Dal Lake

I float on Dal Lake
Suspended
between the thick soupy crisp air of soldiers
water lilies, Kashmiri bread
and the Muslim prayers
that penetrate the hardness of war
chanting Allah Bismallah
Floating Islam
Holy words drenching the air
Drenching the green cloth of Hindu soldiers
Sliding down the cool metal of a rifle
9 years of war
1,000 houseboats lie empty
in the Himalayan fog
Intricately carved furniture
Thick with dust
and the powder of blood and bullets

Himalayan silhouette etched black
against the song of lotus gatherers
Foggy voices like cloud of moon
Lotus lake
Gray of war and desperation
Children beg
1 rupee
1 rupee
1 rupee
Endless monologue
Parched like lotus shaped paddle
They throw flowers to me
endlessly
I throw them back
endlessly

Time passes slowly
like smoke on a lizard’s tail
trailing in the thick, rancid air
of burning meat and maple leaves
Like a shikara
moving over the glass of Kashmir

The sound of a dozen Bangees
floating over the water
Hollow, solemn and mournful
Echoing against the hardness
of the surrounding mountains
The circle of Himalayas
Like a womb
around the prayers of Pachin

In the middle of the lake
I hear the call to prayer
Azan Nemarz Suba
Azan Nemarz Pashin
Azan Nemarz Degar
Azan Nemarz Sham
Azan Nemarz Koftan
From dawn till dusk

Azan
4 mosques
4 singers
4 directions
staggered by a breath
like an imperfect echo

Azan slips into the pockets of island soldiers
Waters the impatience of soldiers on the shore
Steals into the vacant eyes of soldiers in the Mosque
They want to go home to their wives and children
They want to leave the place of prayer, which is not theirs
The place of prayer, which has seen death
The place where God was pushed out
In order to not see the killing
To **** what they don’t see
The place, which was no longer a refuge

Outside

Dal Lake turns to the color of red lentils
cooking in a dented metal ***
In the Shikara boat we eat dal and rice
and throw scraps into the silver water
where it washes up
onto the ***** boots of a soldier
I hear the dull gray click, click of his rifle
as it touches the ground

The prayers have ended

Spin me
Roll me
Turn me
Tearing off piece by piece
Not even stopping at the skin
Do my clothes look white and fluffy?
You certainly seem to think so
And no my name is not Scott

How many wipes are left anyway
I feel emptied
Right down to the cardboard
And these **** stains
don't even come out anymore

But lovers are like a roll of toilet paper
They're always being replaced

Bosnia, March, 1994, from an NPR interview with a 15-year-old Muslim girl.  Serbian forces were shelling the area we occupied. We tried to persuade her it would be safer to lie on the ground, as we were doing. She was indifferent and seemed to ignore us. She stood and talked freely amidst the  noise. She told us she liked country music and that school was getting boring and in the same casual tone asked us, ‘How long are people going to watch us die?’



She said she liked country music

Exploding sky, color of death
Exploding bodies
Men, children, women
Terror pounding ears like the heart beats
of a four legged veal marsala waiting to die
Putrid flesh, burning houses, torched spirits
15-year-old girl
Steel eyes melting under the heat of genocide
Imploding mind, split into a thousand screams
Only war
By whatever means
Deafening anguish
Running, deafening heart in throat, running
She said she liked country music
24, 41, 32
15 years old
This one here
82, 12, 7 years old

Said she liked...
Tie her wrists
Neighbor, aunt, niece
Liked count---try music
Tighter
Grandmother, sister
Spread her legs
And that school was getting boring
Spread her legs
Daughter, mother, wife
And that school was getting...
Tears running down the blood
           running down the legs
           running down the
Savage streets filled with broken Coke bottles
Wider, shove it, shove it
Coke bottles
shove it
Spread them wider
Shove it
Shove it ….  in
15-year-old girl
13, 7
Faster, faster
Knife in hand on throat in blood
All the way,   IN
Who cares
Fear disguised as hatred
Turning ***** into bullets
Piercing flesh

Piercing humanity
Just a female, just a body, just a toy
Was getting boring
No life, no more, no more
Then she turned to us and said how long...
Exploding wombs, death
Eyeballs peeling off in horror
How long...
She said...
Blood, legs, open, ******, open
She said...
Point of knife, ****** in
****** in center
Center of humanity
How long will...
******, who cares?
Piece of meat
Feed our revenge
Feed our war machines
Feed our weakness for power
Shove it in

The NY Times today stated that the UN council on human rights abuse has agreed that systematic **** is possibly being used by Serb forces as a tool for genocide against the Bosnian Muslims and that as such, may be viewed as a violation of international law.  A warning will be issued to the...
A warning will be issued to the...
A warning...

She said how long...
After two years

Brutal rapes
After two years
20,000 30,000
Systematic rapes possibly being used
50,000
Before, who cares
International law
Only now they decide to act  
Genocide, So what
How long will...
That systematic ****...
***** like lead bullets
Is possibly being...
Harder
****** the ******* thing all the way in
Then she said...
Wider
And then she...
Wider, Wider *****
And then she...
Get another, she’s dead, get another
And then...
Get another ******* *****
And then she said...
******* *****
She said
******* *****

She turned to us and said......
  
How  long are people going to watch us die?

Havana, I arrive
in the sweaty thickness of July
caliente y picante
steamy sidewalks, steamy women
chocolate brown, tan and
black against the lemon-yellow walls
strolling through La Plaza de Armas
slurping thick café through weathered lips
in La Plaza de Francisco de Asis
dancing on the pregnant gray stones in La Plaza Vieja
timba, rumba, salsa and son
Cristo, Maria, Yemaya and Obatalá

Havana, I arrive
in the intoxication of your breath
between the acrid fumes
of insecticides and 1957 Chevy's
stepping past the dark grime of your slums
streets plush with tight round bodies
beautiful and sensuously swaying

I arrive snaking past the converted palaces
con las turistas ricos
and the buy-me-a-dress-and-a-ring ******
with their enchanting full-tooth smiles
and undulating earthquake-tremor hips
I hear your beat
the machine-gun laughter of your feet
on the hot cobblestones
with the jinateros and street musicians
chants of Santería drifting from pane-less windows
 
Havana, I smell your heat
under salty faded sheets
smell the long, tobacco-stained nights
with your hips swaying
to the pale drops of ***
spilt from red lips
and the red drops of blood
spilt from your revolutionaries
spilt from the gorging of Machado and Baptista
and 500 years of foreign dominion

In Paseo de Marti
banners of Che Guevara
flapping in the moist tear-laden breeze
Fidel, cigar in hand
tirelessly raging in black and white
on a Russian 1960's TV

Cuba, I can see the green in your eyes
the peeling-paint bedroom dreams and
dirt-poor joy of your richness
laughing out the despair and desperation
dancing out the oppression and the paucity
the aching of your past
the battles of Castillo De Los Tres Santos
of  the revolution
of living
and as I stand on the steps of El Capitolio
looking out at the decaying grandeur
I understand why
I will be back

I pour you a cup of tea

It drops
on the ground
quickly

I pour you another cup

it flows
over
the side

I tell you

get a new cup

or burn your hand
and stay thirsty

I arrive in Lima
The sweat-sogged poverty
lumped onto concrete
pushes at my heels
The tight black air
swallows the nakedness
of prostitutes and thieves
Pockets empty like a traveler’s stomach
growling beneath the world of Los Incas

In Cusco
My head throbs in the thin air
with the sound of boys
trying to shine my boots, my sandals
my bare feet
no problemo
women sell fresh papaya and guava
sweaters and trinkets
Hawkers surround me
like a tightly stitched T-shirt

Cusco
The Navel of the Earth
A bulging belly
throbbing
digesting
living
 
Sunset
I spread my toes
over the evaporated flood waters
of the Rio Urubamba
where it once flowed
from the fingers of Manco Inca
over the fleeing conquistadors
at the top of Ollantaytambo
Momentary brilliance
before you retreated to the jungle
Spain, always gnawing at your heels

It’s a mouth-full-of-coca-leave’s journey
to Macchu Picchu
I enter the dream
spitting wet leaves
on the silence of a dead kingdom
Gasping for air that once filled lungs
of Inca messengers
carrying news of defeat and conquest
over the great Andes
Los Incas Caminos
The cloud-dripped mountains
spread green across my eyes
I see ghosts
a steady move of feet through the depleted air
Porter, takes my backpack
carries it against his brown crusty skin
ancient, sun-baked descendant
of the Earth’s naval
A toothless, painless smile
It must have been different
before we came
with money the color of unpicked rice
Now I hear your belly-groan
Between the perfectly fitted stones
of Sacsayhuaman
My voice bounces circular
off invisible walls
because your magic has survived you

Macchu Picchu
Unknown and majestic
Hidden from blood
from the stink of vultures
No more
Black raven feather
drops on my skull
floats on the shiny gray stone
under my feet
which are wrapped in dried, brown skin
naked, without a heartbeat

It’s past sunrise
the tourist bus has arrived
and the flat shadow of the crowd
blocks the light of the ascending sun
that tries to penetrate
the perfect holes
of a perfect wall
in an imperfect dream

evening
my Japanese friend returns to his room
I sit in mine
listening to the sound of rotting wood
Then she comes again
sneaking past the sleeping attendant
she looks 14
‘You want make nice nice’
No, I don’t want ‘nice nice’, I say again
She laughs
I refuse, leave my gray fungus covered hotel
walk into a temple
Rows of orange robed monks sit all around
Death not a mystery
He lies in front of me
Burning in his saffron robe
Orange smoke spiraling up
joining night clouds and moon
At midnight
they will come and take his bones
Not a mystery
later, I sit with Buddhist children
playing a guitar
They sing melodies of the east
our voices spiraling up
joining orange clouds and saffron moon

It is not yet midnight

There appears a window
at the top of my head
and at night
the stars and moon shine
clear to my feet

Like a greenhouse in the sun
my organs are warmed
and grow stem-like arms
and bulb-like eyes
and root-like feet

When the snow melts
I stand on my hands
and open the window wide
for spring cleaning

I was lost in the Bermuda triangle
It was like Egypt in a sea of flesh
the great pyramid
******* in all surrounding life
A tilted triangle I thought
circumscribed around your hunger
but you knew my weakness
Told me it was a fig
fresh
succulent
sweet
so I bit into its sweetness
leaving my smile on your thighs
Told me it was a grapefruit
You were right
I bent down and tasted it
pink
juicy
kind of sweet
kind of ****
I ate every section
lingering
around the center
with my tongue
There were tremors in your skin
as I swallowed your body
as you swallowed my hardness
as your body
swallowed the milk of my trembling
I came to Egypt
I came in the great pyramid
between sky and sand
The Pharaohs were waiting for us
You were waiting for me
I visited the pyramids in Mexico
and was jungled in
like green-iguana-slowness
like Asian fever
sweet and sweaty
swollen like an anaconda
moving in and out
digesting the heat of a fresh ****
In Sudan, the Saharan winds
shatter the pyramids into pieces
I lick their dryness like a cat its fur
let the heat burn my bowels
Now there are tremors on my skin
I exhale breath of wet fire into your lips
and rain down upon your body
like night crashing into the surf
like sweat pouring into the sea
like sand screaming into the wind
I even became the wind
so as to enter every part of your smoothness
slipping past even your seditious skin
The wind has no mercy

We draw shapes in the morning light
with our naked bodies
while only the birds cover us
with their fluttering wings
made of the down
of your brown belly
I tasted that too
like Indian velvet
like a Bahian feast of papayas
maracaja and guarana
Da danca do mar
In Brazil the sensuous sun seeps
into the scorched sand where our form was
and cuts through the hot flesh of the earth

To the center
where all desire has fused
has seeped through the surface

To the center
where my mouth burns from wanting

To the center
where your wetness burns my tongue

To the center
Your center

I
Will
Return

Shadows on the wall
Leather puppet laughter
seeping through the ground
Javanese man long buried
is uncovered by the puppet dance
The hammering sounds
of the gamelon orchestra
move like vapors through the blood
vipers through the ground
Shadows on the wall
Our shadows
      like puppets
          we are watched

The darkness hides the real figures
We see the shadows
only our shadows
Dancing on the wall
The audience laughs
from the wall
We see ourselves sitting

The wall is everywhere

Word

falls from my tongue

d
   r
      i
                    p
                       s

like saliva on my floor

you tissue it up
find ways
to make it river

I smile
you understand

Zu Twa Szi

(Don't Mind Me I'm Just The Wind   - African saying)

Don't mind me
I'm just the wind
You can scream into me if you want
I'll just toss the sound around
until it wallows into melody

You can dry tears by me if you need
I'll just carry their saltiness back to the sea
You can try to keep me from your skin
with all the skill of a master builder
But I'll search out every opening there is
and rub against all your privacy
without a second thought

I have no manners
or morals
or modesty
or inhibitions
or judgments

I won't reveal your whispers
I'll dissolve them
I won't discuss your secret doings
I'll scatter them
 
I won't scorn your libidinous thoughts
I'll caress them
If you rail against me
or try to beat me with your fists
I'll just part like the Red Sea
and move to both sides
of where your fists have been

You can spit at me when you're angry
I'll just spray it back in your face
You see I'm just the wind

I don't hold your happiness when you laugh
Or your loneliness when you cry
I don't hold your anger when you scream

I'm just the wind, a traveler
With no baggage or destination
With nothing to see
and nowhere to be seen

Seemingly nothing

You are the absence of space
that merely hinders
my journey