Feb '03 [Home] 12

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No Body On Earth, But Yours Margo Berdeshevsky inquiry of the tribunal Christopher Mulrooney Punch Line Michael Gause Tamasha Fran Montane [Edward Hopper:  Woman in the Sun] ~ . ~ . ~ No Body On Earth, But Yours Margo Berdeshevsky Yours are the only feet with which He can go about the world. Christ has no body on earth, but yours. —St. Teresa of Avila Who shall be hung, how he writhes, bottle-eyed animal moaning for an eager war, how a president stamps for orgasm not to be denied for — now his troops are massed and time, the all we have, chanting. In a dank stone prison cave in middle Paris, time-balm for the hour, cave kitsch-ily named la Guillotine, its shined blade- machina alertly cornered, wall behind our heavy heads we note has words carved in since fourteen-twenty-one:  Je serai pendu. I shall be hung. Who shall be hung, all souls, our damp impatience for — I think that time's invented helm is wacky spinning Weimar bodies, think it's spewing signs we can't elude, this night a poet prays, her head lolling and as though in her own bottle-glass-eye, blind too, she now can see a blade's truth of it, how it lowers so necessarily out of this historic — glow, more then more our — nineteen-thirty-nine lifts now with each sun's knife, lifts now. How hawks are bellowing. How friends position to demand their prejudicial shoe to stand in — is the human fact I find most evil to bear. It stands so tall for — thrumming drum and trumpet ready letting blood notes for — Indeed "Israelis have chosen their 'Jews'," dear poet. How deserts choose their endless sands. The dead, their eyes. Indeed self-righteousness grows toes and fingers hourly, what monster child is this we call our safety for — A taller man at dinner — motor-minding so from the bowel of his hates for fears for I must wish to leave the table and the de-boned sole not to hide but out of protest for — oh I must not weep how a brown- shirt rhetoric so spits like vomit from descendants of the last world war. What world shall we defend, God, as we bear our beautiful rope of causes, who'll be hung — for hoping? (With thanks to Marilyn Hacker. Paris, Jan. 2003) ~ . ~ inquiry of a tribunal Christopher Mulrooney skullcaps have we on our caps for the due deliberations? Dominus Christi seclorum etc. amen be seated please here are the tomes in question crack them lightly a bothersome muddle this OK who's in charge of dusting? fine first witness deposes as follows in a glade or lea I chanced to see what I ought not to have this sight or thing revolved in my mind days or weeks until I forbade myself food or drink nine days pondering itself and resolved from then on to cleanse my bosom of the mishap thankfully the sheriff masticated data with some ease and we were not long coming into town with the facts second witness likewise goes on to say how marshaled were the lab boys and the criminologists we have to say how fortunate is the feeling that overcomes us considering the depredations in town seeing we have the lab and a constabulary at all God be praised in His mercy to us amen third witness swears to tell the whole truth etc. as regards the character and faith of two witnesses preceding this was noted fourth witness a prominent citizen attests the same as third and vouches for third beyond this we have no authority nor there is needed none lab reports are in that bundle there undo the ribbon kindly so three scientists pre-eminent in their field give significantly evidence of no misgivings as regards their handling of these matters we have their university diplomas and say no more about that one dictates to his secretary a letter outlining the general facts of the case as he sees them another takes them point by point and decides to forgo any footnotes leaving these to the last thus you have a comprehensive document the accused identifies the victim says no idea could have taken place within the accused's mind that would have taken more than a few seconds to engender the horrible misdeed and therefore released on own recognizance the victim scattered belongings everywhere in the path and they were collected as far as possible under the supervision of the museum director one will turn away from Heaven for an instant and so be lost thanks be to God who in His wisdom foreordained this mission to the vaults of the past that we would wake the sleeping and raise the dead ~ . ~ Punch Line Michael Gause (fade from black) A figure looks out from inside his moving car blue eyes Montreal? St. Paul? Cello on the radio driving home on back roads (cold cut) crimson drops onto fine stationery shaking hand                wax seal sigh (cold return to car) Rain Eye twitching two-lane focus Pickup Van Blonde in a red car (always a red one) Cellos and car stop outside The figure looks up to second story window to Another in window pacing with blue eyes sees the car below stops has learned to hate letters sighs ~ . ~ Tamasha Fran Montane                I we met for the first time on the other shore forsaking the winged steed, dead to time; to notion, ideas, thoughts, visions, fantasies, just still and present in an embryonic embrace, one sudden, happy, and unexpected moment,           a phoenix forming on the hull I arrived as Kama, carrying a bow entwined with fragrant flowers and five arrows whose points, for you, were aromatic blossoms—                and it seemed the gods were smiling on us you, with the shape of the head of an elephant, called out to me four hundred and eighty-seven thousand times,                A palette spilling over into the night, in another place, we came and went in increments                   of strength precarious love,                insidious kindly sentiments tedious and unwelcome exhortations                knowing the German linguist was sleeping in your bed two world annihilating riddles wrapped around white vibrations lips saturated in fresh blood an elixir poured from a pitcher of gold, you cracked open the mystery with the kind of cynicism which binds an infinite number of selves to the bonds of illusion such is the way I will leave, in a spectacle of happy confusion I left you in that hotel room in Delhi                (there are no stars in Delhi, you said) to tip over into the whirlpool of death and rebirth neti, neti (neither thus, nor thus) and went off to the shores of the Ganges, whose waters, for us, flow backwards on the page There I stood, on the steps of the ghat, taking in the smoke of burnt wood, gazing at your frail body,                     subtle body,                          gross body, under a crimson glow,                your memory a blur, shooting out from the blazing fire the sparks that come from that impassioned state, from being, and verily, you returned; invisible, ineffable, intangible, inconceivable, indefinable,                wrapped in red,             charcoal faced, half human carcass, floating past the eye, your body           her body,                     my body, "the fire burns it but the wind does not wither it, and the water wets it not" Mind, paddling downstream,      beaded anklets clanging,                the beating of wet clothes against slabs of stone,                an array of marigolds illuminating the river at dawn,                I reached down and grabbed an earring. I still keep it for sanctity's sake, a reminder that I had come to be free from the sins of the past and to attain enough merits to always have a place to rest Apka nam kya hai? (what is your name, respectfully) I offered chocolates to the little girl                with the mud stained dress — Sunita,           you and I will be born tomorrow How did I get here, this place where transitory superimpositions meet their unchanging source? city of Shiva and Parvati — alleyways with golden temples and flies, this place where children flock to my side, "aaaalo aaaalo, two rupees,                           two rupees" The void within the seed of the fig suffers like the salt in the pan of water, making my way back, on a rickshaw, swerving in and out of cars, cycles and disenchanted cows moving in the direction which stars appear to travel, I stopped for a coca cola, and held back the tears, because destiny was not mine to own To them, I walk on water, skin and bones, silver bowls, crawling on their knees, to some they have no face, only oversized and expectant eyes protruding through bony oval frames and meeting the horizon with chants, images in the sky that even I am ashamed of, and so, dropping a coin I make sure not to touch their gaunt hands, this self-absorption will always haunt me and this is the reason I will never hear from you again Om is the imperishable sound of the visible world It was a treacherous road to the Maha Bodhi Temple where the Tibetan monks fall to the ground in disciplined oblations of recurrence, renewal,                     and reduction I touched my head to the Bodhi Tree, and gathered leaves that had fallen for friends back home, just as the spider pours forth its web from itself and takes it back again, a lama greeted me with an extended hand, our palms gripped and withdrew, Umesh smiled at the sacred thread, "mostly they keep to themselves," he said, then invited me to his home                     for tea Beloved wife, dignified and devoted, for fifty years she cooked over a fire in a cement hut, and kneaded masala with a stone, for us, she made kheer and tea, we laughed and sat on Umesh's wooden bed, he knew my incantation to bypass reason was roused long ago by shifting pigments of light and a tongue that sets off the sun, he nodded as if hearing my thoughts                churning, like the butter hidden in milk, then curiously asked for sneakers from the States — ones just like mine I returned from Bodhgaya to take shelter in your incandescent eyes, but in your face there was a blank fatalism, where from my words turned back on themselves, with the mind not having attained, the knot of the heart is cut by the pink lotus in the Buddha pond and the whole world is dwindling in importance even moksha is finally meaningless                II           Lift up your voices Mamu is planning the massacre of "Man", an eclipsis occurs in eery synchronicity, language is thrown into the shade, and we sit staring                at the rhythmic fluctuations of our thoughts,           bewraying tones and tangent curves, the long horizontal strokes of a wood carver's chisel, invoking thousands of years of suspicious syllables and unrighteous motifs Between two earth lives, dancing girls and courtesans are mirrored in your new black mascara, "the time," you say "has come" and your ceremonial oration, determined to mend,      ("the androcratic male dominated society of about 10,000 years is coming to an end") slapped hard against the imminent combustion of tall towers           far away, in a land both revered and loathed, the land where I was born,                once, "a land," you say, "that has never been able to address its own contradictions" I hear you each winter with great luster and a little harshness, your rights of passage your sensations, your predispositions, your trisyllabic falling cadences, your flowing waters, we are not far from the ferryboat and we want to change things before we leave Mamu, I remember you I saw in you a duty to forbear the images and never desist from our cause but are we not all guilty of adding a letter that does not contribute to the making of a word We have to go back even farther than that, to the critical juncture where the charioteer spoke and gave him heart                That night never seemed to end, a river crossed, of no more force than a mirage, broken, inaudible sounds, echoing through centuries, penetrating the moon, in tattered rags, two minds, becoming one woman — Lift up your voices Mamu is coming limping like a troubled bird, having fallen on the way down in an abysmally profound frenzy thrown into the vortex of the world, I hitched a ride from a man and wife on their way to Pooja, grabbing my bags and a handful of purple and rose-pink flowers, on that desolate road the universe spoke, with the beatitude of conviction,      "Nothing which exists can remain unchanged"                     and behold,                I saw the stars in Delhi such is the way I will leave, in a spectacle of happy confusion ~ . ~ . ~