a KoreanAir flight! Best lasagna? On an IcelandAir flight! No joke.
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The first time I ate Chinese food was in Italy. I have no idea how good it was, but I probably would have preferred spaghetti carbonara or pasta fagioli. Years later I had a tasty tortellini dish in Hong Kong…
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You never know where you will encounter culinary greatness. But speaking of China…to this day the single most profound food moment I have ever had was eating Peking duck in Peking (Beijing) at Fangshan restaurant (the one off of Guangchang and Xindalu across from Tiananmen Square). It specializes in old Imperial dishes and their duck was so delicious the experience bordered on orgasmic.
They use hot air blown between the skin and the underlying meat to keep the dish both crisp and dripping with fat. Oh my god, sensei, you can’t imagine how cosmically delicious it is until you try it. I also ordered these amazing black mushrooms and washed it all down with a cold Tsingtao.
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Very poignant poem.
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Thank you very much.
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Brilliant!
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Thanks, Afzal. Much appreciated.
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Beautiful and, I agree, poignant.
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Thank you very much.
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I think I need a cigarette now… š Wonderful, as always.
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Cough. Thank you.
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That probably came off wrong! Ah well…
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Ha! I knew what you meant. š
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lovely stuff Robert. no indelible soiling here.
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Thanks, Daniel. Of course I read “inedible” soiling, which spun me towards another dimension…
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Absolutely stunning–thank you for your writing.
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Thank you for reading! And commenting.
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This is thought provoking and profound
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Thanks very much, Rob.
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Great poem, yeah thought provoking!
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Thank you, Jerry!
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This is so beautiful, thank you for sharing your memories in such a creative way…as I read it sent me back in time to think of my own younger days and remember sounds, smells and images long long forgotten! This is the power of our poems…to ignite and reunite readers like me with my own lost inner past!
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Thank you, Jill. I’m often struck at how powerfully senses affect memory. An odor in the breeze can transport me thirty years and thousands of miles away.
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Most welcome Robert, So powerful indeed…Scent alone can conjour and trigger so much…&It’s one of our earliest memories of sensory experience though…the first gasp of air is usually followed by breathing through our nostrils the moment we are born…before we even open our eyes…imagine the scent…wow…again..you push my thoughts further as I reply! We are more than what we see,feel,hear and touch…so much more!! š Thanks again…more word food for thought!
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I agree – we are most definitely much more!
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^Power of your poems…rather!
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š
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Superb, poem and image!
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