word of the day — ‘furo’

furo, n.

In Japan: (originally) a steam bath or bathhouse (in later use) = ofuro

<< To every house of any pretension to respectability there is attached an apartment called a ‘Fro’, which is fitted up with vapour-baths, and with warm and cold baths. >>

<< The bath (furo) is a pretty deep wooden tub…At its sharper end projects a small sheet-iron flue, which is connected below with a small fire apparatus, and is employed to heat the surrounding water. >>

The bath or bathhouse is traditionally a place of relaxation or entertainment in Japanese culture; Western businessmen, coming in their wooden ships and laughing in their forbidden cities — taken to a beautiful wooden inn, with warm baths — East India Company Factors — smiling faces, inscrutable Easterners, swift sunrise, close your eyes and like it — water wet, eyes tightly closed — upside down and wrongways, but the lifeforce is strong and insatiable — unyielding compulsion / boy smiles, naturally / strangeness for me, normal for him // M. Butterfly. Business done above the table, business done below it // San Francisco a colony of the Sunrise Lands, but place of our sunclipse, where the world spins out of light’s gaze, hiding, darkness // no more darkness, Stonewall riots, is it anywonder that they, the Wildeans, the men who love men, soldier-brothers, is it any wonder they have gone to old stagehouses and playhouses, to put on masks and faces and wigs and dresses, to dance and sing of falsehoods learned through three thousand years of being called an aberration — Old Father John Wesley said it, called it Abomination, but clearly, just one dial out of many, paraphiliac velvet undergroundsome, come with me to the baths, they say, crazily, chemicle lustpaths lit up by fire, hunter becomes hunted, now I am pursued, curly haired and thin occassionally I get looks — it is not for me, I’m far to shy, happy with my S.Q.S.O. — but willnot cannot pass judgment, pleasure, fun and pleasure, secret rooms, secret baths, conversations over saki —

what, a girl then, a girl to conclude business with, whatever you wish whiteman from sunset lands, whistling while the world moves on, here, is she pretty, is she young, take her to the baths and let her clean you —

almost did it — denial of own humanity that — distance from myself, my mindself, driven mad by clean soap smells on lovely softflesh — slaves to the priapic tyrant, the urge, the itch, reminds us that we are not angels, but men, with knees that bend —

Advertisement