Rez

Rez

Rez

A boy & his gun: that’s an image will do
to sum up our times
                to define the red lakes
and razor blade hills of our mind. Out here this place never changes, never will
                we will keep choosing grey salt, bad roads,
      some thin yellow flowers to grieve, alcohol over friendship . . .
cash for peace, God’s grin of despair. If you think I’m starting to regret
sticking around and kicking at the tombstones
                               (if not pulling out the ak-47)
remember                            the water lilies will bind you back.


Trenchcoat todesengel bringing meaning to life thru death, thru
an intimate if facile study of pain
                                              and those other mental stuff like drawing
                                     pictures of war
                                     people getting shot
                                     houses pulled down
                                     heads shorn
                                     traditional law custom kultur
                                     junkies runners bootleggers scum scum scum
We too have spent our brutal spring exacerbated
                                        by a long tradition of self-enforced isolation,
                            continued into a cold-blooded summer (I feel
                                                                                                                                nothing
                                                                                                               I fear
                                                                                                                                nothing)
                                      we said it wasn’t intentional
and the grasshopper susurrus of our blood tells us
                                                                                                  how
                    you feel almost an ability to be worse than what you are
(Perhaps this explains why today in the middle of my room
                                                                      a black hole soundlessly spins).


Look, kid, thank you for the demonstration
                & don’t forget to take your angel home
                even if you don’t feel like going back to school
& if they ask you about life on the reservation
                if they say they want to hear about stilt houses
                and the dry clack of rain on bamboo
                and the preservation of tribal ways
                         give them a slaughter.


II

Let’s hear from you, Angel. Incredibly,
                                                            He spake: “Four a.m. I rose from
the silicon box, wings quivering triumphant
if bleary-eyed, knuckles cramped,
having gunned down Virtual Viktor the smiling Rooskie, my erstwhile
friend, piss-full of vodka as he went – like the young in one another’s arms
drowning among the waves. You remember
                                                            Star Trek via Doordarshan?

Do you remember? – Those Sunday ceremonies of mantraps
and armageddon now!, logic and adventure,
new worlds braver than the last, those tinpan ships from an
interstellar Nineveh: amok times, yes. Also aboriginal.
                                                                                                          My shoes are Japanese

Christ, I can’t forget Yaqob, surefire bet in the pro wrestling ring –
man’s champ or scapegoat, who can tell? He got the better
of me in the end but I . . .
                                               I nailed his dreams to the cold ground.
In the distance, the guitars of Byzantium wept.

No, don’t go there!
There be whales, cap’n, and pearls and eyes.
Thus let us venture to the noodle bar –”
                                                                                                          The immortal game

“– Mister Nighttime, what say? Admit modernity in, sepia anime! Who
mourns for Adonis or Umrao Jaan? D’you remember what the children sang –

    Your warriors are gone with Billy Bowlegs
                and Billy Budd swings from the mast

O moments that have passed like tears in rain

Toke this: things have to be the way they are
because gods can’t remember, we angels do. In this
we are as mortal as you
                                                    though fiery we fell.
Swaraj: acid anthem in our veins.
                                                                                                               But heart is truly Hindoostani

So many have fallen . . . these cinnamon groves. I swear . . .

I swear by the Wumpus, by Alphaman,
– the world’s become
one big reservation. I should know,

I’m the Angel. I’m
in charge. You feel
that tightening of the temples as at some
momentous corner-turn of history? This tale, I fear, has just
begun to unfurl. Don’t be afraid. Have a tsing pao – else, coffee?
                                                                                Stay with me, boss. Stay.”



Screw it, let’s dance!
or do origami.


III

A mindless year of mindless action.

If the moon looks grey tonight, if you think she weeps,
                                                                it is because
                                                                you live on a reservation

If as you walked the houses rose on all sides threatening,
                                                                 it is because
                                                                 you live on a reservation

If the wind brings no news of love, if the villas are silent
                                                                 and empty, it is because
                                                                 you live on a reservation

The things you have to say, no one can say them for you
The places you have to go, no one can go there for you
The hills you have to burn, no one can burn them for you.