He Holds

on the bus--
poster tubes thrust into his hands by a girl without a seat,
a stranger's baby wearing huge adult-sized sunglasses
(also thrust upon him)

in the clinic--
a small monk's head
a tiny ear clogged with a pea
a needle threaded with blue thread

a red and white ball-
playing catch-
all the medicines behind glass-
with a little boy--a little monk

a packet of mendrup,
a bell, a damaru

before breakfast he's
stitched,
wiped tears

The Whistle

As Maya showed us our room at Khenpo Namdrol's guesthouse for the first time, she handed us two large skeleton keys, cautioning us to always keep the door to our room locked, as well as the outside hallway door, AND the sliding red metal gate. "Hmm...that's a lot of locks!" we thought.

That night, Khenpo sent Lakpa over to our room to explain about which lights worked on the battery when the power was off. Lakpa requested that we, "On," the porch light each evening so the night guard could see around the guesthouse. As the light was directly outside our window, we weren't too pleased to to have it on all night, but "On," it we did. Lakpa reiterated that we must keep the doors and gate locked at all times, as our building was, "On the main road," he said, pointing to the narrow path running next to the gate of the guesthouse and down through the rice paddies. "Many thieves," he said. "But don't worry, the night guard has a whistle."

Two days later, Lakpa announced at dinner that he was moving onto our floor that night--to sleep in the kitchen and make sure robbers didn't take any supplies from the nunnery being built behind the guesthouse. "So you're going to stay up all night looking out the window?" I asked. He said that no, he could sleep.

After the first night, Lakpa reported there'd been no robbers. The second morning at breakfast, when I asked how he'd slept, he said, "Very well thank you."

About fifteen minutes later he told me, "Oh, there were thieves last night."

"Thieves!?" what happened, I asked in surprise.

"There were three, but they ran away."

"Three? Trying to steal the rebar?" I asked.

"No, they broke into the temple!" he replied.

I'd heard the guard blowing his whistle in the night, but thought nothing of it as the guard blew his whistle a great deal every night. "To make sure the thieves know he's there. If they hear his whistle, they won't come," Lakpa had told me.

But come they did--jumping the gate, breaking the lock on the temple door, and scattering the mandala and it's pearls all over the floor. But then, the night guard whistled...and they ran away empty handed.

At the Clear Pool at Yangleshod

Leaves flutter,

   (feeling like fall),

as a young man takes a bath in his underwear,  repeatedly dunks into freezing water, 

washes his socks with a bar of soap on the concrete step;

the cave “priest”—still in street clothes (before having changed into his thin white lungi) vigorously finger-brushes his teeth.

A woman throws huge handfuls of what looks like mud,  

in to the koi, they swarm.

And the ngakpa K and I saw sitting in the field,

     takes his small bird off his shoulder,

          dips it in the water before putting it back in place,

              climbs the stairs to the gonpa.

Every few steps,

    the bird falls.

He patiently picks it up,

    replaces it.

I Didn't Believe

in change

that it could swell
like a dried fruit soaked in milk
unfurl tendrils of green
into my heart

For some reason, each time I get more and more scared

So we were flying over the Himalayas. I was urged to look out the window at the vast expanse of white and rock. Only the cabin was filled with a deafening screeching noise, air rushing in around the exit door. "Is everything okay?" I tentatively asked the stewardess, not too sure I wanted the answer. "Abnormal, but fine," she reassured. Before we'd left, he'd reminded us to remember this was all a dream. Still, visions of the door flying off into the clouds, bodies sucked into the air spinning as though in dance, filled my head. Bodies breaking upon white and rock. There was no comfort.

The Dough Baby in a Box

Like that incomprehensible—
mind.

They say the mind is not obscured to itself. But for me, it’s like blowing out a candle from afar, the flame oh so tiny—only to pop up, big and bright as ever.

And I say
I don’t know, I’m not sure…

until

you would swoop over,
whisk, wind me through trees

until we were days away
till flesh under nails. bruised.
until. someone with slanted eyes. and you.

until I no longer needed you?

Revisions

I keep revising a poem I posted here last Thursday (Notes on There's a Cricket in the Wardobe), because at first it had seemed okay, but now, each day it seems worse and worse...and so it becomes shorter and shorter. maybe by the end of the week it will be entirely gone!okay, i think i'm finally done with it. I'm left with just three sentences and a new title.it is posted below in it's new incarnation. I've deleted the old one.

You Could Always Be Counted On To Tell Me When I Was A Hypocrite

there’s the real, and the not real.

"tomorrow?”

and yes, but no.

Can't Find the Edges

thin skin, like the see-through shell of a tiny snail.
later still, something uncoiled inside—i’m splayed.
not like a small bird hiding in long grass.

the deer crash through the forest. i hear them blowing air through their noses—hidden behind bushes. the doe chomps field grass, cocks her head to listen, prances before us.

and it is raining. and it is pouring. it is cool in the forest. sometimes the rain drips. he says we have all lost our minds a long time ago.

and who will eat the meat off my bone? it’s an overcast day, and my overcast mind.

Revision/There's A Cricket in the Wardrobe

We were on the bleachers in the gym—it was some pep rally. You had hair like my boyfriend. Long on one side, only more brown than black, brown eyes. I smiled. Now with a baby, a wife? In my dream, you called her, “my lover.” How bohemian. So we were on the bleachers. I looked up at you. And then?

Then we were at lunch and you ate my crusts. Didn’t you? You used to get so mad. Ignore me for a while. Sometimes we’d drive in your tiny car. You were concerned for my innocence.

In your pictures you look the same. Only there’s a little girl in your arms. When I had a headache, you’d put your hands on my head, pretend to draw it out of me. Right? And usually, everything under wraps. In my dream, you held a phone to my ear, I heard your tiny daughter calling you daddy.

Someone once told me you were a little ball of string I just wanted to unwind to see what was inside. She said when I finally got there, there might be nothing. We’d walk, your arm 'round my waist, hand on hip. When I gave you the pictures my dad took of us, you said, “Oh, were you trying to look sexy?” Sometimes, you’d turn away. That campout, again, you were mad. Still, there was breakfast.

Years later, you picked me up at the train, in the rain. Then, once again, you wanted nothing to do with me. One christmas eve, we met at the longhorn, one time we went snowboarding. You slept at my house on the couch downstairs, got a little mad cause I read the map wrong. One 4th of july you picked me up at the airport. My plane was late. Later, you came to stay, used the payphone across the street to call your girlfriend, slept on the floor, left early, came home late at night. I barely saw you that month. But one night, I layed by your side on the futon. We finally spoke. That was all. You left. I stayed, went to asia, went looking for you at your work--five years later. You called me that night, told me you’d fallen in love.

Now, it’s been five years again. In the meantime, I’ve gotten married, another useless degree. And you, you’ve fallen in love, had a baby. Your talent exploded.

You used to say you just didn’t know how to handle me.

Until Her Mind Split, She Was Someone Else

Because when she told him she looked a little different, he said, "Is your mind different? Your heartt?"

Sentences broke down over telephone wires till there were little bits of words nestled in hair, stuck to lips.

Because a chimera is "an impossible or foolish fancy."

It wasn't just the broken words that lost meaning. Even whole words came to nothing, as she became L.I.E. and language displaced.

Because he said the city had too many building trees.

And all the little things went unsaid.

Because he said he'd give her kisses and mashed potatoes when she was mad.

Still, she wanted rawness. Fingers strumming a palm, lips against the perimeter of a world.

Because how can love need nothing in return? He confused her.

So she imagined how she'd see him and be so happy and all the varieties of sweet smiles they'd share. Only she couldn't. And she had gone for a walk in the freezing cold with her cough and her mom's cell. Squatting on a sidewalk near Patterson Park, crying into the phone. Still not sure what to do sitting on an icy rock at the edge of the pond. At the sink, the sun reflected off the blade of the knife, she thought of bits of teeth growing in a stomach.

Because there were broken words, lines, signals, thoughts.

Oosa of the Purple Hands

So we're sqwooshed in a bicycle rickshaw
from Bhairahawa to Lumbini like we're back in time.
An hour and a half by houses seemingly made of straw
small kids with tangly hair
tiny girls-eyes outlined with kajal
a cow wearing a necklace.
There's the familiar smell of burning plastic,
everpresent staring eyes.

We pass teen boys on bicycles
holding hands as they ride across a bridge.
A young boy driving a bullock cart,
leaning back on hay heaped to sky.
Tractors and bikes
toting megaphones blasting static-ey Hindi music.
There're egrets and water buffalo.
Countless children who call hello,
wave after us.

And then a long line of people snaking across the road
accompanied by a uniformed marching band in red coats with brass buttons.
As we draw closer, the road becomes blocked
and there is a woman dancing--
everyone crowded around her,
but on second glance she is a lady-boy,
flutters her eyes in K's direction.

A young girl comes up to us,
asks my name, then says, "how nice,"
and that we should dance.
"It's a wedding," she says.
Dozens of smiling kids encircling us.

When we say it's time to go,
Oosa says it was very nice to meet us,
sticks out her purple-dyed hand for a shake.

So,

not everything I'm posting here is complete. There are some poems which to me right now, feel done. Others are just ideas, things I'm working on, things that haven't become poems yet. They aren't born, heck, they aren't even formed. They're just some sperm and egg thrown together.

Could You Know?

as the little girl came with fresh morning milk
as we ate curried peas in the dawn

in the dark, squatting,
holding a long stick wound with cotton
face lit by burnt butter

on the roof squinting back at the himalayas, down at rusting rebar

how garbage is not piled in the streets, lit on fire

no shopkeeper holding a rat by it’s tail, beating it against the ground

we don’t see the fingernail-ed stubbed hands of lepers

no little girl, body missing below the belly

how we don’t have bandhs, don’t light tires on fire in the middle of streets to get reparations for one’s child murdered by the Young Communist League

There Is This:

wake sleep wake sleep. and in between: cook wash cook wash.
the nighttime tapping on the wall/the noisy greeks.

but what of the water tank on the roof. the dry tap. the cups of cold water poured over the head.

cumin. turmeric.
the amulet round the neck.

it sticks: like a sock on a wet foot.

and so we find ourselves here—on a wooden bench at the edge of the sea—a bird cooing—a motorboat—a transistor radio. wearing ten layers of sweat. the deep pit of samsara slowly exposed.

small birds. he eats raw celery in bed. small tits.

he's telling of human cyclops' showing pictures online. whorls, fecund, glistery-to rip open one's heart. like the street aftertaste stay honest and good and pure and true. a steel plate. banana leaves. to make one's heart a bowl. luminous hibiscus women crunch glass beneath their feet. if i'm honest with myself bodies of rice grains swell hair damp, smelling of mint dizzy. is your mind different? your heart? purple crocuses poke through me. dizzy. the emptiness of a cherry pit. bramble thicket tomahawk. the way hands smell lemons, limes, strawberries. love enough to fit in a box? a thimble? and there is no longer the thought behind the thought.

Somehow, Things Made Sense, My List Fell Away

Holiness in meditation upon his bed. Dead.
And orchids burst into bloom.
Cross-legged body warm,
emanating inexplicable scents of incense, jasmine.

There was this:
circumambulate the kudung,
the monastery.
Mantras, smoke offerings.
Beggars, butterlamps.

My world melted
into butter
coagulating into flower petals.
Statue faces shifting to sad.
Rainbows to slice your arm through.

He’s in a box, on a palanquin, on a truck, in Zangdopalri. Packed in salt.
Still.

After,
everything was lit. Generators whirred. Strings of colored lights dangled from the roofs of temples, stupas. Eyes pressed to windows staring in at the statue that looked sad the night he died.

Prayer wheels click.
Pop of insects on ceilings, floors, sudden rain.

Home,
there’s just ingredients.
Just photos and dreams. And imaginings.
Just flour and sugar and bread.
Blood whooshing from my arm.
Want to find figs and cardoons.
Burrs and Mandelbrot.

Closed up. And in.

His Holiness Penor Rinpoche - Rainbow Appearing - Raw Footage.

Unfolding

into sky,

time dissolving

until touch of leper hands,

taste of embalming salt

there was the ruined face of the tall lady, blowing blood, billions of fake flowers

the amulet round the neck, his prickly skin rash, the string of jasmine above the mirror

400 butterlamps flicker the deer man’s hoofed-legs

suddenly the cuckoo

chatral rinpoche’s coconut

the rigor mortis cat in the gutter

the barefoot street boys huffing, crazed wobbling on the sidewalk

the small goats on the roof

they spooned mindrup into our hands

the truckloads of maoists yell, wave flags

children play in the street

finally, sun

the barebreasted woman on the roof of her house—dark pendulous breasts

how flora goes to the south of france in the summer and tans, how she wants to know if marike eats lots of strudel (marike says no, that’s german, not dutch)

the small monks are unaffected, saturday soccor outfits donned

she said it would go, the way a shoe slowly wears

still, it stuck like a sock on a wet foot

desire

could you know there’s no heartbone here?

but there were bodhisattvas

among us, cows fat on garbage, feces everywhere

amongst girls in orange-sherbert colored clothes, burning bandh tires,

amongst the insects, people, cars, horns bursting—the cacophony of dogs in the night

there, like a lump of sugar dissolves into tea

*Already posted this on my other blog, but I want to get all my new poems in one place...

It Was Andy's Birthday

there was a thin girl in a pleated skirt, flowered blouse, long blonde hair who'd just been married. they talked, (awkward in the doorway), of travel. "oh, was it a haiku?" she asked, blushed. "i mean a coup!" told of being in ecaudor and being reassured it was so safe there, that if someone stole from her they'd kill them, so she shouldn't worry. she volunteered with orphans 10 hours a day and they were hanging the dead in the streets. she told me how they knocked on the door, asked if they could pick the little plums, made jam. 

I've only ever had two recurring dreams

when I was little I dreamed again and again of a playground that didn’t exist. it was in doyle field’s football field. it was the elusive playground I could never reach—the most wonderful of shining playgrounds—the dream always the same. It was across from priest street school—across from the playground where a man stood at the edge of the woods, his penis poked through his fly. wiggled at me. beckoning with his finger. i looked. i was four. i shook my head no continued playing.

but that wasn’t the recurring dream, just the playground part.

what I dream of now is waves. enormous furls of water about to crash over me. i run, I drive as they encroach. i see them rising towards me. but I am safe.

is it because I was supposed to be there? our hotel gone.

i was supposed to be there, waves rolling over my head. watery insides. flooded breath.

it was the south of thailand. khatoey-ridden phuket. we fled to singapore then planned to return. instead, off to india—our hotel destroyed.

it’s always the waves.

three years after the tsunami we found ourselves in thailand once again. on phi phi island. how many people died there? everything seemed back to normal, but sad. there was the happiness of so many clusters of green coconuts at tops of trees. the green green green. the clear turquoise water. the bobbing long-tailed boats. and the wind. there, in the andaman sea.

the tree outside our thatched bungalow scattered tamarind pods on the ground. they burst beneath my feet. the light filtered through bamboo. it was hot. the gecko on the ceiling-chirping.

A Certain Melancholy

Pema Rinpoche

Little, in Lhasa, you’d squat in dust, play with rocks, piling one atop another to form wobbly stupas. By your side, the red man only you saw.

You were ten the day the search party arrived. Three monks trying to find the reincarnation of a certain Khamtrul Rinpoche—the 9th incarnation--tests to see if you were he.

Three malas, three bowls, three vajras lined in a row. You chose—and your life transformed—left days encapsuled in mountains, sky. Soon, you and your parents on a bus towards India, a new home in Mindroling. The red man by your side.

In India, the Dalai Lama confirmed you were the one. You donned a shaved head, plum robes, no longer lived with your parents. But you had teachers, toys. When you misbehaved, your tutors prostrated, beat you.

Years later in Darjeeling, people wanted locks of hair to wear in amulets round their necks, your urine to drink.

But later, in Boulder,
you were another 23 year old immigrant washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant.

And even I,
let you rub my feet.

Everything Neatly Folded

1.
but the jigsaw mind unfolds
2.
when with a smile, she tells me there are dead bodies everyhwere, sticks out her hand for a shake
3.
they say not to think too much

Thought Bubbles

the long gone strawberries. the cowboy who castrated himself cause his balls got in the way. the menace of facebook. what if my mom has ovarian cancer? and what of the heirloom tomatoes? how i am afraid of goals, how i can't stick to a schedule, how i am so white bread. should be like--what was his name? oh yeah, david dorje in pharping who worked at chatral rinpoche's house all day doing whatever saraswati and the attendants told him to do, doing so many prostrations a scab formed on his forehead. and it always comes back to asia. the flowers, the sweetslice cucumbers, my sore throat, the flooding basement. how i can't break out of my writing funk. "Vag bleed"--overhearing keith's doctor talk--anthony's horrible stories of psychotic patients. missing montana. the bear ate a man. the khyentse yangsi. old faithful. heiress of quaker oats. the wolves in talia's yard stare at her domestic dogs in confusion. and eleanor's step-son and wife who keep rabbits, slaughter them every few weeks, put the pelts in the freezer. how talia and jesie shot an elk, dragged its dead body home through the woods behind them, how they hunted morels. the giant slow moving buffalo in the road. moontime. 7 cucumbers. 6 tomatoes. cofee pops. nectarine pops. herbed suntea. the circus of boulder. will i become a peon in the university library system? "So did he expire?" keith asked. making 8.50/hr working part-time with a worthless masters. anthony talking about catatonia--being frozen in panic. will i truly be okay in tibet next time? the red cords 'round the wrist. the charnel gorund of my porch. fall in the air. and someone just shot themselves in the head. i told k i hoped they were okay. "they're not," he said.

White Bread Dipped in Tea

White Bread Dipped In Tea

yes, there were nomads, and daggers at waists.

gobs of coral and turquoise in women’s hair. there was trundling through the grasslands. but mostly—there were mountains. there was rawness. there was fear. it was so unbelievably beautiful—the blue sky, the jagged peaks, the turning leaves, the rushing water—rainbows of prayer flags, giant stupas and prayer wheels on the sides of roads, mantras carved into hillsides. we went up and up and up.

so there was that. and then there was the fear. there was me breathless just sitting. there was the bus, about to drive off a cliff? crumbling dirt roads. there were massing clouds. there was a whiteout at the top of the pass and our driver scared chanting mantras. there was me, standing at the bottom of the hill screaming.

so we were in tibet.
it was bright. i wore the snap-on dark lenses I’d bought in chengdu. the ones I got in tibet-town and had sanded down to fit my frames. the ones I was embarrassed to wear cause they reminded me of old men. only I couldn’t afford prescription sunglasses. so we were in tibet. it was dry. my lips cracked, throbbed. they hurt. so I used lots of lip balm but it didn’t help. i tried to drink enough water, but I didn’t want to have to pee on those 12 hour bus rides over the passes. we were in tibet. we were on local chinese buses. boys blasted avril lavigne through cell phones. the bus full of smoke as we went up and up and up 16,000 feet and it was snowing. and we were on the top of the mountain. and I imagine it was slippery. and it was a one lane road and a truck came in the opposite direction. and the road was so narrow neither of us could pass. and we were stuck. there, on the top of the mountain.