In Japanese art, there are depictions of a world of perfume and subtle orgies. A sakurascape full of painted women, white faces and ornate obis. A pleasure dome to which the luxurious chain themselves, a nothingness in which they luxuriate. Not a crimson is out of place, carved carefully and falsely on thin lips. Not a stir among the leaves. Not a hair is frizzy or wayfaring. Have I, I wonder, been a resident of this 'abode'?
Pleasure, real pleasure can be felt only after pain. From pain. But a floater of the world cannot feel, can see, see, see without a strike to the chest, without the freeing of cogs heavy as muddy boots branded like horse hooves, burnt and aching from a red-yellow flame. The eye can see farther if you let it, but you won't because you're afraid. Tough bonds are braided from many many strings of rope. A single string if only you see and feel, is not sight or touch, nothing in compare.
The floating world is fashioned out of images and angles and shades. It is not a creation but an illusion beneath which is the colour darkish grey. Fog not blood holds it aloft. Like clouds which look solid but are droplets of water vaporized, the world of a thin mind floats and never settles into an emotion. Have I been plagued by a beauty which is a smudge upon the real, I wonder...
