"THE SORROW OF DHUMAVATI"

my attack withstands; my storms endure;

the trebuchets hurl; ballistas beg for this war to be over...

day, night, my siege unrelenting...

emotional war of attrition...

my hostile neutrality; my victimless terror;

my kalasjnikovs shooting blanks like failed men

and my harrowing indifference towards the world

will shiver my enemies with trepidation,

for i am the sorrow of Dhumavati,

and i wish to be to my own sensibilities,

urges, weaknesses, temptations,

what Kali is to Shiva;

consort; lover; friend; advicer ---

but never ever subordinate;

this is an embargo on the dignity of human life ---

revenge is a drop of blood on my tongue

tasting bitter of wet, cold iron;

i can see

the pulsations of the earth-worm

roiling about in its wormcasts

that lead all the way to Irkalla...

i can see its tongue

sucking the blood of passion

and i can see

its eyes

glowing like magpies' silver

in the light of the solar anus;

i can see

the dried blood

speaking whole languages

from the cuts on Dhumavatis' wrists

which she gave to herself,

striking her flesh with razors--

i can see Dhumavati

in front of the firesquads; locked in the pillories;

immured in the ancient moats and forced to her knees

at the mercy of bloodthirsty pollaxes;

i can see her

speaking with the failed Sadhu

now plucking nutrience from dung

left by visitors behind whore-houses;

i can see her laughing cynically

with drug-addicted bards; with the lepers of the forests;

with the thralls of guilt, and those of conscience;

with them, she sobs ---

caught in the foreboding stare of Shiva, her loved one, acrimonious...

the torturous whipping, stoning, and lashing of self-hatred

befell Dhumavati surely, for a yoke was hung

on her old, sore shoulders:

Shiva gazed with judgement;

and Dhumavati became the food of worms ---

her picturesque beauty eroded in the great monsoon

as the loo of all things pretty turned against her;

the precipitation of acid and spousal abuse...

her face no longer smiles ---

shredded it became; torn,

with the iron dagger of failed morality ---

and even her crow wept the tears of abjection...

the samudra manthan of the human condition...

on the brink of very death

she crawled

through long-endured starvation,

the thorned bush of desperation...

having chewed and swallowed Shivas' flesh,

her misery was surely rooted in her weakness;

she could not forgive herself

for her surrender unto her own hungry lusts

and her unability to muster decent courage; discipline...

and i can relate her sorrows...

i am myself the prisoner of addiction and of thralldom;

my life is the knitting of the tapestry of failures and impuissances,

but i understand so far:

a thousand failures followed by one tremendous victory

is a thing more important than that one victory alone could ever be.

Dhumavati surely is beautiful in the garments of rotted corpses---

she moves about, spectre-like, in the rags of cremation grounds,

her dwelling-place is every Ghat

from Varanasi to Kanyakumari;

within them she finds felicity; serenity;

she smears the ashes of the dead on her pale body;

she bathes in the chaos-waters and falls asleep to the ship-wrecks as lullabies;

she struggles sword to sword with the Kshatriya knights of dissociation ---

for she is my sister; ugly-beautiful Dhumavati...

the ocean of milk is barren, her cynicism drank it to its last drop,

and like dairy left in the sun, the memory of kṣīra sāgara itself indeed grew sour...

she descends --- Ghandarva of grief --- riding her black-winged crow;

harbinger of bitter and contagious melancholies,

steer-woman of the horseless chariot;

eternal widow,

old, sorrowful widow ---

the architectress of saudade builds on and on and on

and on and on

her heartsick, wailful tower...

can she find her way out of the corpse-white labyrinth

of psychosis and schizophrenia?

I awoke with your name dancing on these cracked lips,

I give my thanks; i genuflect in gratitude.

most egregious of the Mahavidya, become my consort;

i ask you in marriage,

for I need understanding of my grievances;

i need care for my wounds; hugs for my loneliness;

i need friends to ward off demons --- these lands are not safe...

i need food when starving; drink when parching ---

Dhumavati, i offer to hug you

and lay with you as i lay with the harlots;

my sitar is fingered by an orphaned Asura

and without music life is just an empty sad mistake

dancing slowly backwards into stagnation

to the shrill wine of silence and of absence---

so groove with me, please ---

it revealed unto me,

it is my vision,

and my sword is psychedelia;

i have become the scorpion of religious meta-truth,

and my barbs sting at modesty; custom; tradition; dogma...

the mnemonic mist of drugs and depression ---

i no longer can remember why i am alive ---

but i'll find out.