CUITLAHUAC
            It’s said Huitzilopochtli’s temple burns.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            It does so, to the sinking of my gut.
            Great rains of sparks dripped on his chapel’s thatch,
            Which torched our war god’s crematory pyre,
            And lit the flabbergasted rabble’s face,
            Their eyes and open mouths like perfect ‘O’s.
            Afar, the old, old fire god, aloof,
            And chortling at his native element,
            Was in his shrine extinguished nonetheless
            When shards of lightning from a cloudless sky
            Forked up his walls. It seems the gods contend,
            And waste their earthly halls as game-board chips.

CUITLAHUAC
            Have you beheld the floods?

PRIEST OF TLALOC                               No. Floods? The floods?

CUITLAHUAC
            The boundless lake that rounds our rafty town
            Shrugged off her boiling banks, uncorked her wrath,
            And, in a breaker to out-swell the sea,
            Has drowned our residential waterfront.
            House after house bobs in a flotsam fleet-
            A drear, domestic archipelago.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            What does the emperor your brother say
            Of these most inauspicious auguries?

CUITLAHUAC
            It’s in the bag and in the box with him.
            He closets up his fear in *******-up shrugs.
            And yet I can not blame his fickleness.
            If judgment’s based on past experience,
            How to interpret, then, such spectacles,
            When what is weighed has never once before
            Been seen or rumored in the known-of world?

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Lord Tlacaelel claims that Hungry Prince
            Tonight held council with the emperor,
            To state his gloss on these phenomena.

CUITLAHUAC
            He stands on shaky ground. How did he fare?

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Like to a hummingbird trapped in a hive.
            Motecuhzoma’s bellows rattled rafters.
            He challenged him at dawn to the arena.
            The sacred ball-game shall resolve their feud.

CUITLAHUAC
            The stakes?

PRIEST OF TLALOC        Unknown, but speculated high.

CUITLAHUAC
            We’ll meet then in the morning at the court.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Let’s get inside, lest Tlaloc should suspect
            We dare the tempest-****** to his worst.                    *They exit.

TLACAELEL [to audience as spectators]
            Hear ye! Of these five games, his majesty
            The emperor has won the first two rounds,
            And Hungry Prince has crowned the third and fourth.
            Who takes this final set will clinch the match.

HUNGRY PRINCE [aside to Motecuhzoma]
            Motecuhzoma, why not call it quits,
            While thus we tilt in equilibrium,
            So time may be arrested in his stride,
            And nothing will be proven to your loss.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Oh yes, well, well you should prevaricate,
            Since you recoil, and your horoscope
            Is but a bunk, evasive, spurious sham.

HUNGRY PRINCE
            We used to sport like willful brothers once.
            This pointless schism scathes me to the core.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Play on! Your grace, equip him for the serve.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Behold this little token of a ball-
            Through this ordeal, symbolic of the sun
            When- swallowed nightly by the earth’s dark mouth-
            He spars with demons of the underworld,
            To birth anew at dawn. So does this sphere,
            Across the blood-bathed flagstones of this court.
            Regard it so. The gods assort you both.
            To one: bask in divine approval’s nod,
            The other: dark ignominy. Engage!

                He throws the ball to HUNGRY PRINCE. MOTECUHZOMA          and HUNGRY PRINCE leave the stage separately.

TLACAELEL
            A solid serve.

PRIEST OF TLALOC          A capital return.

TLACAELEL
            These salt-and-pepper gents belie their age.
            Look how they swoop, like eagles ******-beaked.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Our monarch springs, a glistening dynamo.

TLACAELEL
            And his contender sheds years as he runs.
            Tell me, your eminence,
            What are your sentiments on Hungry Prince?

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Though not a brilliant statesman, he remains
            The most perceptive prophet of the earth,
            With whom the gods must share their captain’s logs,
            His auspices so rarely miss their mark.

TLACAELEL
            You’d buy his soothsaying?

PRIEST OF TLALOC                           I'd say I would.

TLACAELEL
            That’s to the heart of this imbroglio.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            What is the real dispute, then, of this duel?

TLACAELEL
            You’d know their true contention?

PRIEST OF TLALOC                                     Tell me.

TLACAELEL                                                                 So . . .

CUITLAHUAC
            Who goes there? Speak!

PRIEST OF TLALOC                         Another wandering soul.

CUITLAHUAC
            God save your heart, your grace.

PRIEST OF TLALOC                         And yours, my lord.

CUITLAHUAC
            This is no night to sleepwalk thus abroad.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            The shouts and whimpers chased me from my bed,
            And stir me in somnambulating fright.

CUITLAHUAC
            These whirlwinds pour forth torrents from the sky,
            But what is worse- the horrid portents seen
            From every roof, spark tears from every eye.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Our crops droop as if weary of this world,
            And beasts, most manlike, brood on shapeless fears.

CUITLAHUAC
            The time’s as if our wives around the hearth
            Spun yarns of winter’s tales to fright our tots,
            And woke to find their nursery-romance real.
            Now, fairy-fabled bugbears lurk in alleys.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            The sallow moon, a lop-eared phantom looms;
            Her astral lantern threats pale devilry,
            More fearsome on display than in eclipse.

CUITLAHUAC
            A sulfurous comet brands the starry sphere;
            Its tail points like a trail towards Mayaland,
            And nightly northward does it come- It creeps.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            If ever man has offered prayer for omens,
            He could not ask for signs more palpable.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Ah, Tlacaelel, ghost limb of my father,
            Who was a lord when I but governed dolls,
            The foremost man once more at our grave council.

TLACAELEL
            Those at life’s twilight like to rise at dawn.
            Good day, Motecuhzoma, emperor
            Of all the notable of known-of realms.

                                                        ­   Enter CUITLAHUAC

MOTECUHZOMA
            And here’s Cuitlahuac in his finest weeds,
            With darkened circles under bloodshot eyes.
            Well, little brother, you’re a paradox-
            My junior for a senior senator!

CUITLAHUAC
            Those two short years that separated us
            Must have profoundly aged and seasoned you,
            You point them out so often. But go on.
            Motecuhzoma, happy new year, sir.

TLACAELEL
            Good boy, Cuitlahuac. Stick it to the bully!

CUITLAHUAC
            Lord Tlacaelel, you’ve out-fathered Father,
            And middle age must curtsy to your years.

                     Enter a Priest of Tlaloc. Others trickle in, as many as may be.

MOTECUHZOMA
            High priest of Tlaloc, come. How fares our god
            Of fruitful springs and thunderstorm today?

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            He banquets with your captive warriors’ souls,
            And incense fumes his rosy breakfast, sire.

TLACAELEL
            Your grace, you know the judgment we have reached
            Regarding Hungry prince?

PRIEST OF TLALOC                               I have been briefed.
            But here Texcoco’s king himself arrives.
                                    
                   ­                                         Enter HUNGRY PRINCE.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Well, Hungry Prince! Co-sovereign of Texcoco,
            Comrade-in-arms, my true facsimile,
            Who’s shared the ruling of our empire, welcome.

HUNGRY PRINCE
            Hail, grand triumvir and my counterpart,
            A bright new year, you lords of Mexico.
            Our best regards from my side of the lake!
            And yet, it is a Triple Alliance we lead.
            Where’s brave Tlacopan’s king, our third accomplice?

MOTECUHZOMA
            That languid chief seemed spent and in decline,
            And, sadly, has been ordered back to bed;
            Our trident’s but a single spear today.
            But welcome all, and may we welcome here
            The first day of a new, uncharted year.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            A New Year’s Day, which- due to the complex
            And interlocking gears of calendars-
            Comes only every fifty-second year.

Sound the horn of the Maroon,
My people have lost their voices,
Bring Jesus back to walk on water,
The bricks crushed my people’s legs.

Get a cup of water from River Babylon,
The dirt is biting my people’s faces,
Let Mohammed ascend to Heaven once more,
It’s dark, my people need His blessings.

Tell Ceres to come plant a seed,
My people are starving, no food to eat,
Tell *Tlaloc to please shake the skies,
Rain drops, my people are thirsty.
Go tell this to the world, send them our cries-
The Earth has turned on their sister, little Haiti.

Ceres-goddess of agriculture
*Tlaloc- Aztec rain god

La tierra tenia sed
y tenia ganas de beber
y le llamó a Tláloc
El Dios de la fertilidad
y El trajo la lluvia...
grueso y pesado
y le empapó a ella
hasta que la tierra
estaba húmeda
y satisfecho

MOTECUHZOMA
            Our priests have proven green and tenderfoot
            By goggling at our late, ill auguries:
            Dumbfounded, counselless, they scan their toes.
            For this have I agreed to pawn my pride
            In dabbling with questionable cures
            By calling forth the aid of sorcerers.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Dread lord, how might your grace with confidence
            Place mercenary warlocks in your trust,
            Who twist their gifts toward late-night banditry,
            It’s said, to paralyze their shaky preys.
            Tezcatlipoca, our capricious master,
            Might cloud our muddy minds yet murkier
            For slumping to such dubious helps as these
            If they make mock of his peculiar knowings.

TLACAELEL
            Don’t worry. If they cool your fevered fears
            We’ll hail their hocus-pocus as white physic.
            If not, then as black fiends in iron they’ll rot.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Bring in these esoteric ministers.

                                  A guard leads in three Sorcerers

            You three obscure and dicing conjurers:
            Have you beheld grim omens in the clouds,
            Or prodigies upon the earth? You three,
            Who fathom ‘neath earth’s black and gem-jammed caverns
            To skim atop cold pools of stone-blind fish
            And witness those who have not winked at day;
            Who sink into the water’s murky deeps,
            And loiter drowsily among the weeds,
            Mustering fronds and nightshades for your charms.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Have you encountered stray and mongreled men?
            Or lightless nooks congeal as dead men’s shades?
            Or midnight women, crablike, creep in broods?
            Shall we be leveled flat by strange disease,
            Or locusts, pirating their greedy shares?
            From sudden deaths, from wars or wild beasts?
            Shall rainstorms sink our rooftops down to jetties,
            And Tlaloc drown us in a tide of bounty,
            Or broil us in cruel sabbatical?

MOTECUHZOMA
            You must not candy up **** truth for me.
            Have you not heard our thirsting goddess cry,
            And nightly croaking from the earth’s deep faults?

TLACAELEL                                                            
            The weeks since last we met found Hungry Prince
            Of late locked in his tower, casting scrolls
            Which chart the star-crossed charms of the occult.
            And in the predawn darkness of his arts,
            He broke through to a voice from the beyond
            Which whispered that the throne of Mexico
            Must soon come to be ruled by foreigners.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            And thus the emperor submits to trial,
            And these, their wagers, are red herrings, then.

TLACAELEL
            To spare us the demoralizing news.
            The spirits’ hands will steer them to reveal
            If this prognostication failed or not.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            The ball’s in motion. Let the gods decide.

TLACAELEL
            Motecuhzoma falls! The ball is down! The ball is down!

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Dust rises, and our lord is lost to view!

TLACAELEL
            Three in a row! Were we left hanging, then,
            For torturers to **** by small and small?

                              MOTECUHZOMA and HUNGRY PRINCE reappear.

MOTECUHZOMA [aside]
            I’ve lost then, but the full significance
            Of that word “lost” I’ve yet begun to know.
            Gods need not lie, and here we have their words.
            Well, let it come. [to Tlacaelel] Unseal the wagers, lord,
            And read before these noble witnesses
            The stakes we trusted to you at the serve.

TLACAELEL
            First, the abortive fee for Hungry Prince:
            King of Texcoco, had this victory
            Been won by his imperial majesty,
            And you had failed, your forfeiture had been . . .
                                                             [Opens the first wager.]
            The loss of all your lands, your courts, your throne,
            And all, for your opponent’s acquisition,
            Decoronation to a common man,
            And forced prostration to this gentleman.

HUNGRY PRINCE
            A staggering ransom! I must thank the gods,
            Not for their championing me, but truth.

It's raining
I hope that you're
satisfied,
where once there was Sunshine
we now have a lake outside
I hope you are satisfied.

She fluttered like the heart ascending o’er that ‘a way,
her swirling flower petals trailing scents throughout the day.

Heaven’s hounds are following, the wolves who chase the moon,
who chased after the birds and eagles, -who clamored to the sun.

The meeting followed once the bull, and the man,
tree and mountain, rivers and ship; found they met as one.

And finally the snake appeared to join in Tlaloc’s face,
All the actions, movements and motions that occur in outer-space.
Each apportioned in a name and symbol, time and order, or function each unto its place...

When the heart did see them afterwards and it fluttered like the early birds, inhaling in the wondrous, feeling something marvelous, and trailing through the skies upon and over time…
…and song or poem, bardic tale, kenning and the rhyme,

And set in stone or scribed on scroll, clay-carved or remembered in the mind. Lost of rhyme or reason and forgotten of their meaning until thought of as sublime. A tragedy or travesty, our lost past and history and that Dragon from the mine; and who he was or who he is and what we’ve lost or what we did.

A sleeper nay, a beast they say, who directs the evil Id...

And the birds shall fly and flowers grow, the ship arrived and animals stowed. The rivers, tree, mountain, bee, the bull and last, the man.
An ordering too and of all things said to be a plan,
…and that Dragon in his awful cave,
when Homer died became the grave,
...for over time did man forget them and thus became a slave.

chorus

…qe te awis petō, beehelōtis krēskō, plowós ghēmi qe kaiwotos karpō,

Te danus, deru, uros, bheiqlā, te ukson qe póstmos te haner,
…qe tagjōvi do-qe-pe olja weqtise seke do esmi e-men,
…qe jod Dherghen en-hen ghouros-te-speqos,
jom e-Homer walóm weiṛtō en-dō bhodsās;
…uperi tempos, ye man ne-mē, qe-en-dō e-dōsos.

Rain dance
We all sing to the sky
Dancing and twirling to the ever present moon light
"Bring the thunder! Bring the clouds!"
Pulsing louder and louder even the children cry
Within these nations
Separate but souls united
One can have to many days of the sun
"Brother raven"
she whispers
"Please bring word to above
"Our crops are dying
"Our souls are thirsty
"And our rivers thin
"Please, Oh Tlaloc,
"Cleanse us of our sin"
Prayers danced through the night

We sit together,
On old chairs with cracked legs
And upholstery of a dated pattern.

My hands:
blackened at the fingertips
nails in ruins
calloused.
it appears that my guitar is the victor of this battle.

The dining room is a mess-
textbooks strewn about, proclaiming that
a change in buyer preferences will
cause a shift in demand
and that
the Amarna Period reflected
a number of stylistic changes
and the clock on the oven says it's nearly midnight.

Retire with me to the front porch.
Sit down in a white rocking chair
with green-and-brown striped cushions
And feel the cool, clean mist on your cheeks
As the rain comes pouring forth
From the opened mouth of Tlaloc,

And we will sing, and laugh, and cry
Until it is quite late indeed
And we become
dizzy,
giddy,
wobbly-minded
And fall gratefully into bed.

MOTECUHZOMA
            There is a third chance-medley you omit:
            The several forking paths of fortune’s walks.
            Seeing a panther lurking on my left,
            Would you not show your lord the right-hand path?
            When looking back, we do not note that fork,
            Yet fate allows some swing for the intrepid.

SORCERER 2
            To cure these feline fears, don’t run
            From either, or your jaunt is done.
            But left and right will both hold good,
            If you’re the panther in the wood.

SORCERER 1
            Ah, brother, who are we to armor
            Arguments against this charmer?
            What use, to change into a cat
            As we can? He can diplomat
            His way through spells, and alchemize
            Pure, golden truths from steely lies.

SORCERER 2
            From impotence to abstinence,
            Humility from arrogance,
            Plunder into philanthropy,
            And sadism to justice.

SORCERER 3                                  See?
            No bird bones nor no wands are heeded,
            Only no character is needed.

ALL SORCERERS
            All hail the high and mighty mage,
            The gazing stock of this flat age!

MOTECUHZOMA
            Cart off to jail these jaunting cavaliers!
            Let them chirp out their pert remarks through bridles,
            And fix their flippant eyes on cold stone floors.
            Sans voice, sans books, sans tricky hands, we’ll see
            What muffled incantations might avail.
                                                                Guards exit with the Sorcerers.
            
PRIEST OF TLALOC
            These were but three. More might more prophets know.

TLACAELEL
            Well, these ones missed the mark.

MOTECUHZOMA                                         I fear not so.
                                                                                                  *All exit.

HUNGRY PRINCE
            It is the year One-Reed, and on this date
            Lord Quetzalcoatl, from this earthly throne,
            Long, long ago departed for the East,
            And on One-Reed it’s known he will return.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            One-Reed: It is a fatal year for kings.
            Our scriptures teach that when a murderous streak
            Finds black Tezcatlipoca, lord of chaos,
            On year One-Crocodile, he hunts our elders,
            One-Jaguar or One-Deer, he claims our children.
            But if he strikes on ominous One-Reed,
            Death swoops for princes.

MOTECUHZOMA                             On that jolly note,
            I open business for this syndicate,
            Myself presiding. All may find their seats.
            Now Tlacaelel, venerable friend,
            What progress on the state’s scholastic front?
            When last we met, the annals of our past
            Were deemed due for aesthetic overhaul.

TLACAELEL
            Lords, as you know, our eldest histories
            Have painted base and barbarous accounts
            Of our bewildered, wandering origins
            As meek and muddy natives, which- though true-
            Do not keep pace with our notorious present.
            Those earth-born tracts have all been commandeered
            And each one cast to char in heaping bonfires.
            Ah, what a purifying blaze that was!
            The inks of black and reds were rarefied
            To sheets of flame and wells of fluid coals.
            Now is our culture cleansed of heresies!
            So far from mourning that scholastic loss,
            The rabble whooped, and, singing rowdy reels,
            Made merry at that bedtime barbecue.
            And now, to re-devise those lowly annals,
            I move that we enlist our liveliest dreamers
            To craft extravagant and stately archives
            And claim the pedigree that we deserve.
            For what are histories but wrangling theses,
            Or dogma, but the darlings of a moment?
            So on this same authentic evidence,
            Let’s breed imaginary ancestors-
            Or ***** their deeds out- with a flourished pen.

MOTECUHZOMA
            It is their chief that most perplexes me.
            Send him my greeting, and convey to him
            The gifts I have equipped for your encounter:
            A turquoise serpent mask, a pearl-decked shield
            With feathered fringe as gossamer as foam,
            I’ll send the rain god’s legendary headdress
            Of quetzal feathers, green as sprouting grass,
            Fine, snail-shell collars, dainty golden bells,
            A saffron helmet chased with dazzling stars,
            Sandals obsidian-black- What riches more,
            I have not breath in this old chest to list.

TEUHTLILLI
            By your good will, I might unfold for him
            The vestments which are worn by several gods:
            Tezcatlipoca’s mirror, and Tlaloc’s jades,
            Huitzilopochtli’s gilded helm, and such.
            If he reach straight for the regalia
            Of Quetzalcoatl- Well, who need say more?

MOTECUHZOMA
            A thoughtful move. And, if not gods themselves,
            They yet may be our wandering ancestors.
            See if their speaker is the picture of
            A homeward-bound, long-absent patriarch.
            Especially take note if he admits,
            Or claims, he is your rightful king. What more?

TEUHTLILLI
            Should I purvey a spread of birds and game,
            And mark how fluently he dines or not?
            If he is from our far-flung lineage,
            He ought to be familiar with our fare.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Do so. But if, by chance, he shuns your board,
            And does not hanker for such bill of fare,
            But rumbles with a yen for human flesh,
            Why, then allow yourself to be consumed.
            I will ensure the welfare of your wife,
            And guide your children.

TEUHTLILLI                                 As you wish, my lord.           *Exit.