THE HOUND I WATCH IS TETHERED BY A CHAIN TO A FENCEPOST MADE OF STEEL

151. THE HOUND I WATCH IS TETHERED BY A CHAIN TO A FENCEPOST MADE OF STEEL:

When things start to accumulate that's when they get onerous - you're looking at maps let's say so as to find position or direction you're tracing the river's path to see where it would take you - whether Port Jervis or Callicoon or just dumping out the old Hudson's mouth it wouldn't really matter and the Delaware would do just as well (if I was only able to learn Philadelphia) but there's no one to ask about anything because now they're all newcomers anyway and they really don't know a thing : marvelous mosaic and all of that crap : so we walk half-blindly into things along the way - looking at the fire stations where the new crop of pumpers are or we're walking past smoke-shops which now have to advertise what it is they do because no one really any longer understands or we pass the ten thousandth Korean Nail Shop of the day and wonder what genetic pool brings forth such people with whatever talent it is they brag of - polishing nails and coloring fingers cleaning toes and sanding ankles for whatever purpose it's all done - and nothing is found to mention or speak about anyway so the entire world seems silent except but for the noises certain things make on their own - the essences of traffic and industry the chatter of people and the hum of silently-passing transport units like ghost-dreams in a daylight's dark but all of that goes into reflected glories of cities and places like them where windows throw back light and the passing day and all its clouds and shadings are seen again in some reverse image almost the same but not quite and the braying hound I watch is tethered by a chain to a fencepost made of steel while inside some store nearby its lazing master mingles amidst the cobwebs of fruit and pastry or grain and tea (for that's the sort of things these urbanites always buy) and the modern day hurts like a lumber to the head : pencil-men playing cheesy stickball between two streets and three kids picking up a dead bird to inspect the carcass of what they don't know LIFE and all its attributes while some taxi driver pisses between two buildings at the alley's back-curve where the oily tires are piled - no one notices no one says a word and life just moves itself for that moment out of the way - the street's been torn up greatly and deep and I inspect the layers of time and age in the strips of macadams and bricks and stones the roadway was once composed of and the multi-faceted past shows back from below the street - some solemn story no one notices nor understands and it's all again mute and strange like some sullen story from another time and place (I wonder of the horses and look for their feet) but nothing like that comes for for this 'new' day has bankrupted all else.