mandarin mahakavya

wang lung went in the fifth month on his horse

to the funeral of the second wife of the daughter of the

duke. in her palm her death had been foretold to the

exact phase of the moon. though it was spring the time was really

autumn the season was really winter was still.

a wooden age. the chief mourner was descended

from the emperor, was born when her mother was still

asleep so that when she came to she screamed &

forever hated her. they lived in the provinces rooted,

pervasive as grass. calamities surrender to their own accord.

will you attack the king with just footmen & chariots?

she dug deep into the earth unto the autumnal spring

and sat on its beaches and sang of her dead mother.

all this being a flagrant corruption of the manuscript.

take the silk utensils locusts keep the body fresh for 2

months after death before the burial there being no

impropriety in miscommunicating the death in such a ways

demonstrate your grief and then be silent. bury it again with

no mistakes in the ritual in a separate grave overlooking

a separate bay with flowers suchlike. discard no praise no blame

dress the corpse meet the bride travel to the western seaboard with

its older tribes. respect but kill. keep old friendships. here

the force is small the leaders hungry their warlike practices

only show. the 13th cycle of winter the 3 yr the 17th radical see the essays

on astrology by the learned and recently deceased mr.y.

wang lung wondered at the terms appropriate to narrate

the death of a princess, her soul's investiture

now passing to her daughter's husband and further

east past the mountain-ranges where the people

all helped pay in southernwood for the burial-(is there an error

in these texts on these sites or dates?). the mathematicians

calculated this as the dynasty's early years using the eclipse

and the odd usage of the phrase "paying interest on the moon".

the news of the death of the sovereign left the fort slowly

heavily, passing as a procession, past warring dukes

who now questioned every edict. propriety breeds presents.

the lord of the altars raised a powerful faction, breaking

each rule of the fourteen kinds of subordination accelerating

catastrophe, and soon here, an army this, an army that and there

sequels to covenants. affect the people by virtue, ravel the silk

you cannot lay down fire.a pantomime of insects. gather

the river's fish for the great sacrifice of atonement. the ruler this

and the ruler that, it wears one out. hunters have no rules no

husbandry. you cannot without without preparation nor

without anxiety. a house and tablet for the second wife

breaks the rules. the duke tells his feather weavers to

write his story even as the enemy crosses the suburb.

compassion is imperilled. the grain is in the locust's heart.

peace means to change.

wang lung's daughter goes to the harem at the statutory age

her sense of her worthiness makes her appear, twice,

in the classic. unseasonable as the undertaking was

covenants needed to be upgraded , more silk, more jade

she arrogates to her dignity as she thinks fit. the phrase

might mean more than seizure, certainly less than torture

the smearing of the lips of the daughter with the blood

of her victim. does this phrase mean son or hostage?

autumn is the seventh month. the sense of a hurried meeting

remains through all the sycophant's commissions. she built

a city while meditating, and a temple for her brother.

verily it is said the queen progresses the constellation

he was mated and then announced king in the temple.

let the sword separate the virtues and clan-bloods

merit for generations does not come simply

which river which fathers which officers which city

feet deep in snow?- which duke's suburb, on whose chariot

light and nimble may be your ancestors in ambuscade

smitten and cut to pieces hanging upside down as meat

in the mouth of crows. in every month an army

and a chronicle unconcluded. in spring the army entered.

in her virtue she did not covet territory the thread

of her karma light as muslin. discord amongst themselves

and secret dissatisfactions and so defeated. a lively

prejudiced account in the Book of . of course this tattoo

is a verb though it cannot be rendered. cross hostage princes

appear in each other's father's eyes. take your curved chariot

out of the temple. fill your mouth with the air of different countries

maintain your vigor. repentance is for the mature, the aged.

in the manner of killing he retained all propriety

feeding all tutelary deities, all fetuses of sons unborn.

every army must contribute a hundred pigs and fowl.

what use is it to curse a depraved man from field to field?

let the tablets tell their lies in stone. wang lung

omitted no ceremony that would have been appropriate

to the assassination of his brother at the meeting place

of the socalled jasmine river. he borrowed the fields

and symbols and the exchange of lands. the tripod

in the temple was a bribe. the roof of thatch

the chariot of grass, the millet is clean,

the historiographer of the interior, of ancient designation

thought of states that their roots reach wide

but their fruit be small else the horse will lie entangled

in its yoke. if you married above your state

the minister accompanied the husband, modest

reverent mindful of being untouched and returned

perhaps even if the crops fail or freeze. sacrifice

to keep locusts away. the sage's pencil must sometime

be pruned. the uncertain speculations of youth

the walled cities of childhood (whose spirit

possesses the centre?) step on the square to left then right

in the fishscape's battalion. the arrow on his shoulder notwithstanding

the child-bride fought. a sacrifice is unseasonable in fall

when insects forsake burrows. was he killed in a quarrel

about a bird or a woman sitting on the back of the shaman-officer?

what auspice of virtue be this be- what marks on the body

here one cannot mention the dead's name else an incestuous commerce

indulges. don't hunt with fire in winter. bury your heart in jade.

the greed reaches to the person. as he did not like the gift

and felt insulted, he felt he must invade according to the rules

of old precedence. he attacked covertly, and won, bloodless.

wang lung in the nimble army in the suburb, ardent, at peace

in the harmonious troop. if they must win it is because the army

can dance. divine the odds of the doubt and the produce of the union.

the exit gives its names in contempt. the signification must lie

in the epigraph. covenants in autumn presage death of the marquis.

your weight in the scale is inappreciable. the error of the day

of the entering of the death. a bad king's contracts increase disorder.

every officer lies in his virtue and his fear. cross the river

in order for on the other side lies defeat. let the mandarin live

by his nine unrepentant, unavenged calamities in its granary of ice.

reprisal upon reprisal, like lightning the armies

scatter rice, disrespectful to the duke's temples, tearing

the princess' chariot. any man can be a husband but there is only one

father, one mother, one prevision, one confederacy. drunk

she stole the flag cherishing eclipse and resentment

becoming a lone prisoner, refusing the marquisate, the sacrificial

epaulets. one understands the text only by proposing error.

the moon in its epicycle wants exactitude and remonstrates.

the coffin arrived in the seventh month of fall.

the burial was in winter, the mourning was forever

though he was an evil man brought to an evil end.

conjunctions are proper to the classical; poor lord

in deference to majesty do not stay quiet at home

but renew the great crimes and friendships and the common

wickedness between the states. these bodies stay

in no coffin. she sees with only half her eye.

equal concubines must have equal sons and eunuchs and cities

and governments. these narratives retire no justice.

in autumn build a reception to house the base murder.

mourning must feel as an absence. all dead soldiers

are remembered here as heroes. a trisyllabic name

is barbarous and must suffer withdrawment. the object of the meeting

is to repeat the crime, to bury for a second time.

marriages are recorded not burials not internments

at the beginning of the battle her heart lay agitated

as a crooked spear, after fulness comes absolution

under neither the tree of heaven nor state does the bridge

to the city of heaven pass over the enemies' gravestone.

ancestors have been boiled and slandered, revenge is no vagary

great officers hazard enterprise, describe restoration increase

both flower and root in all the eleven directions & generation

multiply prisoners and spoils feasts and detainments

eat the navel of the hour feed victims perpetually to altars

extinguish enemy lineage make stars fall as rain as wheat

but an inch from the dowager the stars retreated reascending

waiting patiently for troops and the real or pretended invasion.

sow vigorously your virtue abroad. at home in the season of melons

she was bestowed the robe of the general. she had wrestled the large boar

packed full of assassins. blood was the preponderant covenant spilt.

in the war chariot she took the longer road to deceive, to pursue

the flying enemy. wang lung covered his horses in tiger skin

to make extinct for the first time a heaven, to flood it

to hold great sacrifices of condolences throwing field of millet

into the plague. swift was ruin. he killed with a single slap.

praise or blame is futile in such. gain a harem but lose the state.

the king was bound in a rhinoceros hide and his hands

and feet pickled. let critics condemn who ever heard them

but mostly the print is silent, extinguished.

when men are full of fear their breath flares up

and makes real such monsters. citizens have a doubled heart.

make compassion, but act, speak, assert. you can neither

douse the flame from afar nor approach it.

make inroads into spring. there is nothing in the circumstances

inconsistent or dilatory. in snow's winter there stay many deer.

artful but worthless he feasted the guards got them drunk

killed whom he pleased. history lies fine underneath the print.

three feet turtle attack red deer gathering at the city's end.

in gazing-in the particular gold leaf he missed the whole

the palanquin, the harem's daughters and their parasols and cooks.

the war is a pantomimic dance that never tires, it asserts its rude joy

over all calamity. the sun photographs the mountains waving at the sky.

the temple's pillars stay painted red. ancestors within were fed.

the punitive expeditions of punishment is justice by default.

sacrifice by moonlight, the beating of drums, offerings of victims.

a woman of virtue and ability. a state that does not know to dance

does not know to make war, to surprise by stealth. spirits flee

the temple walls. this city is in winter, its grain insufficient

its insects in plague, even horses bolt the stables.

graphic but fabulous the tales of tribes at boundaries:

those last conquered are set upon the next outsider.

corpses grow in rain feeding upon imagination's dark archive

historiographers of the interiors must force reason

a serf with money is still indentured in an absent hour.

every autumn a daughter is buried, age seven being the cutoff

for the historical record. the younger ones are still too much

in the womb's marine heaven. tablets commend succor

for children-marquis' culmination. if one's heart holds no flaw

how may he regret childlessness, posterity has other ways.

carriages and horses and feet and diagrams, other original dignities

new tablets will be put in old temples, even oceans age

armies are cast away, the spirit changes, new milfoils

prophesy anew, storks fly in augury. cook for your rulers

offer in sealskin, leather carriages and the cold metal of symbol.

the text conceals the manner of death in rare display

of dilatory euphemisms. but all men have relatives

and horses and jade and taxes and immigrants are in stake.

that year in spring there was no rain in the fourth month

by the rain of the sixth the new army had moved in.

the lack of rain was no calamity but an auspicious kindness.

the threat was as of the locking of the boat on a placid lake

his cheek lost color, an incursion followed, the spirits strained.

what robe will you wear in the coffin? the tortoise divines.

discriminate is the guilt. the heir-daughter walls her grief.

relentless is the fable. in fall lies the eclipse, hour of dispossession

read the clouds. assassins are not to be played with. spirits vomit.

in a grand display the flags loom. families are criminals together.

they allowed her to burn her coffin, returned her silk.

if you are resolved, don't pretend to be humble; choose strength

or alliance. morning awaits evening. do honor to virtue and the punishments.

secure succession. invade the great temple to make sacrifice of the 5th yr in it

and to interpret its tablet. the charioteer will betray & mystify.

the tribes of the east will rise. the prince lay dead unclaimed, deceived

unsceptred, inadmissable, obtrudant.

more sayable

to be, or not. to be or not.


whether tis' nobler... or not.


to suffer slings & arrows of outrageous fortune,

or to take arms against a sea of troubles.


& by opposing, end. no more.


them natural shocks that flesh is heir to, consummated to.


( in that sleep of death what dreams may come to?)


when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, this gives us pause.


there is a respect that makes for this calamitous & long, long life.


the whip & scorn of time, the oppressor's contumely


the law's delay, the insolence of office that spurns patient merit.


(make quietus with a bare bodkin?) fardels bear & grunt&sweat.)


but. death's undiscovered country from whence none return:


muzzles the will. we'd choose present ills than fly to new ones-


conscious is our cowardice. & th' native hue of resolution is sickled by


thought's pale. enterprises' pith turns awry-.


but soft all, & ophelia, horatio too.



--" remember sins & my irresolutions too"-

naming the other's face

that we choose to call them terrorists, that terror is the dominant face, mode, mood. if we say it saddens us, depresses us, rather than terrifies, how may 'we' differently act; or, even, what might it take to just acknowledge the simple panicked, feeling (& yet also the need & finding of refuge) of the desire for pure animal's flight-

a mood does not belong to parcellable time-- hence the condemnation of the holocaust-denier, but no equivalent condemnation of the imperialism/colonialism-denier; or the fact that slavery was unfortunate history (& hence & thus fortunately passed), but no term exists for the perpetualism of the racism-denier, for (s)he who denies that race pervades us still

2. a key political question for the next half century & beyond is if the united states (& to a lesser extent the eurostate) will accept to peacefully & non invasively, non abrasively decline-peace depends on all countries' maturity on this-& india, china, etc would do well to accept that we are going to be very largely very poor for much longer, for centuries perhaps, a longer period than anyone's decline

translation of section of muktibodh's brahmarakshas

[found thanks to meera, & painstakingly retyped by her, from around 2000, m phil class at delhi university]


That side of the city near the ruins
an abandoned, empty well
and within, in cold darkness
in waters deep within
amid deep-sunken stairs
in the old stale puddle…
I can not follow these seeming-foundations
these depths

surrounding that well, entangled
silently stood the fig trees
in those hang the nests of the night bird abandoned,
brown, round

The smells of a hundred past pieties
green, jungly, raw
swim in the air and become the weighted doubt
of some unknown eminence
that rattles the heart

on the railings of the well, beguiling, green
elbows resting
sits the white flower-star tree

and nearby,
a flashing redflowered cluster
my kanher
calling me to that edge of danger
where the black mouth of the well
glances upward toward the sky’s void

in the void of the well’s thick darkness
sits the brahmarakshas
where from within rises echo after echo
like the mutterings of the insane
speculations,
impurity.
to wash away, at every moment
the shadow of – impurity
day and night, to make clean—
brahmarakshas, scouring his body
with the claws of his hand, again
and again hands chest mouth
still it remains…
still it remains

and…from the lips
wondrous strotras, mantras
fevered, chaste sanskrit curses,
crevices on the forehead weave
glistening strands of thought
in a continuous bathing’s insane flow
-- life’s sympathy blots
but, in the well’s deep inner wall
diagonal sun-rays fall and
motes rise, when
light surfaces
he thinks the sun has bowed and saluted him.

when moonlight forgets its way
and its rays bounce off the walls
he thinks it adores him as the
Venerable knower.

body and mind pierced, yet
he rejoices, feeling the sky
too has humbly accepted.
and with a twofold, frightening virility
his understanding mind ranges
through the folk-tales of Sumer-Babylonia, mellifluent Vedic hymns
today’s chands, mantras, theorems, theories
of Marx Engels Russel Toynbee Heidegger Spengler Sartre even Gandhi
everyone’s proof afresh commented on –
all this as he bathes in the well’s dense greenness.

…this thundering, echoing, moving
darkness-- bringing up phonemes
obscure words revolving anew
each word cutting up its resonance
each form battling its reflection
maimed
becoming
the echo that wars with its echo

upon the well’s rails
beguiling green elbows rest, and the
white flower-stars listen
-- to these echoes
the delicate fruits of the gooseberry tree
listen, the ancient fig
listens, listen too to the tragedy that meanders
in this insane allegory
-- all barred within this old well

owls' strange glitter eyes low-wing'd on hilltop:


less than a city. a bay. late upturned ocean's


light, of an end november's thanksgiving.


to return bag full of food to an interior

emptied, alchemised of silence



presence only in this eremitic ghost's laugh:

circular breathing

the snake slithers lost

sees the old places

disappearing.


it does not remember

everywhere all around the old palaces canyons of music

hung unsupported from the sky, invisible.


the heart of the fig was still cold

a live inner red of hibiscus


graves stay fresh, diaries with dates
but no years, suspended

timeliness.


in a sort of morning languour and at the sleep's edge
a lion peeps in inquisitive. make instruments of snake-skin

drive them out from paradise, but their body still holds some. walk


and walk and walk to see these last lions.

& images bloat and wave away,
swollen eyed & with the slashed tafetta

torn silk of rumpled skin


walk and walk and walk to see
waterbuck

catch polymbronic wasps


move in the sand's city like a snake on water
writing a disappearing script a

horse in orbiting gallop


like children's voices burying deeper
in time as it passes


eyes untouchable & in a different layer
from the faces in the old
sepia's oyster'd womb.


the grandmother's arms that reach below the knees
her looking perched in some elsewhere


some older past of the past
to her granma whose figure

did not come up legible
in these mediums of dark

so lost its the oldest memory

of the oldest when the oldest was
young she was beautiful


but not alive in light no memory
but mine and i cannot breathe

her luminosity into the camera's eye

so yes lost and the loss of even what was
lost and many many further mores-


her gait that of the cross rhyming drums.


the outermost rind of the brain perspiring

in this heat's evocation of ghost.


such landscapes command belief and no
malarial malaise resolves


a second, a third, a hundredth funeral and still
the ghost dissolves recurs calls deciphers

our hand's writing

her smile her briefcase her glasses her slipping
hearing her beer


2. yellowish curve contours the late
afternoon's high plain. midst painted canvas tepees & boarded up
small businesses by wet after-rain potholes,

a miniature stadium where the cameras catch up
on the dancers between 7 bass drums & amplification equipment
& soft voiced mcs making a strike for each tribe

from somewhere ornamented voices in falsetto,
vocables in a united concentrate & then
single file flamboyance, singers in farmer's caps

men dance alone, women in 2s & 3s

hours & hours of this owl-ish monophonic dance midst brief,
interrupting ceremonies beating percussive plancks & gambling bones & curing
by medicinal bundles & viscera of small local animals

wind instruments represent the superb naturale buttons
right song for the right anything, anything can be made
more auspicious more potent memorable w strings of deer hoove




3. night's cold

wave-rushes / the zebra's eye

lash lone in the single / intruding,


invading silence of space and


gorge. glad of

the hour's temptation for it was the path


elephants loved for its moistness an' shade



night runs its frenzy like a mute/ rolling, mountain range :-


3. one day i decided/to open that door again

to profane the relic, to put back the wandering ghosts amid the mice & bats

them bespectacled ghosts sucking at beehives, wearing snakeskin
trailing rat droppings.

how they solved the past
slowed the frame drank the carbolic acid.

they had no hunger. their teeth were failing falling

they needed no food. some petulantly obese some thin as teenagers

five red flames ring their hair they look unappeasably sad under unblinking lashes


i did not disturb them. i closed the door again.


4. ensphered in rain


a mosquito net afloat in sapphire forest air.

to the ear's farthest horizon again

again

the rain's pitterpatterpitterpitterpatterpitter roar


again-against



ascends the cochlea's spiral

world at -9

the quarter in the sky white
moon on the blue hills on
the green traffic arrow-Go

this was outside. the colors clean.


inside, and before, a pianist played
ravel's gaspard de la nuit.



the woman at the piano turned
to a single slather of a
wild calligraphic

stroke

piano keys snake
down the spine

flickering tremollos but all
still plosive


the call of the moral
life of joy

ears grow into elephant wing
strained dough in bubble


piano rises. floats & trans-
ports becomes a fist


banging walls & ceilings


the skull a drum


contra schumann it is
joy that breaks
in the fingers's bones

and falls as love


what a frozen little land
inside the piano.


immensity, it makes one feel
as a single
strand of

hair


in an emptied opera-house.

europe's winter breaking
over the berkeley mediterranean

the moon a white cancerous growing

quarter the traffic still weavering home

up the hill's twistings &

blue tablecloth sunset