once

i rode on an aeroplane a wheezing creaking wooden thing with brass gears wings like a bat that flapped in manic delight as the pilot pedalled furiously

a small man, no more than a foot tall, tossed coal into the furnace that belched black smoke as the hot air inflated large sacks sewn from the guts of whales

it was brisk in the land far below us, propped as it is on dishes resting carefully on the stomachs of sloths hanging lazily from the great branches of yggdrasil

i had no where to be and hardly anytime to get there so caught up in the machinations of man and machine of which, in a previous life, i had welcomed in haste

once