N a p
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JANINE POMMY VEGA
Majik's Mala
(for Harris
Breiman)
Majik's
mala
click clacking in a quiet room
jerky moves of the bone beads slipping
down the string
Places
you wouldn't think pain knew about
open up, we are re-instructed:
Mother
Buddha's string of beads,
and a hopeful puppet in her sixties
still on the lookout for freedom
It
may not come climbing mountains
as before, or plumbing the depths
and positions of sexual nature
It
may not come running high speed
through the woods like a dog in the summer
hemlocks
May
not come trekking out to find death sitting alone
in infinitudes of winter
But
in slowly giving up, in the hand unclenched
the personality cooked like soup
inside the skull
Come
all you who are hungry
Come
and eat.
Too
long fixed in place, the body
becomes an ironing board,
a bicycle standing against the wall,
it creaks into use, the slow spokes,
screech of legs propped up in the living room,
Locked
in a photo frame one has time
to observe mortality click clack
it is not unhappy.
No
fixed opinion
when fluid motion is yanked away
it might just as well be heads
as tails click clack
these things do not matter.
Freeze
frame of Majik Labdrom's mirror
the absurdity of us marching dignified
to a graveyard one step two step Oops!
off the curbstone, down like a man in profile
The
Punch and Judy Show
to a crowd of
Wap!
He's down! Wap! He's up again!
click clack click clack clack
An
umbrella opens, the taffeta hangs tattered
the spokes like a ribcage sing
in the wind
Fluid
moves so rare we notice now
when they come up, like animated movies
Goofy
drops his gumball down the sewer
Minnie
holds onto her hat as she plunges skyward
off the cliff like a kite.
No
references, no grave demeanor
considered opinions melt in the soup bowl
of the skull, click clack
Hey!
Comes a moment, Hey!
No
limping, no hunched shoulders, no stiff elbows
a body is moving easily over the landscape
Hey,
what happened?
Majik
Labdrom in meditation
her mala serenely around her neck
each bead in motion, in static grace
each bead in fluid motion.
Majik
Labdrom, pronounced ladrón,
like a Puerto Rican second story man,
The
nice thing about God as a thief
is she takes it from you
willing or not, knowing or not
she takes it, you wake up one morning
and it's all decided: mobility (or good looks
a perfect ass, a capable memory)
has disappeared.
Coming
out of sleep, the chrysalis
kicks off its cocoon, the (choose one)
praying mantis katydid grasshopper's
arms and legs are littered across the plain
and works of art, the diamond rings
are swimming down in the muck with the snails.
Majik Labdron: Female
"Mother" Buddha. Inventor of the chod ceremony, she is often depicted
dancing, usually in a graveyard.
Mala: String of prayer
beads, worn around neck, or on wrist, or in hand. Each bead can be used for a
repetition of the mantra.
The Coal Bin Blues
Been
hangin' out in the coal bin,
got dust up in my clothes,
Said
I been messin' round in the coal bin
got soot all up in my clothes
Who
cares about the mess
when my coal man brings a full load?
Coal
truck creakin' and a whinin'
makes his slow way up the hill
Said
that rusty truck be grindin'
his old slow way up my hill
Who
cares how long he's climbin'?
At
the top he fills the bill.
Coal
man likes to start out spoonin'
like a viper on parole
Say
me and the coalman spoonin'
like two vipers on parole
Next
you know a cloud of coal dust
like a balm over my soul
Those
who say ole folks don't do it
don't be knowin' my friends or me
Them's
that say ole folks can't do it
ain't never seen my friends and me
When
my furnace needs a churnin'
only the coal man satisfies me.
I
been hangin' out in the coal bin,
got that dust up in my clothes,
Said
I been messin' round in the coal bin
dusty fingers dusty toes
Who
cares about the coal dust
when my coal man brings a full load?
Reading Your Last Book,
Fame & Death
Into
the chophouse incinerator we go,
It's
a Wednesday night
in a week of rain
I've
just come from the hospital
where I had the greatest rest
in years-a real vacation:
frequent naps and three squares a day
I'm
back with the same
medicine as you for the failing heart
and watch through your eyes unflinching
the round of events your last days, Fame & Death-
reality jostled by the finite witness, the
bundle of
synapses, the no more with this ego
come what may.
To
circle and circle your head in the photo
with my fingers, like rubbing your stomach
in the old days, intimacy
not entirely forgotten,
Old
lover, you said as you signed my book,
I
might say, lover, teacher, friend,
and look toward my own gaze through the fabric
at what was real, what is not, the who I ams
that might not climb again, best the uphill
slope, or swallow without hesitation
the final nothing at the top.
The
body slides back,
a memory in the egg of the void;
to be quit of all this-reminded
in the medicines of the need for constancy,
a mothering of the heart-I
turn to your last days,
your dream with Peter, your vision
of historic funeral with the lovers talking,
The
starry nursery rhymes of a bright old child.
How
dapper you look in those clothes-
the shirt from Goodwill, the cashmere scarf:
a well dressed bard.
I
love these last words,
this last time with you unencumbered
by futures, a last little human time.