NORMAN DUBIE | The Book of Crying Kanglings

ONE

                        I.
                                           — in routine packet.

Dear Kirsna:               yes, I saw your dream last night
through that fair blue of the eyes
of your Siamese kitten. You were happily
riding the stormy seas in the Bay of Bengal
in a wicker thumb-print
plugged with black goat hair and candle wax.

A man in the sheerest of blouses, the blue of this moving sea,
smiles while he passes you —
he's walking over the water. His brother was near,
involved in the same siddhi.
They are your lost cousins, I think?

You should feel safe there in Virginia. The earth
has a very gentle breast.
If you study your Uncle Ekajati's transcripts
you'll find mention of 'the seven hills'
of a late coastal Mound-culture?
They are the local palas
you should feed cake to . . .      they are
the only ceremony of healing.

You are ten now, and no longer a small boy.
There are much younger cadets in the Academy
and you should be assisting them in your loneliness.

You will only dream of the fire on Cottonpet Street
for another six months, at the worst. And then
your body chemistry
will change more than your dreams,
and you will be at peace about the fire
and the death of your parents . . .

So, as of the last full moon you've legally been my son.
I have the papers from the Delhi court. And yes,
you should feel strange, for you were my mother
in your last life. But now, here,
you are the boy Kirsna.

That is enough to worry about.

I've left my cave. I am staying in a hut
that was a cholera checkpoint
at the turn of the century here, on the border of Ladakh.
I've agreed
to work as an oracle for these five villages. By ancestry,
I am the Madame of Achi.

Listen, K., you should call me
whatever you're comfortable with.
Mother is acceptable, but not
the greatly familiar, L'urze.

Your uncle was a great eccentric. Yes,
he and his friend, Georg X.,
are the two most frightening deputies

of the innermost assembly
of blue and red dakinis, respectfully.
That is to say, in the affliction of speech
that visited my childhood —    Georg X.
is the red. We love your uncle and, yes,
he will protect you. But, please, remember
that when he is human
it is the strangest adventure — for example,

in opening the Dza Obum he canceled his friend Alfred
and the entire universe Plaget.

He found me irritable about this? He would tell you
that the 111 lotus births in that lost universe
balanced the damage I did in the star cluster LXT.

Gender is just like gasoline. Make of it what you will.

Now that I've been given treasure
here in Ladakh — in particular, an oboe,
one thigh-bone kangling,
                                       a human bone with diamonds
virtually wrapped in silver, female knuckle-skulls
dimpling their moon . . .    Now

that I'm on the payroll as a terrible hill oracle
I will have to mend my ways
with regard to men.
Sometimes I think they are nothing but a superstition
in the same tradition as the testicles
of the extinct white rhinoceros. But
the neighboring Bon witch
actually gave me a taste of that stuff this last winter —
I flew, adorned in foxglove —

I've got to remember who's listening. I'm sorry Kirsna . . .
Your uncle and Georg X. are difficult to ponder —
If they were fish in your mindstream,

your string would not reach them. You would need
drunken box turtles for bait,
and when they broke the water to greet you,
their presence would be like land itself.

I know that you don't understand 'the great coffins.' Or reports
of my last Black Ovum.
You are too young for these subjects.

But about your uncle's artifacts:            the Keet
left sacred scripts of great sleep —      for purposes
of creation, or destruction —
and this category of Dza is called the 'Obum.'
They are very powerful.

Now, 'an attraction script'
released by an immature dakini, or a checkered naga,
is not such a big deal; though
it can disturb the lives of billions of people, say,
across a whole star cluster. But they recover
after several generations. I like a freshening of view.
You must also, Kirsna?
How are the new slippers I sent you?

Like any self-respecting, bread winning oracle
I must go out now and wander in the mist
to be seen if possible, and to scream like a horse
so the children will have a perfect sleep. Love.  Mum.

P.S.: Yes, I believe your uncle was poisoned
by Jane Talbout. She sat, there in the rocky Scotias,
resenting her son and your uncle.
But, of course, he must have known. It was
his exit, of that you can be certain.
The old leachings of morning-glory for strychnine?
Probably? Though
all of her sons are poets or chemists. Odd, isn't it?

                        II.
                                       (.1/.1 fibes.)

Dear Kirsna:            Aunt Laura has sent the white pine
pencilbox that you wanted for your geometry studies.

Now, you are too curious about these
scripts:
                    there are the Obums: the field scripts
like LXT: and, yes, then there is a very localized stinger
that visited your uncle at space station WGYN —
it's as if
it originated with a cupid! Most 'potions'
are not interesting, are just ornate foldings in karma.
Yet, of course, K., all karma is infallible

and streams geometrically from chaos!
Its signature
seems human, but isn't. Chaos

is the daughter who has no father, but
desires one. Order
is the son who has a mother
but desires another, and
another . . .

This is all the akashic Assayist's nightmare.
Let us forget it.

There are nesting doves out
by the kerosene, below my window —
I'm very excited about them. Yesterday
was the anniversary of my death. And
I swear, more of those yetis left wildflowers
at my door again. Finally, I was quite happy about it.
I should be pleased with their attention.

It's just, Kirsna, if it continues, and they become
more populous in the meadow above my shack,
I'll soon have to deal
with those loathsome Italian journalists.

All their lucent cubes and clamoring.
I'd shoot them —
or put a henbane hash in their gas tanks.

Oh, Kirsna, your mother's just been blistering all day
having confused, not willfully, my Hevajra totem
this morning. Second and fifth cakras!
I do believe I'm aging, like your uncle. That sad
wonderful Ekajati.
Love.          The Madame of Achi.

Post Script:
I know you worry about death —     anger is the shifting
birth of fear. Let go of it. Your uncle
said that the Bardo just waits for us
like a lit pinball machine,
all rubber flibber and rose bank,
attracting the mirthing bone of the pelvis. Just
what did he mean by that? Oh, I suppose
the Bardo's collusions of color, skull mala,

fangs, red lariat
or the great mace? Just say your prayers, Kirsna,
to Black Coat —

ask for emptiness and a centering peace.

                        III.

Dear Mother:         I have a confession to make.
The cadet, Theodore,
whose father was the ambassador to extanting Morocco —
well, he brought a package
back from his visit to North Europe.

It was a gift from his older brother.
Samuel and I, and later Todd,
visited Theodore when he was opening
this box. It contained
the nest of a sparrow-hawk that had been blown and lacquered;
almost fossilized on the bottom
of it was the fetus of an albino rabbit,

and beside that was an aluminum foil wrap
of a fresh chocolate hashish. We went out to the barns
and each of us smoked a little of it. I think, mother,

it liberated Theodore
who described his aunt landing her pink magnum-Cessna
on the stormy North Sea. How he peed his pants
while it was happening. He laughed
and laughed. Finally I became quiet and sad.
I went into the orchards

and watched the sun set. Over the river
these white vapors gathered into the shape of a man
who I recognized as the Septaguant.
He came physically forward to meet me
and made a speech about his young ward
who is, surprisingly,
my friend Samuel. He said we must do our very best work

in the dreaded middle sciences, or
we would find ourselves dead in a foreign war —
furthermore, in a mustard field, mother,
surrounded by a dozen white tigers in harness
who are also dead or dying.

There were two suns on the horizon

and the Septaguant
became sad, saying he was already lost
in the recent Glancing Excursion on Jupiter. That
there would be no cables.

Mother, all of this has left me quite frightened
and I've mentioned it to no one for two weeks.
But you must tell me what to do.

Samuel doesn't even know
that his father's involved with a Jupiter mission.
Perhaps he isn't. I didn't like this drug.
It gave me gas, and my heart raced for hours.

Love.        Kirsna.

P.S.:
Listening to Lord Septaguant 's speech
I realized he was once, in some way, a friend
to our uncle Ekajati. And yet,
I don't believe that's possible? Do they have Karma Pakshi
in common?

The slippers you sent me are primitive
but soft. Such a wonderful blue. Love, and thank you.

                        IV.
                                  — in dual spledum.

Kirsna:        I dislike your dead white tigers even more
than I dislike your chatting
with the great High Lord Septaguant.

Of course I don't know what this means.
I could put on a rotten rack of elk in velvet,
absolutely lousy with life and the collective
insomnias of a dozen hill shamans. I could
dance around in this little space
and strike my knee or take a splinter in my foot
and escort the mountain spirit, Elai,
into my flower garden . . .       Kirsna,

I could drop paraffin into a bowl of water
and mime the importance of your vision.
But I'm in white ovum. And a job's a job.
You'd better listen to your mother Khandro.

Stay clear of drugs, and focus on those middle sciences.
Never volunteer for anything. Refuse all conscriptions.
If you hear a drum and flute, flee to the basement,
live with the potatoes. By god,
you've written me with this frightening story
on my darkest moon. Kirsna, I love you dearly.

I'm not going to be a perfect mother. You want to hear
about my last vision:       Keet Sleets
with their long snouts, a
board pushing their temporal lobe plateaus
up into the medulla oblongata, brain stem, and that
fat garnet screwed to the back of the neck . . .

And what are they doing on their raised platform?
They're offering to the sun
your uncle's Dza Obum, which Klincton King
has just ripped from his mother's chest. They will
paint the bismuth rail with it. In the end, somehow,
it's a volcanic cinder.

Kirsna, you see my point. We have these gifts
for seeing things that aren't there.
And if we credit them all
we'll end up suffering
the insomnias of New Philadelphia . . . just have fun,
Child.

These great premonitions quickly return
to the unconscious, and gather battery there
and then much later are returned to us as stark reality,
la pomme d'terre. Many blessings.   The Khandro.

                        V.

Dear Mother:         I understand that you want
me not to be fearful. It's like uncle Ekajati said —
'in full lotus, the cannon breach spawning calla lilies,
with the crown ejection bringing that autumnal
morning light —     yes, then I'm unafraid.'

But later after the bowl of carrot stew,
in my bed listening to the wind and rain —
well, that is different. 'Someday, Urze-la,
you'll just walk around in the Mahamudra.'
I hope so, mother. I do love
the way he talked to you.

This girl I met from Norway, who's called Kaya,
is teaching me the cycles
of the I-Ching. It is bewildering.
She can be weird,
and then suddenly very pleasant again.
Her mother says she runs hot to cold. Like most everyone.

We walk out by the river and watch
the blue herons assault the fresh water mussels.

She's a second year cadet
and pretty much without friends.
I enjoy her stories. She says her grandmother
is a time-lord
of a red star fjörd . . .
that she has given birth to two daughters, one long poem,

and a vast, superior matrix of snow?

Kaya's grandmother salutes you, Khandro!

I will be happier soon, I know. And yes,
you may insist that I be brave . . .        but here
in loathing for the victory banners. Love.   Kirsna.

                        VI.
                                       — harvest moon, & spledum.

Dear Kirsna:           it's past the time when I should have
responded fully to your questions
about Lord Septaguant and the Karma Pakshi shint.
Because karma can fold infinitely, two events
that should be separated by thousands of years
can become, suddenly, contiguous
like New York and New Jersey. Ha.

Or two consequences of a single karmic action
may ripen distantly epochal from one another
simply because of their common origin? Ugh.

The vibratory signatures of karma
are stacked, 'inclusive and appositional.'
So a firestorm can cross a city
and leave three people living, and
for two of these three people, their survival
might be the worst luck. The remaining one
may be Jehovah himself. If

you put your mind to problems like this
it can be very dangerous. So mostly you must trust
your heart and stomach. And your gifts.

Karma Pakshi does figure
into the greatest federation that exists in the Kosmos.
It is the least discussed here on earth.
The Kamtshang federation had in the thirteenth century
the most remarkable emissary to earth

who was the second Karmapa, or Karma Pakshi,
He possessed miraculous powers
and succeeded in carrying the buddhadharma
deep into China, to the very court of the barbarian
Kublai Khan.

Today he is sometimes referred to
as the Mongka teacher. Uncle's old guru
was an aspect of the Mongka Shintling.
Now, the great Shint is too intense at the moment
to be very much present in our world.

Lord Septaguant was thinking of this
when he crossed the river to you.
But I can't speak of it further. And you
may not speak of it at all. So,

the K.P.S. does not have a secret handshake,
bake sales, or three-state lotteries. It is a lineage
of caring, whispering and possession.
For your purposes you can understand it
through recognition of the lives of those saints
that we associate with Karma Kagyu
Buddhism in Tibet,
but you've already guessed

that you and Samuel and Kaya
are suffering an acquaintance
which is, perhaps, not accidental. It is indeed
auspicious. And there is some danger.

But if you want my two cents on this, the
lord 'tin-pageant' expressed his fears to you
prematurely. God knows it is in his nature.
Perhaps it just reflects his affection for Samuel,
and so we pardon him.

If we're going to further discuss the impossible, Kirsna,
I would say that when we die,
we enter the Bardo.

We carry, for or against ourselves,
the akashic script of our past behavior
from this last life. We experience its full record — all the joy
and all the suffering we've caused ourselves and others —
with dreadful interest. Yes,
it's a little like a surveillance tape
but one that opens in five dimensions
within the cataract of a great body of falling water.

There is a kind of daylight.
This lamp of projection
is very sudden and very strong. Reconciled,
all this experience then signs itself
in a single vibration
which is added to, or subtracted from,
the signing vibration
of all your previous lifetimes. This new value,

or vibratory character, ends up defining
the attractions you suffer
in locating your next mother and father.
This is how it is on the wheel
without the teachings of an enlightened master
like the Christ or Lord Buddha. Though,

it is taught that with the benefit of an enlightened one
you may, while approaching the Bardo, accept refuge
in the paradise of a great bodhiset.

Now I say, let's play craps with the Shintling
and return to the wheel,
for the benefit of all sentient beings. Oh,

Kirsna, this talk gives me a headache.
But I guess it's sweet that you think of such things. And no,
I'm sorry to report that the yetis have all vanished.
Maybe we will hear of them again
after the winter. Love.   L'urze.

TWO

                                                       OM BEKANZE BEKANZE MAHA BEKANZE
                                                                                 RADZA SMUDGATE SOHA

                        VII.
                                           — in poor lading.

Dear L'urze Ei Ekajati:     we know enough
about your mysterious uncle,
Paul Ekajati, to want to speak with you here,
in New Philadelphia. We value your experience
as a 'talker & shifter.' There have been
disturbances beyond Jupiter
which we wish to describe fully.

However, now it is my sad duty to tell you
that your ward, Kirsna Camille Ekajati,
has disappeared from Old Union Seminary
along with two of his little friends,
Kaya Engström and Samuel Havens. These two issues,

the Jupiter perturbation and the errant children
are related. For your convenience
by early morning, we will have dispatched
a Cyclone to spirit pond #4, Ladakh.

You should sleep with your sonors
for several hours tonight in preparation for the Capital's
electrical cells, or brillo.

Could you possibly cable us some method for contacting
your uncle, Professor Ekajati?
Yours sincerely.
                            Commander Charles 'Kaling-Cross.

Post Script:                                      — Erratum Argon 1 —
L'urze, it's Nagarjuna Watts here,
and praise to you
for the champagne combustions
and all those black-lacquered boats
leaving our Kosmos. It must have been some party —

platters of minced reindeer meat from Stockholm,
the sperm casing of a giant squid with a mustard glazing
and all those old double bonds of scotch.

The Nepalese, in retreat, at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra
saw the fires all the way from the mountain.
That whole painting community in Woodstock
is doing well, and their patron, the woman Marjahn,
is still healing lepers. I think

you proably guessed, L'urze, that as I boy I suffered
all of the Shint's medical leafs and procedures.

There were moles on my back
that mixed the Striker's brain grid with a victory vase.
When my heart chakra stabilized,
they placed eleven of those gold nancy-gyroscopes
in the canal of my right ear.

There was a full year of migraines and nausea,
and shingles. Within two years of this procedure
and those early vows for the sleep-stage mahamudra,
I was able to begin channeling the bardo
with a full back-latch to one hundred and eleven dimensions.

So I am tacking all this very predictably
along the Ekajati's old intercessions,
but the damn latch continuously
brings the audio back to Alaska? You know that

with the collapse of a poor state bubble,
such as Argon, there're distortions
and a local phaxx might actually arrive
from the future as in a dream,
or, merely, as a surmise of indigestion.

K. has visions of you there, in Alaska,
harvesting birch sap
that is later boiled to syrup. He thinks
you've not contacted us for our own protection?

Or perhaps, there are some things you have forgotten
since walking out of those hell-drafts
in Manhattan. If this is it —
then I am your 'broken wharf!' Ha. Remember?

We did chöd practice together for a whole summer
and I brought you the box turtle.
I painted him in turquoise and coral!

One whole night we walked
along the Indus and you sang for me
the lyrics of the red Chöd apologia . . .

We made love that night
in the dilapidated Balkans' Icehouse. You changed
all the rats into white rabbits, and this rusted
water that dripped on us from above
became a delicious green elixir
which left me with my most unforgiving headache
of this lifetime. K.

misses you, of course, and is such a beautiful child.

The worst I can say of him
is that when he's sometimes charged
with housecleaning, and I am traveling, I do believe
he mobilizes dead untouchables
to scour, to sweep, and to sing

while he levitates at the sink, washing meticulously
all the porcelains I brought him from New Ceylon.

But he is a good kid.

I caught him smoking a green cigarette
in the late Spring. He was a bit sick
so I left it alone.
He's genuinely confused by all of this!

Watching the news yesterday,
a live transmission from Tel Aviv, we saw you
for a second. A Palestinian woman
with long, elaborately tattooed fingers; hair
dyed white, was lunging at the prime minister
with a great knife. Cataracts

of rainbow-colored water
in moving, lucid hinges came between them. Then,

the girl's hair stood on end, changing
to flames. All her sinew dried and withered.
She made an empty scream. Period.

We heard the horse-laughter
and then saw you there, dressed in white
beside the date palm that a storm had toppled
the night before. You waved to us,
and the boy began to cry. He senses

he will never be with you again.
He says to tell you that he believes
in all the Pakshi innocents
and in a future cornecia of a thousand years of peace.

He has dreamt of the dakinis and their canopy!

He sends full, unpardonable etceteras
of love and kisses to you, Khandro. Blessings.        Nagarjuna Watts.

                        VIII.

Dear L'urze Ei' Ekajati:      I am the grandmother of Kaya Engström
and I am writing to warn you
against any excursions you might be contemplating,
especially to the Capital.

The 'brillo' of the New Covenant
attacked your uncle; killed his father; and possibly
the brother Oslo. Who was your father?
I think I might persuade you
that Paul, the elder brother, was your actual
biological father.

When Ekajati was attacked in the Capital,
he merely released
through the vibration of a rainbow body,
leaving behind a mat of dark hair, the clear bone
of the septum, nails
and a gold tooth in need of polishing.

This gave the bastards something to think about!

His mother actually remains alive to this day
in an obscure convent near the East gate.
She appears to be quite crazy, but capable,
if you know what I mean.

The 'rupture' beyond Jupiter
does concern our children, for at last, the Shintling
is coming again to this universe.
After the female assemblies approved the decision,
there were sixteen months of organized rebellion
in New Philadelphia.

Now, finally, all agreements are sealed.

The seeming rupture
that began as a black geyser on the moon Io
is just the final ripening of that compact.

Preparations for this event
led to the 'brim light,' Universe Plaget,
and LXT catastrophes.

The Septaguant's Ward, Samuel Havens,
is our Chosen One.
Once, it was thought
that this personage was you, dear L'urze —

earlier in the century
I was being groomed for the same office

from the farthest assembly. I believe
I knew your uncle as a vagabond woodcutter
who had no shadow. Our two young ones
are the hatted attendants to the Haven's child.
Septaguant and your uncle

saved the tow-head Ward from the Wickle Ffee.
Your uncle choked the evil bastard
with an eleven-syllable mantra
which he loosened from his brow as a twelve-armed
white naga. It is this formula and its bank,
or visualization,
that they hope to extract from you in the Capital.

Come here to my snowfield instead. Bring your Chöd
gown and paraphernalia . . .

We'll make a circle, daughter,
and call the Ekajati
back to the company of daughters. But

you must come immediately —       there is still
danger for Kirsna and Kaya. If you doubt my calling

I should hasten to add
that you are twice born of the Lord Hayagriva,
and a glad company
he has made of it . . .       Mallus Engström.

P.S.:
I can meet you tomorrow
in your old rooms in Delhi at five.
Do wear your sonors when you sit tonight,
for my fjord is one of the original
omphali volt-locales on Earth . . .

                        IX.
                                    — in empty lading.

Darling L'urze:         it is your Tulku Arak here,
and I am in Delhi tomorrow. I'll meet you at the banisters
beside the Shrine of one hundred syllables.

You have an orange and black cat
that the yetis left you.
Put a little bell on its collar and bring her to me.
I will adore her, while you
are off in the red star snowfields
with the great Viking mother, Mallus.

My attendants, Sonam Detch and Gyurmey Tsultrim, are
translating for me so please
excuse our collaborative exuberance.

As a girl, Mallus was the broom attendant
to the Matka Boska. And she's right,
they did groom her to be the Chosen One.

Just like you, child.

Your uncle did well there, on the gravel plain,
despatching the Ffee and his sisters.
His heroic half-brother, the Septaguant,
gathering the tow-head into his vehicle . . .

The Ekajati has followed the Ffee to hell
and prays there with him for a semester
as if he were Moses. I fear

the old Dame is right about him being your father.
You were conceived there, in Laos,
in the Tiger Gardens.
It was the full moon of the Vernal Equinox.

The Yucatan was utterly destroyed that night
by hurricanes. A meteor shower over Siberia
attracted wolves to reindeer
in staggering numbers. In Moscow,
the Kremlin burned to the ground. There was a flood
in Damascus.

So, child, it was a confused
but robust beginning for you. We can well understand
how Paul and Marie
found this night so agreeable. This whole intrigue
is also a small, contributing karmic-patch
that visits the Ekajati now in the shadows
of Colchis.

He'll work it out, and the killing of the Ffee
somewhere within the next forty weeks.
I would love to meet your new friend, Mother Mallus.

You'll have a nosebleed tonight when you sit.

Please wear the sonors.
Do not sleep in the shack —
leave for Delhi at sunset. Butterlamps of etceteras.      Tulku Arak.

Post Script:
Listen carefully to the snow witch, for Marie's
karmic debt is loose here
with the little Kirsna, and the death of his parents
did not cover it. There is more danger for him
than for the other two children. When you first see him,
make your connection with him, and do not
be distracted.

Not by the dead whales, not by the aurora borealis . . .

I should conclude by confiding to you
that the Haven's boy
is acually a girl child of unusual experience,
and wisdom. Again,
a blue star kachina . . .

                        X.

Dear Mother Engström:   I have sent a stockgram to the Commander
'Kaling-Cross and declined his kind invitation
to our capital in New Philadelphia.

I will be in my apartments in Delhi tomorrow afternoon,
and a dear friend, Tulku Arak,
will accompany me. Do you own a red and black kitten
by any chance? If yes, bring it.

I salute you, mother.
                                   The Khandro of Sumstek.

                        XI.
                                   (.5/.9 kibes.)

Sister:          I have no such cat. I once met
Tulku Arak in Egypt. Kaya said that the lama asked
for a horse once from your family.
Now it is a checkered kitten?

These Tibetans are strange men,
very pleasing and friendly. I care deeply
for their sacred music. They are a brave people.
Their buttered tea is awful.

Tomorrow. The Mallus.

                        XII.

Dear Rinpoche:       I hope this cable
finds you well in Bhutan. So you're going to live there
with Canadians for a year. I am alone
here at Mallus's icehouse. It is very strange.

The whole place is built of blocks of ice,
the inside walls covered
with white furs, occasional
elaborate knots around a fat coral
or turquoise carbuncle.

There is a mosaic of skins across the floor
and it is red, then clear, like ice. I dream of cats.
Sometimes there's tremendous smoke in here.

It took me three nights to realize
this Grandmother Mallus was an impostor.

Why didn't you say something in Delhi?

You even remembered her
as a girl, in Cairo:
that postcard of men basket-fishing in the river
for the white-bellied alewives
and all your anxieties about some lost kitten.
And there I was

being introduced to this evil woman
who is no doubt involved
in the disappearance of my son.

On the second night, unable to sleep,
I walked out across the ice floes
under a burnt-amber moon
that looked like a rusted scythe.
There were tremors in the earth. Norse scribbling
chalked across the sky.

There were strange frozen creatures
walking about —    naked girls
who when they moved, sighed
in the high registry of a music
I have never heard before —

                                      also, with movement,
their long dark hair would break off,
falling to the ground
like chandeliers all around me.
On the small of their backs
just above the buttocks
there were the tiniest red swastikas,
like the Hopi burial lattice . . . .

They had a kind of heat
that I know would have increased if I had been a man,
a sort of basic phenomenon like dry ice.
I took them for the very unhappy dead?
Am I wrong?

I threw my Chöd apron to the ground, which I wear here
for the warmth if nothing else. And I began
the red and black offerings of my body,
making a virtual tea ceremony of my breasts,
that seemed to fascinate them.

It was at this moment that they fled?

Here above the fjord, you appear as Otrul Chak,
warning me that this snow witch, this Mallus,
is a sister of the dead Ffee —    an impostor
who has come here
to make the dark emergence of the geyser
acceptable to the local culture
of unsworn dakinis.

The actual Mallus is completing a year's retreat
at the Keet Sleet tannery on Mars.
She has succeeded
in protecting her granddaughter, Kaya.
But the Septaguant's ward,
this girl child they call Samuel,
is another impostor. What? Rinpoche? What

if this was some evil draft talking to me,
and not your emanation
rising from the hen yard of the Potala.
And you in the company of nuns? Since December?

I went in, and with the great chipped blade
of a matchet
I opened her chest, lobbed off the head,
removed the hands . . .

I placed that fat garuda ruby
stolen from the rice shrine in Laos
inside the canal of her right ear, all of this
just as you had instructed.

I screamed like horses over her corpse.

Later that night I dreamt that Ffee was feeding
giant cakes of soap
to the black geyser on Io. Are geysers
actually primed like this? Why didn't you
say more to me in Delhi?

When I killed the impostor-Mallus
I saw three hags standing in a great bronze tub
cutting a thick black snake
that had seamlessly joined itself to a small baby.
The whole figure of the baby and the snake
reminded me of that Mayan knot
representing fifty-two years
in their secret rain calendar.

The knives flashed. The baby was cleansed.
The old women dancing about
in some very primitive kitchen. Why do I believe

my Kirsna is this cat that you must locate,
this Italian tablecloth you keep asking me about?

Has my son passed?

Old man, you owe me an explanation.
In my apartments
you were talking about how Hannibal
had a lead bull elephant
that wore at its throat an enormous dzi
the yellow of citrine and the red
of rubies. You said, Carthage is in your past,
daughter of the arime 'thea. Placing in my hand

these very wet and long yellowing grasses
with a small dead turtle
painted in the manner of early Greek barbarians.

The actual grandmother of Kirsna's little friend
placed jewel worms
in the eaves of this big house, and they came alive
like rainbows, shooting
everywhere through the walls,
at the very moment that the impostor's
canal was blocked with your ruby.

The family of the Ffee
have put a lot of blood on our hands. And Rinpoche,

I don't like it. If you can stand beside me
at the shrine of the banisters
and put the badge of the drowned pilgrim in my hand,
then you are completing prophecy.
You anointed me, there and then,
the Chosen One.

You are now accountable, even in your sleep,
to this citizen dakini. You will have a single day
to make this accounting
or I will find you there, which will certainly
scare off your Canadian bodhisattvas
and their money.

I have been patient. I cannot
leave this snowfield
without the appropriate ritual and blessing
of the root guru. There's a dark drifting in my mind.

The airs of the Bardo . . . .
Be kind and speak to me. Further, have you ever heard
of a Nagarjuna Watts?

I woke this morning and you said,
There are eleven years of diversion at your feet
and then years of peace.

That is not enough. This mystery exhausts us.           L'urze.

                        XIII.
                                    — in blanc, keyboard.

Dear Ekajati:         I am weirding this along the old worm holes
you used in approaches
with the Khandro. If you are my true father,
why didn't Marie say something. She was
always angry with you, I could tell.

Listen, if Kirsna is in the Bardo
will you please go to him. There is a swelling in the ice
in this snowfield where I've been
for three months now. I nearly

lost my mind. This morning in the wind
I was out naked on the nearest hill
juggling nine pomegranates
with a yellow Shambhalical arrow
straight through the center of the earth
to the other side . . .

I do believe this prevented an earthquake
in New Zealand. A fiery line of Maoris
ran before my eyes,
and then black waves of water rose against us.
Now all the ice here is rotten
as if with some sun-abraxas. I think

I am a half a mile from land, so I must be leaving
with leap-striding . . .       dammit, that was
an entire holographic column
collapsing
and there are a thousand birds outside?

Where are you bastards . . .

There are giant krakens dead over the water?

oh son of noble family, do not be afraid
of what is all about you. nothing happens.
these are the poor manifestations 
of your own luminous mind.
your life in this existence
is over. do not be afraid
and please continue on.
now is not the time for regrets.
your friends and family have said goodbye.
do not cling to the memory of this life.
look for that which is complete
and which has always been your basic nature.
do not cling to these illusions.
nothing is ever lost.
we will meet again, we pray,
in other circumstances.
say goodbye to this world.
what surrounds you is just the play of emptiness.
without looking back, enter into the light.
it is just the luminosity of your own mind . . .

     — Otrul Chak, the state of one taste,
                                   The Bardo Thodal.

THREE

                        XIV.
                                        — in the long second night, Mönlam.

Mother Khandro:     bullying the Guru is not the best idea!
This extends
to his Canadians. So you would refuse
the glorious dharma to those very beings
who have been most prepared
for it by their karma? Curious. Perverse!

Your humble master witnesses here the old imperialism
of your Northeast Kingdom
and all the glamours of its inversions
like Thoreau, Melville, or Emerson.

They were all children. Where
are the jewel ornaments of their liberation?

(Thoreau sneaking back to his mother's kitchen,
from his shack, at noon,
to imbibe the lemonade;
to devour her sandwiches?) Now,

my child, I regret
that The Bardo Thodal is being read
for the young Kirsna. I am very sorry

but precedents suggest
that even in your sobering culture
in the West, we are all the dead.

Mother Dorje Phagmo, we are helpful to all
only because we share in their dilemmas:

ignorance is the best example.
I didn't know, not yet I didn't,

that the snow witch was the elder sister
of Wickle Ffee. I hope
you buried her hands in the sea.
That would occupy her for a week
or two. Children.

We are all children! This stockgram
is weakening. My knees too.
I am so sorry for your loss, but

when the red kitten comes
it will be your mother. And Ekajati
is the young boy who brings it to you. Witness
in this loss, great gain? My blessings.         Your teacher.

Post Script:
The Vajrasattva Prayer —        you may begin
doing one million of them,
to be completed by early June:
when the second mayfly hatch
is everywhere in Bhutan . . .

L'urze, I was fishing here in a stand of oak
when suddenly a black rainbow
similar to the leggings of a Kadampa Tara
flew past, a butterfly
of grossly etched proportions.
It stuck out its tongue
at your revered teacher, and groaned.
Do you find that vodka
carries a happy insult to the brain?

It is intoxicating. My love.     the Otrul, fool.

                        XV.
                                       — in full 'mibes.

Dear Mother Khandro:       this moon, I'm yet to speak
to you outside of these cables,
but I've seen you walking with a lame boy
which gladdens me to no end.
This Italian tablecloth that you spoke of, well,
look at the shamanic aprons
worn across the great plateau and remember
how much is forgotten.

This lame boy I see you with —   one day
when you are bathing his chest
feel along the very bottom of the sternum,
and you will find in the bone there
a very distinct promenade and pyramid,
all in the ratio. You've taken your losses

very well, and there are absolutely none
forthcoming. The worst of that is behind us!
There are not any details
regarding the three children. With the Ffee,
it is like this. But his hold on us is quite illusory.
The blackguard

is with us again,

but in the assumptions of a fully adult body.
He will publish poems in The New Yorker,
sell millions of tons of grain to Egypt.
He will ice skate in Poland.
He'll hunger and thirst in the Australian desert
for thirty days. We will know him,

that's for certain. For the last
two hundred and ninety-nine years,
the aboriginals have been deserting
their storied land
for passage in the night sky.

They were escaping in the face of the Ffee.
Isn't that extraordinary.

They call him Beckett Carol Talbout.
Before the assumption, he was educated at Yale
and published a slim volume of poems
under the name B.C. Talbout.
He did some engineering work with his father,
in Alaska. The assumption

occurred on his twenty-first birthday.
It was a boating accident —     his heart
must have stopped for two whole minutes.

He had swallowed water and gasoline.

His first conscious gesture
was to laugh fire all over his sister.
Neither of them was harmed. He is
thirty-three now, and we are in trouble! Without fail,

you are to wear your sonors at night.
We'll meet next week, at your apartments.
We should have a small service of refuge
for your new friend. I believe
you call him Arlie. Here in Bhutan

it is beyond belief but my Canadians
are abandoning these mountains
for their Rockies.

And, yes, Mother Khandro
they have taken with them their money. Ha.
All the passes here are open but one.
It is that ominous season
where you could just die of acne.

Blessings on you, L'urze. The Otrul.

                        XVI.

Dear Mother Khandro:      you buried her hands
in a great bed of standing kelp —         pepper-dulse
and larkspur.
You left the tongue
of the forward shoe in her burned mouth.

You buried the child's bell in her.
Ha' ree. Kri' ea! When I arrived here on Mars

I discovered one of your uncle's tents abandoned
with the most marvelous provisions inside. Even raisins,
lard and vermouth. He has found
only one of the three Dza Obums.

His work on the inscriptions is brilliant.

Actually, I have heard a good deal
about his kindness to people here, mostly
from the miners.

Now, it is my sad belief
that I am about to render
what is perhaps your first description
of the incident on Jupiter. It is at best,

unfinished and impressionistic.
It began, as you know, that Friday
with wild paraffin storms. Septaguant's two cruisers
were attacked by large
white plated triangles. He mistook them for a kind of hail.
There was a blue sheeting
that seemed the mother of the triangles,
it would fold against space
and then another birthing of the ice.

There were lightning bolts whose thunder
proved a torment to the ears . . .       some went
mad with it. Spitting blood, etcetera.

It's good you have me, a Viking nun
for a friend in this conflict —     there have been no surprises
for us since we conquered those French monks.

The war-horses of Job, etcetera . . .

The great Number One geyser on Io
during the battle of the triangles
was transforming into a black sable plume
like those that adorn funeral wagons
and their horses.

Now, just prior to the darkening of the geyser,
and exactly opposite to it,
in an inclined field of boulders,
there was a hard meteor shower
of a very odd composition:

heavy table zinc and oxides of biolates
with a phosphorescent scruff
that burned off over twenty days . . .

The inexplicable turbulence in the airspace
over Washington state occurred
on this curious seventh day
with the blackening of the spume.

Our children's plane that morning,
at precisely nine o'clock,
crashed across the eastern bench of Gladstone Mountain,
one hundred and fifty miles northwest of Morgan.

My granddaughter, Kaya, alone with a nurse-physician
and her husband,
were unharmed. Your Kirsna vanished utterly,
along with a female Marine
and a local evangelist named Theodore Williams.

Reverend Ted Williams's accordion was also vanished?

They were all going to the Nasa Academy
near Nome, Alaska. This mission
was defined by a Lieutenant Colonel Hickock,
famed for his research in 'so -called' psychic phenomena.
He proved so unpardonable in my eyes
that I slew him
with a clot just off center in his brain. Pop!

Two quatrains and a smudge pot. It took
all of five minutes.

'If you can't respect children
you should stay clear of me . . .' I did warn him!

When you killed the Ffee's sister, naturally,
my house fell. Your mourning
cleansed the length of our fjord, from the rocks
up to the high red heathers.
I will always consider myself in your debt,
my dear L'urze Ekajati. I would like to visit you,
in perhaps six months, in Delhi?

I know in your lineage
you willingly
suffer the consequences of all your magic.
I will offer perfumes in the Bardo
in acknowledgment of your sacrifices. I will burn

man-tall candles here in the desert
with frankincense, as an additional service
to your Kirsna. Does your assembly
scree with frankincense?

I know for you Buddhists there is only compassion
under skillful means.
But there will come a night, child,

when I will loan you my gown
and you'll go for scallops to the Algonquin.
We'll burn the town down.      The last hypth' of Mallus.

                        XVII.

Dear Lama Arak:   so, for you, here is a sealed
diplomatic cable from Sikkim.
I had this afternoon a fifteen minute audience
with his Holiness, the Karmapa,
who is such a beautiful child
I can simply not describe him for you.

The 'location verse' left by his predecessor
named both parents, specifying his birth in,
of all places, the anguished
black-powder district
of Kathmandu. It was a rainy evening

and the birth of the baby
cleared the skies. There was the sound of conchs
and laughing horses. Flowers
kept falling from the sky
until everyone was blind to the filth
of the city. This is what I learned

while riding in our taxi!

I do hope that soon
you and your friends will be reconciled
to these wonderful Karma Kagyu sadhus. It is time.

The child Karmapa had told his mother
of how he dreamt all last night of a great fire
with flies made of black gold rising in it. Guru,

I believe this details
the second of the champagne fires in Manhattan.
In my sleep, I learned
they would come on Election Night, 2289.

You were wrong, the lame boy who accompanies me
is not the Ekajati. And under this sealed cable
I am comfortable saying
that my little friend
is our Kirsna, and he is not
returning to the Academy.

Master, I do believe your Bardo prayers
returned him to us. But he protests
that he is not just old mother Kirsna,
but the dark father Ekajati as well.
Is it possible

that my mother and father are contained
in this one beggar child? He has
a tantric tattoo on his shoulder blade
of a red and black checkered cat. Spirals for eyes.

Yes, I thought that would get your attention.

When he awoke for the first time
here in my apartments,
he reported on a vision
which convinces me that the Ekajati,
while he throttled the Ffee, was actually
drowning him in the future waters of a river
that will rise in a great flood
throughout Montana. On this same night,

Manhattan will be burning.
Rinpoche, does it take simultaneous
deaths by fire and water
to despatch a Ffee;
in the way that two of the four provinces of Ireland
are assigned to a single son of Israel?

In the burning of Manhattan
will they be Issachar and Judah?

The diseases of angels are of time . . .

If Milton were to appear here,
in all his errors, the lustrous ebony Ark
cradled in his arms, would you spit
the individual jewels of the high-priest's breastplate
into his face . . .             khandro weirdings, &

beware priest,
this is the blind man with a snake. Uncle

has a recording angel for an attendant, doesn't he?

Once I dreamt of Ffee, yellow hair
nursing at my breasts. My milk was black
and he seemed eased, and slept.
I said to him, "There now child, hush,
for when you wake . . . ."

And I raised a great spade and split his head.
Once, this one served the Potiphar in Egypt.

I can hear cranes flying overhead.
I wish like Longchempa
I could walk with my brown sack
up into the snowy mountains.

Lama, my love to you.     L'urze of Sumstek.

                        XVIII.

Dear Mother Khandro:     lovely —       all the news
you've sent to me. Kirsna is with you, but lame
from a plane crash. The Ekajati has fused
himself with the boy's heart —    much as Ffee
was released into the lungs
of the young Carol Talbout . . .

When I think of the Ffee's anatomy
I always remark on the larger canines
and the thinning enamel; it isn't chimpanzee
to K. afarensis. The new hominid polka
looking just like a stringy chicken.
And, now, out of the throat of Cygnus
they visit us like jackals and are legion.
Remember the chimney swifts that cold day
in London.

These children of ours —   Kaya
and your Kirsna, before they ever left the Seminary,
tattooing one another with tantric firecats. That's a
good laugh. Your meal of scallops in Manhattan, in
November —      yes, it will be Election day in the boroughs.
There's a painted eclipse hung on that moon!

It will be very different.

I am to visit you soon.
I brought a turtle for the boy. I, myself,
must first stop at Rumtek
and witness this young Karmapa. Very wonderful
news, very wonderful. Tulku Arak.

P.S.:
Yesterday, Sonam Detch went tobogganing by himself
up in the high pass,
and while descending the spruce field that spills
into the valley,
moving at 50 m.p.h., he saw suddenly
a small family of Yetis
bowing to him with great piety. He wasn't certain,
but laughing or crying,
at the next turn he hit the great oak
and dislocated his shoulder.
We have made him mushroom soup.
He feels very confused by this experience. I think
it is a good joke on my young German translator.
And, now, even he has disciples.

                  XIX.

Dear L'urze:         no, the turtle is not decorated.
Your Hindu friend, the librarian, can do you that
absurd service. This is a grand land turtle
and she will outlive all of us
save, of course, you great mother.

Old Gyurmey Tsultrim has gone to Jamaica
for two weeks with Lama Yeshe
where they will do a Po'vah empowerment
and teach from Lord Tsongkhopa
for one whole weekend.

Just this past Monday, a fire quickly
raced through the kitchen
and boys ran to Lama Yeshe
thinking the whole monastery to be lost.

The Great Pearl just climbed to the rooftop
and scattered cedar shavings in four directions.

Just like with Lord Tsongkhopa
the fire was halted
and there was really no discernible damage.
I think Jamaica is a good place
for the Pearl this week. Now

I get to be the star around here
and teach the girls from Calcutta
the red eight-armed Chenrezig. Just kidding,

my dear L'urze. Lama Yeshe humbles us all
one way or another. This confession
is not fun anymore. Your friend.         Tulku Arak

FOUR

                        XX.
                                             — in open lading.

1ylptio:      the petroglyph's golden dagger
is both the maitreya
crayon of nova and a comet's tail.

four corners there —    smythe here, children.
cloverleaf:

the four tiny brass bells
make the center of the calendar,
rabbit genitals just touching the snow. then,

in our night sky, the humpbacked
white mantis followed to the south
by a rag and bone procession of elk
to the blue wheat field taken away,
absolutely.

the crossed sticks,
a clearing poll and its red rock abyss.

yes, the golden dagger is
not the broken
winter solstice
& poe dead in the gutter, election day.
ratio 2,3 2289 november . . .

opalescent dew
reflecting the great mound
with four buttresses. azurite in the east.

an adi buddha blowing on his stick fire,
his name is Judah —

stay out of your boats on all saints' day.

the rose dagger
makes a miracle of the snow,
the dogwood marching past it . . .

first, a plague of locusts, and then
a plague of plagues,
and then a clitoris like a sun-kissed raisin.

pardon
the hullabaloo of my moon calendar, uncle.

and the boogie boogie shoe of rock art
will save us from the desert 's varnish
of that leaf prophecy
which is not 'the cross of antioch'
continuing

to the four corners, the rosewater icicle
stabbing the tropic of capricorn, meridians

laughing! dzikr, messenger,

if you hold the postcard upside down
it's a ufo, the rose-laser cannon:        shit, it's even

yes, daddy, the dish
for fat lips
that the revered mr. roethke contemplated . . .

contemplation's moon,

lha-khang gi kyi, zahm-bu-ling gi kyi ray.

of course, we are past due
and must read the poems of the enemy.
you don't have to say FRAGILE for me,
at this point. it's about colors

once you've moved past them.

and an occasional shooting in the post office.

but the Ffee
is the fie is the foe.

is the poem, yes, miss, to be fed?
quinine?

the mosquito-netting
in shreds.

                                          it's the snowball's
                                          chance in hell, isn't it.

if there is no fog,
miss dickinson is our pulpit,
alarms . . .    'the smythe' out.

                        XXI.
                                             — one hundred syllable lading.

OM BEDZRA SATTU SAMAYA
MANO PALAYA
BEDZRA SATTU TENOPAH

TITO DREDO MEBAWAH
SUTTO COYO MEBAWAH
SUPPO COYO MEBAWAH
ANNO RAKTO MEBAWAH

SARVA SIDDHI MEPREATZAH
SARVA KARMA SUSAMEH

SI TANG SHRI REAH KURU HUNG
HA HA HA HA HO

BHAGAVAN SARVA TATTA GATTA
BEDZRA MO MY MOOTZAH
BEDZRA BAWAH MAHA SAMAYA SATTU AH

OM BEDZRA SATTU HUNG
OMBEDZRA SATTU HUNG
OM BEDZRA SATTU HUNG
PHET

                        XXII.
                                             — phaxx and lading.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From whence does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved.
He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps you
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper. The Lord
is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not smite you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil.
He will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out
and your coming in.

From this time forth and forever more.

                        XXIII.

Dear L'urze Ekajati:       I am called Osel Trodgen, and I am
one of many attendants
to His Holiness, the 21st Karmapa,
and it is my sad duty to tell you that Tulku Arak
passed last Wednesday night.
With his death

there were rainbow perpendiculars everywhere
in the charnel ground,
and thigh bone trumpets
bringing leaves out of the trees.

By his instruction,
the cremation took place yesterday. His voice came
from a golden field.
There were elaborate ringsels left in the ashes
and the ashes themselves
have already been used in a healing
by His Holiness.

When the fires were started
by a young
white-haired nun from Kham, a large
green land turtle walked out of the perkon,
and everyone heard clearly
Tulku Arak's voice singing, first
the hundred syllable mantra, and then
a Christian psalm of roughly the same duration.

The Karmapa cried, even though
it is proscribed.

His Holiness sends you his blessings
and reports that you and he
once had a chance encounter
when he was detained at the Swedish border?

There were little emerald ringsels in the ashes
of both turtles and elephants.
I've enclosed in twine
the great remover of obstacles, Gampati.

Karmapa has instructed me to carry
to you in Delhi
the living turtle also! So,
there is one crate for the turtle and one
for the heads of lettuce
with which I will buoy the spirits
of this sad but adept prisoner. Karmapa

has named him mysteriously, Georg X.
He giggled for nearly an hour afterward.

The American boy who was with the tulku when he passed
said that a cable
was being 'scrabbled' for you; that it seemed as if
the Arak was struck at the base of his skull;
that then he seemed to recover,
he went to a mattress on the floor, assuming
the full glories of the posture . . .

The scrabbled message he prepared for you
will follow in empty lading.

I am your servant.

                        XXIV.
                                             — in empty lading.

Dear L'urze:            I, too, received the communication
from 'the Smythe.' She is
a clever rascal, but I'm afraid,
bored out there traveling on her snowball.

She has new powers.

Just as the Ekajati and Septaguant
had the same mother, the Smythe
and the Septaguant had the same father.
His name was Thubten Bol, a West African man
steeped in the practice of a Shaolin ritual
that is mostly lost.
He was also a painter without talent.

Ekajati's mother told him about all this
with little consideration
immediately following the brim-light disaster
to which he was Monitor.

But, perhaps, Paul needed then
to crack up all together.

She may have saved him with this strategy.
The father simply restored
his sanity by shooting him in the foot.
There was a lot of blood and laughter,
more alcohol and mescaline. By the morning,
everyone had recovered.

I have something to say
about the Champagne Fires, and the gown
Mallus will loan you. Only accept the dress
if it is an amethyst body net.
You could walk through a wall of fire in it.

But first, you must . . .

                        XXV.

Dear L'urze Ekajati:        I am your faithful monk,
in transit with the turtle.
I have been diagnosed somehow
with an occult dysentery.

My old schoolboy friend from the low Oxford campus,
Nagarjuna Watts, is going to finish
this journey for me. He has bright red hair
and a black mole at the third eye.
He stutters somewhat
and has the strength of six men. He is also,
fortunately, a comedian.

My best wishes.   Osel Trodgen.

                        XXVI.

Dear L'urze Ekajati:         I have long been an admirer
of your uncle
Paul Ekajati's long poem cycle, & Katydids.
Like your uncle, I too won the Yale Younger Poets' Series
prize for my first book, Stelos. My new book, Low Windows,

is to be published this late November
by W.W. Norton, and has already won
the Carl P. Thrush award for poetry. From this volume

a small poem series
dedicated to your uncle
will appear in the next number of the National Review.

I'm sure I have tested your buddhist grace by detailing
my recent good fortune in publishing, but
I wanted you to understand
that I am a serious poet
with a serious focus on the works of Paul Ekajati.

This coming November
at the Algonquin,
I will read for my publisher and a very select audience,
my poem written in homage to your uncle.

My father, Carol Talbout II, was, I believe,
an acquaintance of your aunt Laura
when she was doing volunteer literacy work
in Alaska. It would be delightful,
for my father will be in attendance, if your aunt
could accompany you to supper at the Algonquin.

I would be thrilled
to hear from you in the next week or two.

I am yours, sincerely.     B.C. Talbout.

                        XXVII.

Dear Aunt Laura:    I am still enjoying
the second postcard from Vancouver
which announces
that you will be a mother. It seems
this is an ideal place for you to be stationed.
And, no, I don't think you should regret
losing the assignment on the moon.

The last colonists to return from there
all had a cough
accompanied by brain fevers. But, yes,
of course, they were miners.
Still, the rumor is

that one of the virus-toxins from Mars
has now made its passage to Earth.
It would seem
whoever was exposed to it on our moon
sickened the quickest. But everyone
was affected.

Before Lama Arak went to Bhutan,
he reported to me
stories of more than a thousand deaths there.

It's better that you folks reach an early pension. Then
you could come here to the farm
and we'll divide the property
exactly by half. I'm serious about this.
I've begun the paperwork!

While I'm working here in Virginia, Kirsna
has remained behind in Delhi
with our new friend, Nagarjuna Watts. He brought

the boxed turtle to us.
I only hope in my absence
that Watts hasn't cooked it.
He once reached me
with a stockgramme slurrie
from the future.
I've told no one except Arak-la!
It was all a little frightening . . .

He's a giant red-haired man
with a blemish on his forehead
like some thousand-armed female avenger.
I know this will seem silly —   but,

I'm not certain he's human.
He's only the fourth individual
I've met on Earth
who I've almost certainly known
to be shintling. The first

was the Ekajati himself. When I slept
the first night after meeting Nagarjuna
I had this vision of a great black khandro
rising above a marble floor,

her silver and amethyst gown struck everywhere
in its hundred sleeves
with the thickest of gold threads.
It was a vision of swords. It was the same
with her teeth!

There was a reddish champagne light
off her shoulders
and the sound of wings. She frowned
at me, but seemed pleased
that I hadn't taken sanctuary
under the bed. By the time I was awake
I was standing in the middle of the room
with one fist raised.

I have ten men working on the farm now
and the repairs will be done by Thanksgiving.

We will see you then, my love.          L'urze.

                        XXVIII.

Dear Kirsna:          this is just a brief note to send my love.
I've just come in from watching my Portuguese workmen,
who were attempting to boil lobsters in relatively small pots.
They were like girls about it. It was both grotesque

and very funny. The elder Sam and his boy
have, of course, been here for sometime with the horses.

Last week there was a grand Indian Summer,
and, using honey, they roasted field corn and fish.
It was delicious.

There are a lot of fish in the ponds now.
It would seem that old Sam
killed off the snapping turtles with dynamite
and then stocked everything fresh with trout.

Yes, I am in New York City tomorrow night,
but I will cable you by Monday. Love.         Mother.

P.S.: For the second time in a month
I've received with a torn stamp, an argonne
gramme slurrie. It's addressed to you
from Nagarjuna Watts.

Here is its phaxx in simple lading:

                                      — in spledum.               — Argon Erratum 2 —

Kirsna:                   she disliked your dead red tigers even more than I
dislike
your working for the salvation of his High Lord Septaguant. Of
course he'd make you a Messenger to the black valleys of Bani Zarwal.

What did you think of their three-eyed mules? I'm now posted,
at my own request, in the solitary Cube
in that darkest space of the Fez Polarity.
I answered the Septaguant by saying,
"Beget the man you need!" Or,
BEGET THEM ALL. BEGET ALL YOU NEED! And now

The dhaikr's God even visits me here in forgetfulness. I elected
not to judge him, but to realize him first — I told him
it was my abiding suspicion
that he paints by numbers. then
suddenly a whole basket of fresh oranges appeared
on the walnut dais.

With the total weight of my resentment for this assignment,
I ate nearly all of them in a sitting. I've been
shitting ever since. Reading the ancient Barthes'
THE PLEASURE OF THE TEXT, his one happy quotation,

The very utterance
of drifting today in France is described best
as suicide with a handkerchief . . .
Euphoria, fulfillment, friends.

The old French intellect, the torn corsages
of orange blossom and unending excrement. It
makes Proust the text of texts. These stupid atopical sensualists
ruled my countrymen for a whole century, Kirsna.
It cannot be helped. Boredom is worse. It baffles
like a fetish —     deus ex machina, etcetera etcetera.

One of these great storms of iron dust is approaching.
Salutations, if I forgot them.

                       
                                      (.2/.7nibes.)

What a storm. The cube's magnetism righted itself
in an anomalous pancake, so now
I've been puking for hours.

Kirsna, we had to be voyagers? I dreamt
of those wild horses bathing
in white water again.

I sent an Argon telespleda to your mother's wilderness in Alaska.
It misdirected.
She's living, I believe, with Mark Jadhb
selling birch syrup and mastiffs. He was
very kind to me during the postage riots in Calcutta.
It's disagreeable to think, but
he is the most wonderful of the Shö masters I've met.

When you first moved past the moons at Gibraltar,
what did you think of those naked longshorewomen
with their colored nafs, all those white bulls
pulling the great bell across the sandy plain?

The Khandro Mother would have 'snakedeathed'
that whole sisterhood and our lost
darling Septaguant
if it hadn't been for the Buddha's second turning of the wheel,
THE SERMON OF NO MEDIUM.

When I was last there, the deer park was yellowing . . .   Japanese
fast food, giant buddhas everywhere.

Charcoal-ballasting this Cube, I've regained
my equilibrium.
My sweet, Kirsna,
I've written a great bottom ode for you. Here it is, with blessings: your

Nagarjuna: this can not be sung to THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS
like Miss Dickinson's masterpieces: sorry,

Ode to the Spectral Thief, Alpha

                     The stream silent as if empty. Dusk in the mirrors. Doors shutting.
                     Only one woman without a pitcher remains in the garden —
                     Made of water, transparent in moonlight, a flower in her hair!

                                                          — Yannis Ritsos, trans. Paul Ekajati

The way the grapes will cast a green rail,
With tendrils and flowers, out along
A broken fence, down the edge of a field;
Then, climbing over hawthorn and up
Into the low branches of an elm. The moon

Is also up in the branches of the elm along
With a raccoon who sits and fills himself
On the dark, dusty fruit —        under the branch,
On which the raccoon is situated
His deep brown feces splatter over
Queen Anne's Lace and the waving sedge
Of the pond . . .

An owl lifts out of the tufted, solitary orchard
And there are hot-silver zig-zags, lightning
Up in the fat black clouds; this quiet
Before an August storm is nothing at all
Compared to the calm after a snowfall . . .
But the long boxes of hay in the field
Will stand, they are dense coffins
In which small living things
Are caught, broken: mouse, grasshopper,
And the lame sparrow. The field looks down
To an old quarry and road, and across
To a dark beach on the Atlantic.

Stone from the quarry built a small
Custom's house out on the Point.
It's old form is in ruin, now! But bells are
Still heard out there just before dawn:
Their purpose must fade over the water . . .

The water knows the three formal elements
that should compose an ode: say it, élan!
There's turn and counter-turn . . .
And turn, again; not stand!
The epode has a talent for rattling a tambourine
Like pie-tins strung across a garden
To frighten, at night, the subtle, foraging deer.

The epode knows about fear; but, shaking
In its bones, I've said it has a talent for
Playing the tambourine by ear.
The raccoon struggling out of his tree
Doesn't care about
The eye, bait and teeth of a Windsor trap;
The pie-tins, touched by a wind moving
Over the spears of corn, do not

Confuse him.
He wanders off into the orchard and down
Into a fast stream where suddenly
A grinning hound stops him —
The coon rears up on his haunches like a bear,
Spits and screams: his claws
At the weeping eyes of the big dog: turned twice,

The hound bites into his fur, meat and then
Deep into the spilled milk of the spine. This is
when the stream seems empty, silent!
This is also where the story divides in my mind.
What can I tell you?
Only that in past centuries
There were fewer
Dimensions to any concept of time,
And there was a greater acceptance of mirrors, and rhyme.

                   XXX.

Laura:           I know we haven't discussed . . .     but I
went to the paraclete's
literary supper at the Algonquin.

Mallus had shipped me, in full lading,
a pearl and amethyst vestment
and to please, I think, Lama Arak,
I boiled it first
then allowing cold spring water
to run across it in sunlight for most of the afternoon . . .

I wore it over this white gown
that I had bought in Delhi
because it made me homesick for my mother's
orchards.
Yes, very irrational.

I was prepared to give your greeting
to Talbout' s father, but no one in his family attended,
as they were suffering the influenza.

It is here, now, in Alaska
and thousand of children have been
moved to the south. It's the work
of the Ffee, or his company . . .

Laura, theirs is the strangest community.

Standing near the cloak room, in front of me,
there was an ancient woman and her son.
 At times,
her jaw belonged to a grotesque bone shop
such as they have in Turkey or China. Well,

these two spoke to one another
in a kind of whispering and clicking
that is alternately swallowed
and then projected over some distance.
Everyone ignored them.
They were pawing at one another, and I think
they seemed exhausted in their blood.

But then her ghost jaw would glow and become
pronounced again. It was very menacing?

The Ffee was seated at the first table
with young Avery Miller and two women
from the Academy. When Talbout had completed
his reading of the poem cycle for 'uncle,'
he then came to the table. By now
we were all eating carrots with a white sauce.

You know, he didn't have an extra presence
like the two
who were before me at the cloak room?
But I could have sworn
that there was a small ball of mercury
being balanced the whole time
on the back of his tongue.

There was something facile about the
poem he had written for the Ekajati.
He had thick hair at the base
of the little finger on his left hand
and he was braiding it
all while he was speaking to me. You can assume
I was not forthcoming. Anyway,

he wasn't loathsome. It was just all
very boring.
There was a smell on the refrigerated air
like sour wine. A doctor and his wife
seated at my table were suddenly taken away
for some emergency. A priest
had come to the door for them. They were both Greek.

I was just beginning to realize that
they were obviously quarreling. I would imagine
that at the moment they were being helped
onto the street, the Avery Miller stood,
tapping away at his water glass, looking
like someone who is becoming improvisational.

I heard a thousand happy years
opening above me like rain
to tin in some feckless production
of The Tempest . . .

Exactly then I saw
the Ekajati's mother entering the room
with those wasted circles around the eyes
that come with the brillo.

She was snapping her fingers
as if to smother the clicking sound
that was rising from the old woman
with the great jawbone. But this snapping of the fingers
was liturgical —   it seemed
each time she did it, one of our waiters
burst into flame. Now, here's the rub, children —

no one seemed to witness the mother-in-law
or her exit from the blue room of divans.
Instead, it would seem they were watching me,
and further, I believe

I was standing in the middle of my table.
I saw Prof. Miller and the Ffee
gesturing casually to one another
while extinguishing a waiter
with two magnums of champagne. The air

went washboard with the laughter of horses
and I felt
possessed suddenly of a thousand hands,
each gone musical, each
with a firebrand . . .     a weak passage from Tchaikovsky
was repeated . . .

The Ffee just smiled.
Out of the corner of my eye
I saw foxes copulating. There was a great banister
with cherubs smoking cigars,
and the more they postured, the angrier I became.
I understood that this fire was their element
and they were being purified by it.

They all looked at me
as if I had done something awkward
that interrupted them, and I saw the Ekajati,
long white hair down his back,
take the Ffee by the throat
and break his neck. Now

they all became frightened.

I began to vibrate in my jeweled bodice. And then,
holding my breath —      no, sucking in the wind of the room —
I made them all vanish.

It was not
like the destruction of tapestries, rather
all the dementia of human history was
passing by me in this astonishing vacuum.

I breathed out while retreating to the kitchens,
and I saw them all again, briefly,
turning to flame.

I thought how innocent time was . . .

Then there was an explosion
that made snow of a dozen or so skyscrapers,
and everything was cold.

I held onto Kirsna, and we sang.
There were other children around us with no names.
There was a black rain. The wind

made a coarse sound,
and then it too sang

om mani padme hung om mani padme hung om mani padme hung

there was more rain

EPILOGUE

An artesian water-gig volunteers in the evening's mustard:
there's the dustfall of cow flies, stooped
and complicated by light —

small girls in yellow rags
leaving the thousand years of a dry hillside;
the earth moves

lifting the children into sky,
to the poor kitchens of the darkening mountain
where hungry birds in their least bright aspect reply

in generous laughter-like repetitions of flight . . .
it is again, the mother night.