©
All poems
and stories
© 1988,
1989, 1990,
1998 by
Advaeta.
All rights
reserved.
Click click. Click click.
Two rocks fill the hot stillness of the
In my hands is the fullness of the mountainside.
Click click.
Bluejay and rabbit and lizard's minds forever altered.
Rhythm down the mountainside,
Human intelligence in the heat of underbrush
- February 1989
It's hard to believe that it's really dead,
Moving round and round up there
Like a housewife looking down every aisle for
Doesn't it seem like a face now,
A learned old man, or a renowned woman --
Surely some intelligence is there
(However petrified).
And it has its moods, too,
So many moods:
Sometimes white, sometimes whiter,
Sometimes not so white.
One thing, though, it shouldn't be made
Gurdjieff taught that it likes to eat folks.
- July 1989
Where gay sportive waves and that smiling old sun
Caress the shining land,
Just remember one thing
This warm day on the sand.
When swaying spruces in soft-stated chords
Call to the splashing fountain,
Just remember one thing
As you gambol up the mountain.
While the starry skies and coyote eyes
Watch the stillness of the canyons,
Just remember one thing
This calm night in the badlands.
This staring desert, this whispering cliff, the
Some moment that now sinks far behind
(Centuries passing can leave you blind),
That you can't quite spring to the tip of your mind --
Didn't we meet you here before?
- 23 August 1989
Yesterday there were twenty Arab guys,
They wore black masks and beamed madness
They dragged the sun away in a stolen car;
They'd rehearsed the caper with some other star.
Now all the orphan planets will be dying --
I thought that news announcer must be lying.
That Transylvanian gypsy came around
And removed the brains of the best kids in town,
And filled the vacant spaces with cement;
Now they don't pay their taxes or their rent.
The librarian wants her books back
I thought that news announcer must be lying.
That deviant chemist and his hunchbacked daughter
Have put some strange bacteria in the water.
My eyes are itching and my skin's turned green;
I think my liver's disconnected from my spleen.
"It's Judgment Day," the priests are prophesying --
I thought that news announcer must be lying.
- 2 November 1989
Today my heart burst open,
And the jack-in-the-box came out.
He looked around to right or left,
And he began to shout,
"My nose is big and crooked,
And my brain it is absurd;
A puppet in the shape that I am
Can't feel too self-assured.
I reel about in wonder,
Like a drunk man in the dawn;
But, God, You seem to love me more
The longer this goes on."
Then the Lord He touched me softly,
And said to me, "My boy,
That fool you've got inside of you
Is no ordinary toy.
He has a certain brilliance,
And he knows a thing or two;
Why not let him be in charge sometimes,
When you've nothing else to do?"
- 15 November 1989
The twentieth floor of Wisma Selangor Dredging*
Is the jumping-off place across the Bay of Bengal.
You hand in your photos and thirty ringgit, pledging
That all your statements are nearly the truth; while all
That's left unsaid will be lost in the office clamor.
Outside the rain is falling like a hammer.
"So far, so good," you whisper pensively,
"I don't like trouble, and it's okay with me
If I don't meet any hassles on this trip."
The clouds sustain their equatorial drip.
"An hour of meditation would hit the spot" --
You float this pious and introversive thought;
After long inquiry and sodden search,
You splash on the dusty pew of a disused church.
"If I reach nirvana here I'll be surprised,"
Is your last thought before you close your eyes.
All the follies you've observed in recent times
Rush back, in consort with your own small crimes.
Like distant smoke at last you get a view --
That place where you hold God and God holds you.
* Wisma is Malay for "building." Wisma Selangor Dredging, a more graceful building than the name suggests, shelters the Indian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Indian legations around the world try to screen out, in processing visa applications, foreign members of Indian spiritual organizations which they do not approve.
Outside the sun is burning through the cloud,
Your permit now securely in your hand.
For you no "change of purpose" is allowed,
A purpose they would never understand.
The palm trees steam in the dying afternoon;
You're at the airline counter none too soon.
Is this the hour when you accomplish fate?
Your head swims if you really cogitate.
That check-in girl could be your Beatrice --
But what's she doing in a place like this?
A stewardess Madonna you deduce,
And now a Holy Grail with orange juice.
The sweeper crew are moving with aplomb,
If not precisely dancing on their toes,
To blot up the traces of the latest bomb;
But the stationmaster still is comatose.
Crouched beneath his fan with nervous eyes,
He labors in the clutch of some surmise;
You feel quite relieved when your express
Pulls out, before some sequel to that mess.
Down the tracks some peace comes
Clean blue above, clay villages below.
A flight of cranes completes this work of art,
Though the people's outstretched bones cut
And now a shrill of brakes for Aligarh;
You cook inside the stationary car;
The smell around the tracks is almost numbing --
Ten thousand souls a day without much plumbing.
One faceless man solicits your attention.
Sartorially he won't deserve much mention;
The hand he pokes at you is not too neat --
Pale blood leaks from that blackened piece of meat;
The fingers all have jumped the sinking wreck --
But he hasn't got much pride left to protect.
Your extra food you quickly give away;
Those bananas weren't too tasty anyway.
Again you're glad to see a place recede;
Perpetual motion is what you seem to need.
But perhaps the humid air has got you down;
Your thoughts plunge towards an underwater town:
A crowd of people who did their best for you,
And a hundred hopes you were able to undo.
The past is like a terrorist in the dark,
A poison bullet that always finds its mark.
Now the sun is still at rest behind the hills,
The light is just enough for you to see.
Before your pot of trepidations fills,
You embark upon that mystic scenery.
Your footsteps seem to make the day unfold --
But could any place be pure as you've been told?
Here's a man as orange as the dust is red,
He laughs and seems to have a level head.
Women start to work before the morning heat,
Bricks on their heads and nothing on their feet;
Thin villagers like the ones you've seen before,
Their worldly assets can't be that much more;
But perhaps less solemn when they socialize;
They're poor but have some future in their eyes.
You buy some apples and leave your
There's a group of people like they're at the fair.
They're singing softly. Up above their heads,
On a terrace one old man studiously treads.
And they watch him pacing, pacing in the sun
Under an umbrella and talking to someone.
His pacing seems to be the main attraction;
It's strangely soothing, yes, but -- where's
Yet that bunch of people has some quality:
That pacing, pacing they like so much to see;
That singing, singing captivates your ear,
And "Yes," you say, "I'm going to like it here."
We live in the Age of the Assault Rifle.
Who doesn't dream of assault rifles? --
Bullets, blood,
Blood, bullets.
Once you've really had the experience,
Then only can you dream of something else.
What's your mother up to in the kitchen --
Is she getting her assault rifle?
What would you like to dream about?
Roses that don't turn black.
Powdery snow that doesn't melt.
A fleecy pink sunset that never quite does.
You're dreaming!
But try this:
The rhythm of the sunsets never fades.
The purity of the snow has no end.
And what flowers in your heart stays young forever.
And bullets become butterflies.
- 19 November 1989
We just can't fool you any more
With the same old song and dance;
You shouldn't have taken so seriously
Our childlike mendacity
That a fizzy drink is real, or
Tobacco is romance.
One has to keep one jump ahead --
That's known as sleight of hand;
I'm sure you won't stay sore at me,
I just noticed how fine you could be
With purple lipstick on your head
Or a penthouse built on sand.
Now forsake if you will my offerings,
But not your family;
You'll never feel any lack
With a Gucci label on your back --
It's not like anyone pulls your strings,
It's plain fidelity.
- 20 November 1989
When your minds like flies rest on that
I feel them clinging also to my bald head.
What laser concentration you have!
What an ectoplasmic feat are those tiny feet.
What do you see to make you land on me?
I don't want to complain,
But would you mind just disintruding my brain?
Must I really spend my time in such a way?
If I crawl like a lizard,
Won't my stomach grow scales?
If I scuttle on the floor,
Won't I need feelers and extra legs?
My head or Ben Franklin's, you don't care,
Without or even with hair,
You'll suck it dry as a well on the planet Mars,
And steamroll my smile with your Mercedes cars.
- 24 November 1989
Who was this person --
Did some human really live,
And wear this empty-sounding name?
The longer I think,
Even the ghost puts on a stocking mask.
Maybe it was in Casablanca --
Though I've never been to Casablanca --
But since it's up to me now,
Cas-a-blanc-a it must have been.
And this one I knew too well.
Type it fast -- for some contingency --
And jump to the next clean rectangle.
If anyone ever sees my database,
I'll say, "Yes, I met this person,
We talked about the elections."
It seems I've opened a can of worms here.
I should have collected Indian-head pennies,
Instead of all these people.
Or at least preserved them like butterflies,
With the use of chloroform --
Easily identifiable,
Yet nothing cryable.
- 25 November 1989
You strut and you joke
And your eyes they are hot,
You're going to put a hole
Where there once was a thought.
You nod to Joe Louis's
Ghost on the curb,
Then you'll tear down the bridges
That link a noun with a verb.
There's Muhammad, he sways
Like a boat without ballast;
This building you work in
Is known as a palace.
Your opponent has hands,
Both a left and a right;
Look, he's holding them up --
Guess he knows how to fight.
You punch and you hammer
And you blast and you chop,
But his heart is still beating,
It's too early to stop.
As you push his prefrontal lobe
Into his lung,
You aren't weary at all;
Life is great when you're young.
The fat man behind you
Knows a good thing when he sees it;
The crowd is excited
And he wants you to please it.
The business of the nation
Has been said to be business;
We're sorry if anyone
Has a mild case of dizziness.
- 27 November 1989
Last Friday I met the Shah of Iran,
He came stumbling out of a bar;
His blazer was wet, his tie was gone,
His keys were locked in his car.
I said, "Hey, Shah, what a surprise,
For you belong to history;"
He said, "Nobody ever dies
While they're thinking 'mine' and 'me.'
"We must be born again and again
If we feel some painful lack;
I never died," said he, "dear friend --
I want my country back."
Then the publisher came, before I could speak,
Of a famous magazine;
The ladies who graced its pages that week
Were like nothing I'd ever seen.
He said, "Though I've tried everything
From life's nectarean store,
My appetite is maddening,
I always crave for more."
He knocked the ashes from his pipe,
I bet they weighed a ton;
The Shah he cried, "The time is ripe,
And victory can be won."
"Come with me to Tehran," he said,
"O brother of my heart;
In that town so long ago I fled,
We'll make a brand-new start."
So they went together arm in arm,
Singing their college song,
And setting off a fire alarm,
As they did when they were young.
Well the one was alive and the other dead,
But they both were ghosts to me;
I got one message in my head
About reality:
That time is but a point of view
Which overcasts the truth,
And selfish deeds you must not do
If you seek eternal youth.
- 4 December 1989