Jim McCrary


Trip in Trip out

To go away is a big step and this is one of them

Carrying something just for the weight of it can bog down
Even the longest line and then jump from here to there

Climb steps to wear one down and the other out
Landing just to walk to another country and still not /here/

Where ever it is catches up and sleep wakes the lets go see
Desire for a slight trip to a higher place then this

So better have flown and lived than not and before any
Backwards thoughts collect take a break for lunch

De-training just to say it no matter the accent or lingo
Just to say it brings fortune to one who has taken many a step

Walking and now again looking just for a night
Along this river in this city and on this street

For all its romance still hard to deny
Scooter dreams where pink Hello Kitty rules on the road

Not quite standing still to feel both the hot
Trade in silk and pomme frites each an other delight

Why not grab the tall one and knock it back
Seems to be the thing to do in all this mid day

Or find a fan to lie in front of either way
The thing that moves around until a short time is lost

Wake up and ask anyone and they will tell you
“It’s over there” and in a slightly familiar way it will appear

There is something to going along
Along with who ever shows up even necessary perhaps

Trust is not even noticed
Here are two guys in flip flops ball caps and a boat

We say take us to Pakse
Well maybe not that easy no wait

Take us to Champasak
Down the river if you don’t mind

Changing one small bit of direction
More trust than before you just get in and go

Past what seems nothing except
Some green and brown horizontal almost dozing

Surrounded by bamboo and a
Huge lack of ducks then more doze

Again and again
This thing could sink do they or not

Are we there… are those craters (?)
How old is this anyway

Everyone fishing but nobody holding fish
There is a lot of green bank

There are numbers but no signs
Who’s running this boat

The concept of along a big river
And alone on a big river

These guys switch at ease
They walk around us so we doze again

You have too…it is that easy
“I just want a Mekong kat with a Mekong hat.”

What you see isn’t possible is it
Wats around the next bend

Another bend
This is an amazing act

We give them us and say
Take us away and amaze us too

They can just stop
To pick you up it never fails

Or let you off over there
Which is universal and an idea too

Take our life and put us over there
Up there too …we want to go up there

And we cannot point it is not a local thing
however there are a lot of those

We want to get somewhere without knowing
how to say that again and again

It is honorable and renewable
Going slow in the middle of a big river

Again it is whats on the bank
Green as corn or so it seems

We will wake up and we will be somewhere
Else the river is not real or this is

So many steps to find a place
To land jumping up or out or jumping over

Carrying something heavy just to
Have it with you then the boat leaves

You gotta wonder where
And just then here IS the Mekong kat

The long nite has come we go in
another direction and come to a place

Really has been around a block
It demands something in return for sure

And seems to be looked after
With a great deal of quiet

Perhaps that is why it is Mekong
Or so some say

Maybe staring becomes more than
just a way of looking across that river


Which seems to be picking up speed








Jim McCrary lives in Lawrence, Ks. His latest book, All That was published by Crag Hill’s ManyPenny Press in 2008 & is available here. He writes on his blog Resisting Poetry.


McCrary on Mekong, near Campasek, Laos, Jan. 2009.
 
 
 
 
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