birth of the urban Aghora
(i) ‘the race of tall hunters’
“: with her heavy mass of dark hair her head seemed large, and because
of her diminutive breasts her body assumed a lank, almost childlike stance.
But her great eyes, with their elaborate lashes, could only be those of a
grown woman; there the resemblance to adolescence ended.”
- Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
followed down melbourne past southbank
september it starts with her slip which is green
& has patches & hillocks with pencil she knows
what is seen but is smiling with teeth or with breast
variations she asks me again ‘what’s your name?’
to be stranger / with plants in a shoebox the sickness
has jaws / the shallow pavilion amended description:
polaroid skin painted white like the magdalene bathroom
& fucked by a poet in black holds the sink or the tap with
her hands & their clan of tall sawdust with jean-michel’s
movers as wallpaper torn then a phone call in secret & the
detours at night when the streetlights are burning on similar
missions a curious feature her room & her savings the tree with
its faces & wind-up child doll by the galvabond mailbox drinks
moisture from bitumen bare-foot & desperate opens the door
to his shoulders the grape-vine / is spoken of / winds around an island
rock lighthouse nears hell’s gates in red sea to be true it’s august
& she needs to sleep in the afternoon waiting for footsteps or something
& shit is on everything she says not to wait on the stairs & he does that
with vodka & lemon & words on a leaf this is buried for three days &
hunting is over he listens to pumpkins / the emperor’s voice or
the living room carpet she sits on the bed in the monsoon is silent
& thinks of the phonecalls the painting which screams to them ‘ease me’
this romulus staircase this engine or season of fig trees
or magic land cut-out in red
(ii) 'of what clothes she would wear in –'
“She floats on an exuberant lid of water
Beneath, the roots tug dense and introverted
Blindness drills me in its tub”
- Gig Ryan, Compass and Map
& the dreams only matter at sunset
they say it's like sacred cord shoulder
bag 'me bebe' girls with their hands out
for pens or for rupee & maybe the morning
is better for candies or funeral pyre coals
which are bagged & then sold as a foodstuff
for necros & blind men & black dogs on assi
ghat she says she loves me & i know she
wraps herself nightly in white sheets & sews
the sky shut with her eyes with her specks &
the alcove she makes it all tea-lights & pills
from the pharmacist downstairs who lives
from a brown bag on trains on the footpath
& sold like a hole in the ground in calcutta
she watches the goats & the priest & his
kalighat chopper is sharp although rusted
the cutting is clean & the goats flip like
fish on the deck of a sunderbans riverboat
sunk by the tigers & bengali nonsense about
stroking the bell or the rock which feels lubed
that is too smooth for milk sweets in cobwebs
& lessened by kneaded by sailors this river
(iii) that which we call 'mother'
“i follow the gutter’s thread,
find clues of paper, a dead cat.”
- John Forbes, Nightwalker
we call it 'mother' & dare our feet to wash
in this river of the dead & swallows at dusk
make their plague make it biblical / bicycle spokes
& their shadows from ramnagar children play
cricket with bones of the king & his brass band
is threadbare to be kind like mummies from karloff
or hammer house flicks up at two & the ceiling fan
works but the concrete is cold-poured you know
like the water from pumps in the streets outside
newmarket chickens in baskets & tied from the
handlebars make only silence & feathers on stone &
the gutters are choked with the blood & the crows
& the footsteps of carpenters born of the clay
which is shaped & then dressed like a piece of
the blue child on postcards she writes like she paints
in the darkness we make it so unknown a circus with
blindfolds
(iv) the elite walk, the heart
“After a mother tortoise buries her eggs on a sandy beach it is said
that she retreats a certain distance and then concentrates on those
eggs with such an intense current of love that the warmth of her love
reaches the eggs and causes them to hatch.”
- Robert Svoboda, Aghora: At the Left Hand of God
& snow on the suitcase makes warm cans of lemonade
the faintest surprise as we practice with great-coats &
shoes & say ‘they want what we want’ like coffee in rome
or some bruce lee colosseum / blasts of head trauma worn
like tabloid death shots her dream is removed & haunts the
display case / clubs & a card-deck the trophy night speech
& gentle transition from in-flight elysium all in third person
she watches me walk down the lane can’t remember just
covered in blood of the goats or of she with the skin of
september the month before dransfield who wrote on monaro
the nature of passion & money is useless police ring my arm
like a bell only sounds have a meaning without her additional
giggles she studies the ghost of the aftermath lover just walking
the one room & sitting & staring at her seat the lino-cut panels
the tambourine photo when her head was big & the body so small
feeding turkeys & lizards her devonshire tea before scratching
the glass with those rice-paper fingers of spring street like sorcery
postcards of god made of brick & the new path she walks
(v) Cook’s thirsty turtle
“’They aren’t allowed funeral processions, the streets would be
crammed. They just dump the bodies in the river.’ Hiran thought
of the Ganga. All rivers were full of bodies.”
-Kunal Basu, The Opium Clerk
remove the blood from the pig photo &
all that’s left sleeping like chief tu’imalila
blinded in a bushfire now kissing her dampness
she points to the city & doom in the sky it is sunday –
a handful of darkness / cosmic puppets descend
in sheets over tail-lights & little man say ‘run!’
& he does for the love of his godchrist on lookout
for bevans with bullwhips / australian utility
uphill from fireworks or stooges & stab-wounds
& punky wants beak-tugs she cries out for fingers
the warlord from kuching responds with a laser-tube
chickenhead hospital slip & noiseless down laneways
near sunshine on paper the boatman a dancer no whisky
nataraja with four kids & school fees & so cold this river
the candles for family mother & father & guiltily brother
with nothing for ten years but a cat & some offspring
remember the hairspray or rusted red falcon the reasons
exported / enormous & hazel / bastille day at tuckshop
french onion & wireless of cheops & chephren the moslems
at giseh eat dirt like the pope & the camel named ‘rebel’
stands fixed in the foreground inspecting the guard & mother
with sun-dial / the crowd on the wharf like nativity grotto
the priest in a chamber where bearded the jesus was cradled
on lawn by memsahibs & uncle with cowboys & steam trains
he paints her aghora / the boons trick like nooses
from ‘The river is far behind us’ (parts 47 – 51)
get the guards or buy things the pixies
emerge he warps louvres mountains rocks whole trees leaves &
pine needles / digs
& notices ‘it is much bigger than expected’
(lovecraft / watches bad brains for free the roxy the red road some kind of
western land a dirty mixed smell of food & sweat two blood-serpents
a wicker dog she loves bound
hay with natural pigments her cute
central indian tradition tacky asian
interiors (too much turquoise it glows
she learns through copying his lips &
reading yellow dog / ‘the year punk broke’
the uniform (doc returns to mega-city : prog 59
plays a banjo
hugs a koala high pants at circular quay with emmelene (4-11-48)
or market st / taronga (a range of smart stances
herringbone skin
his crabbed & serious runes
& metal toes
*
1
24
211
182
366
198
267
354
238 drinks the potion
152
391
81
177
229
113
7
317
58
37
280
362
194
382
35
119
41 a message & a golden nugget
325
196
222
167
170 he did
288
387
204
31
390
14
63 he did
329
309
368 finds three iron keys
147
28
226
213
68
70
345 (wasted for this
172
4
44
274
315
78
184
51
223
3
161
74
114
265
121
251 / 293 / 32
201
363
376
399
282
27
388
212
72
30
65
89 he did
269
59
108
79
332 a magical powder
17
303
178
233
249
199
397
75
155
151
125 ‘i mean this is obvious!’)
335 or 220 depending on his attributes
93 or 98
214
168
127 (or use the nugget: 252, 139)
193
139 no way to avoid this
95 nor this
133
218
258 he did
291
330 takes a monkey with him
350 one of the most beautiful unfortunately there is nothing
to do
to make acquaintance
106
279
42 (or 185, 308 for more tough fights)
341
109
268
227
273
136 picks up a whip…
137 …and a ‘rusty knife’
231
6
353
77
289
144
173
216
180
82
203
314 he is
315 he is
153
384
400
1984, fire island)
*
benares sits to piss his lord of skulls &
trains gangetic shit & meat-doll stoned
black money kites & dogs / worms!
maha kali! free school street!
covered in blood she haunts the bedsit stares
through ganges doors
listening to californication
her eggs &
feet (clawed the corpse of tony
a tiny hen the best of dub
it all vibrates ((man)) he echoes popular culture
west end curfew / grimy aisles
his coded dwarvish hatred buying acid dope & speed
& drinking gin
the kick-out windscreens insane sidekick tales from trono west
his poems & missing nose (‘that little cunt –‘) skaters vans & NIN
hands-on-knees kick-flip a.m. paranoid infomercial
belting it up in the tercel escort wasted ephedrine mindhole!
blackie worm dog every beast & mow-mow
cat or bird or doodle!
laughs & snorts (a cable tv sex joke
from before / calcutta a stylistic thing he swears
‘back to the crypt!’ (destroyer)
howrah chowringhee all-india coffee house
her milk-sweets pussy & hands
monster art she draws
(sharp things dark things
a punk who likes transvision vamp
*
fucking freak
*
white his bryan ferry suits go solo
fades obsessed with shoals &
full moon floods dancing away heartache?
cosmic jade head in bubble / in purple bar
his wig & child’s party dress
sticking pins he chokes blue & pulls i.v.
cramp in the head stiff kissing
& skinny hasn’t fucked in years
the best of late orientalism
(phoenix air /
‘tokyo joe’ her dark walk to vague pillowed
terror blue clouds no oh blue guitar
hardcover manners he didn’t mean to
didn’t (whistle some orchestral puke sounds
almost moody blues
the way he walks &
jangles / late eastwood
with tea (always some kind of milo sugar
or base / hot knife new farm night doing trolleys at the hill
the ruined animal moment
trundled & swarthy
left a chunk in the garden
