The Book of Crying Kanglings

                                                      OM BEKANZE BEKANZE MAHA BEKANZE

RADZA SMUDGATE SOHA

                       VII.

— in poor lading.

Dear L'urze Ei Ekajati: we know enough

about your mysterious uncle,

Paul Ekajati, to want to speak with you here,

in New Philadelphia. We value your experience

as a 'talker & shifter.' There have been

disturbances beyond Jupiter

which we wish to describe fully.

However, now it is my sad duty to tell you

that your ward, Kirsna Camille Ekajati,

has disappeared from Old Union Seminary

along with two of his little friends,

Kaya Engström and Samuel Havens. These two issues,

the Jupiter perturbation and the errant children

are related. For your convenience

by early morning, we will have dispatched

a Cyclone to spirit pond #4, Ladakh.

You should sleep with your sonors

for several hours tonight in preparation for the Capital's

electrical cells, or brillo.

Could you possibly cable us some method for contacting

your uncle, Professor Ekajati?

Yours sincerely.

Commander Charles 'Kaling-Cross.

Post Script: — Erratum Argon 1 —

L'urze, it's Nagarjuna Watts here,

and praise to you

for the champagne combustions

and all those black-lacquered boats

leaving our Kosmos. It must have been some party —

platters of minced reindeer meat from Stockholm,

the sperm casing of a giant squid with a mustard glazing

and all those old double bonds of scotch.

The Nepalese, in retreat, at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra

saw the fires all the way from the mountain.

That whole painting community in Woodstock

is doing well, and their patron, the woman Marjahn,

is still healing lepers. I think

you proably guessed, L'urze, that as I boy I suffered

all of the Shint's medical leafs and procedures.

with the collapse of a poor state bubble,

such as Argon, there're distortions

and a local phaxx might actually arrive

from the future as in a dream,

or, merely, as a surmise of indigestion.

K. has visions of you there, in Alaska,

harvesting birch sap

that is later boiled to syrup. He thinks

you've not contacted us for our own protection?

Or perhaps, there are some things you have forgotten

since walking out of those hell-drafts

in Manhattan. If this is it —

then I am your 'broken wharf!' Ha. Remember?

We did chöd practice together for a whole summer

and I brought you the box turtle.

I painted him in turquoise and coral!

One whole night we walked

along the Indus and you sang for me

the lyrics of the red Chöd apologia . . .

We made love that night

in the dilapidated Balkans' Icehouse. You changed

all the rats into white rabbits, and this rusted

water that dripped on us from above

became a delicious green elixir

which left me with my most unforgiving headache

of this lifetime. K.

misses you, of course, and is such a beautiful child.

The worst I can say of him

is that when he's sometimes charged

with housecleaning, and I am traveling, I do believe

he mobilizes dead untouchables

to scour, to sweep, and to sing

while he levitates at the sink, washing meticulously

all the porcelains I brought him from New Ceylon.

But he is a good kid.

I caught him smoking a green cigarette

in the late Spring. He was a bit sick

so I left it alone.

He's genuinely confused by all of this!

Watching the news yesterday,

a live transmission from Tel Aviv, we saw you

for a second. A Palestinian woman

with long, elaborately tattooed fingers; hair

dyed white, was lunging at the prime minister

with a great knife. Cataracts

of rainbow-colored water

in moving, lucid hinges came between them. Then,

the girl's hair stood on end, changing

to flames. All her sinew dried and withered.

She made an empty scream. Period.

We heard the horse-laughter

and then saw you there, dressed in white

beside the date palm that a storm had toppled

the night before. You waved to us,

and the boy began to cry. He senses

he will never be with you again.

He says to tell you that he believes

in all the Pakshi innocents

and in a future cornecia of a thousand years of peace.

He has dreamt of the dakinis and their canopy!

He sends full, unpardonable etceteras

of love and kisses to you, Khandro. Blessings. Nagarjuna Watts.

VIII.

Dear L'urze Ei' Ekajati: I am the grandmother of Kaya Engström

and I am writing to warn you

against any excursions you might be contemplating,

especially to the Capital.

The 'brillo' of the New Covenant

attacked your uncle; killed his father; and possibly

the brother Oslo. Who was your father?

I think I might persuade you

that Paul, the elder brother, was your actual

biological father.

When Ekajati was attacked in the Capital,

he merely released

through the vibration of a rainbow body,

leaving behind a mat of dark hair, the clear bone

of the septum, nails

and a gold tooth in need of polishing.

This gave the bastards something to think about!

His mother actually remains alive to this day

in an obscure convent near the East gate.

She appears to be quite crazy, but capable,

if you know what I mean.

The 'rupture' beyond Jupiter

does concern our children, for at last, the Shintling

is coming again to this universe.

After the female assemblies approved the decision,

there were sixteen months of organized rebellion

in New Philadelphia.

Now, finally, all agreements are sealed.

The seeming rupture

that began as a black geyser on the moon Io

is just the final ripening of that compact.

Preparations for this event

led to the 'brim light,' Universe Plaget,

and LXT catastrophes.

The Septaguant's Ward, Samuel Havens,

is our Chosen One.

Once, it was thought

that this personage was you, dear L'urze —

earlier in the century

I was being groomed for the same office

from the farthest assembly. I believe

I knew your uncle as a vagabond woodcutter

who had no shadow. Our two young ones

are the hatted attendants to the Haven's child.

Septaguant and your uncle

saved the tow-head Ward from the Wickle Ffee.

Your uncle choked the evil bastard

with an eleven-syllable mantra

which he loosened from his brow as a twelve-armed

white naga. It is this formula and its bank,

or visualization,

that they hope to extract from you in the Capital.

Come here to my snowfield instead. Bring your Chöd

gown and paraphernalia . . .

you must come immediately — there is still

danger for Kirsna and Kaya. If you doubt my calling

I should hasten to add

that you are twice born of the Lord Hayagriva,

and a glad company

he has made of it . . . Mallus Engström.

P.S.:

I can meet you tomorrow

in your old rooms in Delhi at five.

Do wear your sonors when you sit tonight,

for my fjord is one of the original

omphali volt-locales on Earth . . .

                       IX.

— in empty lading.

Darling L'urze: it is your Tulku Arak here,

and I am in Delhi tomorrow. I'll meet you at the banisters

beside the Shrine of one hundred syllables.

You have an orange and black cat

that the yetis left you.

Put a little bell on its collar and bring her to me.

I will adore her, while you

are off in the red star snowfields

with the great Viking mother, Mallus.

My attendants, Sonam Detch and Gyurmey Tsultrim, are

translating for me so please

excuse our collaborative exuberance.

As a girl, Mallus was the broom attendant

to the Matka Boska. And she's right,

they did groom her to be the Chosen One.

Just like you, child.

Your uncle did well there, on the gravel plain,

despatching the Ffee and his sisters.

His heroic half-brother, the Septaguant,

gathering the tow-head into his vehicle . . .

The Ekajati has followed the Ffee to hell

and prays there with him for a semester

as if he were Moses. I fear

the old Dame is right about him being your father.

You were conceived there, in Laos,

in the Tiger Gardens.

It was the full moon of the Vernal Equinox.

The Yucatan was utterly destroyed that night

by hurricanes. A meteor shower over Siberia

attracted wolves to reindeer

in staggering numbers. In Moscow,

the Kremlin burned to the ground. There was a flood

in Damascus.

So, child, it was a confused

but robust beginning for you. We can well understand

how Paul and Marie

found this night so agreeable. This whole intrigue

is also a small, contributing karmic-patch

that visits the Ekajati now in the shadows

of Colchis.

He'll work it out, and the killing of the Ffee

somewhere within the next forty weeks.

I would love to meet your new friend, Mother Mallus.

You'll have a nosebleed tonight when you sit.

Please wear the sonors.

Do not sleep in the shack —

leave for Delhi at sunset. Butterlamps of etceteras. Tulku Arak.

Post Script:

Listen carefully to the snow witch, for Marie's

karmic debt is loose here

with the little Kirsna, and the death of his parents

did not cover it. There is more danger for him

than for the other two children. When you first see him,

make your connection with him, and do not

be distracted.

Not by the dead whales, not by the aurora borealis . . .

I should conclude by confiding to you

that the Haven's boy

is acually a girl child of unusual experience,

and wisdom. Again,

a blue star kachina . . .

X.

Dear Mother Engström: I have sent a stockgram to the Commander

'Kaling-Cross and declined his kind invitation

to our capital in New Philadelphia.

I will be in my apartments in Delhi tomorrow afternoon,

and a dear friend, Tulku Arak,

will accompany me. Do you own a red and black kitten

by any chance? If yes, bring it.

I salute you, mother.

The Khandro of Sumstek.

                       XI.

(.5/.9 kibes.)

Sister: I have no such cat. I once met

Tulku Arak in Egypt. Kaya said that the lama asked

for a horse once from your family.

Now it is a checkered kitten?

These Tibetans are strange men,

very pleasing and friendly. I care deeply

for their sacred music. They are a brave people.

Their buttered tea is awful.

Tomorrow. The Mallus.

XII.

Dear Rinpoche: I hope this cable

finds you well in Bhutan. So you're going to live there

with Canadians for a year. I am alone

here at Mallus's icehouse. It is very strange.

The whole place is built of blocks of ice,

the inside walls covered

with white furs, occasional

elaborate knots around a fat coral

or turquoise carbuncle.

There is a mosaic of skins across the floor

and it is red, then clear, like ice. I dream of cats.

Sometimes there's tremendous smoke in here.

It took me three nights to realize

this Grandmother Mallus was an impostor.

Why didn't you say something in Delhi?

You even remembered her

as a girl, in Cairo:

that postcard of men basket-fishing in the river

for the white-bellied alewives

and all your anxieties about some lost kitten.

And there I was

being introduced to this evil woman

who is no doubt involved

in the disappearance of my son.

On the second night, unable to sleep,

I walked out across the ice floes

under a burnt-amber moon

that looked like a rusted scythe.

There were tremors in the earth. Norse scribbling

chalked across the sky.

There were strange frozen creatures

walking about — naked girls

who when they moved, sighed

in the high registry of a music

I have never heard before —

They had a kind of heat

that I know would have increased if I had been a man,

a sort of basic phenomenon like dry ice.

I took them for the very unhappy dead?

Am I wrong?

I threw my Chöd apron to the ground, which I wear here

for the warmth if nothing else. And I began

the red and black offerings of my body,

making a virtual tea ceremony of my breasts,

that seemed to fascinate them.

It was at this moment that they fled?

Here above the fjord, you appear as Otrul Chak,

warning me that this snow witch, this Mallus,

is a sister of the dead Ffee — an impostor

who has come here

to make the dark emergence of the geyser

acceptable to the local culture

of unsworn dakinis.

The actual Mallus is completing a year's retreat

at the Keet Sleet tannery on Mars.

She has succeeded

in protecting her granddaughter, Kaya.

But the Septaguant's ward,

this girl child they call Samuel,

is another impostor. What? Rinpoche? What

if this was some evil draft talking to me,

and not your emanation

rising from the hen yard of the Potala.

And you in the company of nuns? Since December?

I went in, and with the great chipped blade

of a matchet

I opened her chest, lobbed off the head,

removed the hands . . .

I placed that fat garuda ruby

stolen from the rice shrine in Laos

inside the canal of her right ear, all of this

just as you had instructed.

I screamed like horses over her corpse.

Later that night I dreamt that Ffee was feeding

giant cakes of soap

to the black geyser on Io. Are geysers

actually primed like this? Why didn't you

say more to me in Delhi?

When I killed the impostor-Mallus

I saw three hags standing in a great bronze tub

cutting a thick black snake

that had seamlessly joined itself to a small baby.

The whole figure of the baby and the snake

reminded me of that Mayan knot

representing fifty-two years

in their secret rain calendar.

The knives flashed. The baby was cleansed.

The old women dancing about

in some very primitive kitchen. Why do I believe

my Kirsna is this cat that you must locate,

this Italian tablecloth you keep asking me about?

Has my son passed?

Old man, you owe me an explanation.

In my apartments

you were talking about how Hannibal

had a lead bull elephant

that wore at its throat an enormous dzi

the yellow of citrine and the red

of rubies. You said, Carthage is in your past,

daughter of the arime 'thea. Placing in my hand

these very wet and long yellowing grasses

with a small dead turtle

painted in the manner of early Greek barbarians.

The actual grandmother of Kirsna's little friend

placed jewel worms

in the eaves of this big house, and they came alive

like rainbows, shooting

everywhere through the walls,

at the very moment that the impostor's

canal was blocked with your ruby.

The family of the Ffee

have put a lot of blood on our hands. And Rinpoche,

I don't like it. If you can stand beside me

at the shrine of the banisters

and put the badge of the drowned pilgrim in my hand,

then you are completing prophecy.

You anointed me, there and then,

the Chosen One.

You are now accountable, even in your sleep,

to this citizen dakini. You will have a single day

to make this accounting

or I will find you there, which will certainly

scare off your Canadian bodhisattvas

and their money.

I have been patient. I cannot

leave this snowfield

without the appropriate ritual and blessing

of the root guru. There's a dark drifting in my mind.

The airs of the Bardo . . . .

Be kind and speak to me. Further, have you ever heard

of a Nagarjuna Watts?

I woke this morning and you said,

There are eleven years of diversion at your feet

and then years of peace.

That is not enough. This mystery exhausts us. L'urze.

                       XIII.

— in blanc, keyboard.

Dear Ekajati: I am weirding this along the old worm holes

you used in approaches

with the Khandro. If you are my true father,

why didn't Marie say something. She was

always angry with you, I could tell.

Listen, if Kirsna is in the Bardo

will you please go to him. There is a swelling in the ice

in this snowfield where I've been

for three months now. I nearly

lost my mind. This morning in the wind

I was out naked on the nearest hill

juggling nine pomegranates

with a yellow Shambhalical arrow

straight through the center of the earth

to the other side . . .

I do believe this prevented an earthquake

in New Zealand. A fiery line of Maoris

ran before my eyes,

and then black waves of water rose against us.

Now all the ice here is rotten

as if with some sun-abraxas. I think

I am a half a mile from land, so I must be leaving

with leap-striding . . . dammit, that was

an entire holographic column

collapsing

and there are a thousand birds outside?

Where are you bastards . . .

There are giant krakens dead over the water?

     — Otrul Chak, the state of one taste,

The Bardo Thodal.