------------------------------------------------------------tale of the tribe
-------------------------cave art of the Paleolithic
for poets to come forward as voices
--participants in the larger
-------------------------------------to invite more of the world to enter -------(the poem)
-------------------------------------------------illicit tongue
------------------poets taking many
-----------------------------simultaneous positions
---------to approach, enquire into
---------------------------"it is language that thinks"
-----------------------------language as instrument of vision
------------------poet as endangered species
---------the wider human fate
-----------------today more than ever -------(is the reason)
----------------------the only time allowed to us ----------------------(on earth)
------------------------------------------sense of dangers & repressions still persisting
-----------------------------------an even darker
------------------------------------------------------fatal voice
-----------------our book is bounded
---------our book is open
------------------------------------------------------------------------(a strange fear of freedom)
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Today more than ever (2006)
Happiness (2006)
I went & listened
to a talk
by Khentrul Rinpoche
(a Tibetan Buddhist master)
He apologised for his English
cracked jokes
laughed until everyone was laughing
He said that when we speak or act
our intention
is the most important thing to consider
He assured us that happiness
is not something to be bought,
found or attained -
it is something to be given...
... and whether they be
family, strangers, worms,
lovers, or hungry ghosts,
we should always try
to make others happy.
Then, sensing our disappointment
at all of this,
he cracked a few more jokes, laughed
til the hungry ghosts were laughing.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Inscriptions (2006)
Why don’t you cover me with words?
Write ‘BEGIN’ on my forehead
as a message to the mirror, to my kindred
and my punishers –
I am ready.
I can imagine ‘A-G-O-N-Y’
across the knuckles of my left hand,
‘E-C-S-T-A’ across the knuckles of my right
(ecstasy is always truncated). The ‘S’
delayed on to my left buttock
and the ‘Y’ given to my right,
so that at a time of my choosing, you,
while clasping my right hand behind me,
will see me abandoned
and complete.
Write ‘SOUL’ somewhere on my body,
‘BODY’ somewhere on my soul…
‘COMPASS’ along my cock,
making preparations for compassion,
because desire remains
to be navigated
(our body of water).
What will you scrawl across my eyes?
Ciphers? Coordinates? Keys?
Will I ever be able to read them?
What should the inscriptions say
inside my ear –
what sin
that you could not say there?
Previous versions of this poem were published in Unusual Work #4, November 2006 (in 'abridged' form), and in POAM #309, April 2007.
You can hear a performance of this poem at the beginning of this radio interview (which is available for download as an mp3).
