Read Online The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje - Free Book Online Page A

through
                   stunned lost
    having drunk our way
    up vineyards
    and then Hot Springs
    boiling out the drunkenness
    What were the names
    I slept through
                   my head
    on your thigh
    hundreds of miles
    of blackness entering the car
                             All this
                             darkness and stars
    but now
    under the Napa Valley night
    a star arch of dashboard
    the ripe grape moon
    we are together
    and I love this muscle
    I love this muscle
    that tenses
                   and joins
    the accelerator
    to my cheek
    *

(The linguistic war between men and women)
    And sometimes
    I think
    women in novels are too
    controlled by the adverb.
    As they depart
    a perfume of description
    ‘She rose from the table
    and left her shoe
    behind,
casually
’
    ‘Let’s keep our minds
    clear, she said drunkenly,’
    the print hardly dry
    on words like that
    My problem tonight
    is this landscape.
    Like the Sanskrit lover
    who sees breasts in the high clouds,
    testicles on the riverbed
    (‘The soldiers left their balls
    behind, crossing into Bangalore
    she said, mournfully’)
    Every leaf bends
    I can put my hand
    into various hollows, the dogs
    lick their way up the ditch
    swallow the scent
    of whatever they eat
    Always
wanted to own
    a movie theatre
    called ‘The Moonlight’
    What’s playing at
The Moonlight
    she asked
    leafily
    Men never trail away.
    They sweat adjective.
    ‘She fell into
    his unexpected arms.’
    He mixes a ‘devious’ drink.
    He spills his maddened seed
    onto the lettuce—
    *

(Real life)
    In real life
    men talk about art
    women judge men
    In the Queen Street tavern
    3 p.m. the only one busy
    is the waitress
    who reads a book a day
    Hour of the afternoon soaps
    Accusations
    which hide the trap
    door of tomorrow’s guilt.
    Men bursting into bedrooms
    out of restaurants.
    Everyone talks on phones
    to the lover’s brother
    or the husband’s mistress
    My second beer
    my fifth cigarette
    the only thing more
    confusing venomous
    than real life
    is this hour of the soaps
    where nobody smokes
    and nobody talks about art
    I’ve woken in thick
    households
    all my life
    but can nightmare myself
    into this future—
    last spring I sat here
    Sunday Morning
    as bachelor drunks
    came in, eyes
    in prayer to the Billy Graham Show
    The pastel bar
    grey colours of the tv
    this is where people come
    after the second failure of redemption
    Ramon Fernandez,
                             tell me
    what port you
    bought that tattoo
             *
    Midnight dinner at the
Vesta Lunch
    Here there is nothing
    I have taken from you
    so I begin with memory
    as old songs do
                             in this café
    against the night
    in this villa refrain
    where we collect the fragment
    no longer near us
    to make ourselves whole
                             your bright eyes
    in a greek bar, the way
    you wear your hat
             *
    I have always
    been afflicted
    by angular
    small breasted
    women
    from the mid-west,
    knew this was true
    the minute I met you
             *
    Repetition of midnight
    Every creature doth sleep
    But us
    and the fanatics
                   I want
    the roulette of the lightning bolt
    to decide all
    On this suburban street
    the skate-boarder rolls
    surrounded by the seeming
    hiss of electricity
                             unlit
    I see him through the trees
    up Ptarmigan
                   a thick sweater
    for the late September night
    I am unable to make anything of this
    who are these words for
    Even the dog
    curls