Excerpt
The Rake's Progress I borrow De Quincey's Confessionsof an Opium Eater, the aforementionedan account of that singularOriental vice,whereupon misplacing the volumein transitfrom the checkpoint, I attemptto capsulizethe book's misadventures only tosuffer taciturnityon the part of the staff until,the duplicityof a continued numbers game inChinese wearingthin and with lassitude similar tothe opium habit,the Chief Librarian, a girl herselfof Eastern domesticitygreets my queries with hushed tonesand solemnity akin toa leering Siamese or bedriddenCheshire cat.
Regalia If the rich are differentthey show it with theclarity of their tableas Fitzgerald decried,the breathless hushof their garden regalias,the manner in which wedgewoodcrystal are cleaned to apolished exactness--the shimmer of expensive chinano less repetitive thanthe hulking boyswaiting in window stops,monsoon rain peltingthe upper Punjab plains.
Desire Sleep is a striking womanaccosted by various menwhile in a dance;the warring desires thuspresent themselves as ona battlefield--hunger comes arrayed withred plumes to befithis appetites,sensuality somewhatdecked out as a dandyin a mauve waistcoatand, of course, there isFear, the most thwartedof the suitors, bejewelled with aflashing sabre, rattling it fromthe tail of his skinny stick horse,the pale charger ridingto intercept the beautiful courtesanSleepbestowing her favours illicitlywherein she would but choose.
Pondicherry Chess pieces resting upon the jademantle piecesee sampans move quietlythru warm night,rich bundles of bougainvilleacrowd market squareswhere deck chairs extendto the Persian Gulf.Leisured gentlemenfinger walking canes,hold eyelids thick as goblets,sharp tridents beside private lairs.Skin in puffy whiteness bulges underlamp's white glare, becomes copragatheredmiles from Pondicherry, sesame oilin rotting casks.And the Indian heat, closing withcertitudeakin to the trance of the snakecharmer,holds his flute poised with theBengali lancerriding a slow crop over the prostratepolo ball.
Mangroves How do you survivein the mangrove swamps--amid the twitchings of foetid water& lice thick as baby tears?How, with all the wallow of thick muckmaking suction noises and the teams inrelayssearching nightly with baited hounds,do you pull free?Your bamboo pole knows every ploybut a slender craft ill-equippedto sparring blows from every quarterthe undergrowth necessitates.The closeness of the clammy nightheaved about like so much rottingfruit will drawthe ants ... devouring like thatabundance of cold yellow eye--the firefly swarms that mock yourheavy steel machete arm.Across the drift of darknessand the insect lifeyou bat in swarms,the ultimate danger is not in thecayman giantor his reptilian cousin named ofcopper wire,the anaconda, or even mindless holes,thick blackooze that throttles a victim ... buttwo legged form coming,searching ......