N  a  p a  l  m     H  e  a  l  t  h     S  p  a  :     R  e  p  o  r  t     2  0  0  8

 

 

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 San Francisco children

 

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.

 

 

                                                            Willow, NY, January 13, 2005

 

 

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.

 

 

Willow, NY, June 2006