hungry ghost realm (avid on the scent of your own sweet appetite)
She was restless with insatiable desire. Appetite for pleasure food shiny acquisitions. The more she craved the hungrier she grew. Come into a mouth, feed my swollen belly, she sang she moaned. Belly that is perpetually starved. Belly of inexplicable greed.
Come things, come external world of things, come inside me to make me exist. Lust
for you . . . I save all my lust for you. Sometimes I see you raw, the flesh of you,
the sex of you, then it disappears inside me, never gratified. Never full. Always empty. Always searching. Hungry ghost like a demon, like a vampire. Hungry ghost your own sweet
appetite. Hunger is vast. Hunger gnawing upon itself is vast. Neither fully human
nor fully animal a tormented existence is vast. Where do I find myself, mind? Perpetually
haunting, grasping, grabbing, appropriating a thought, appropriating a person, wanting
to buy and acquire all the accoutrements to make myself exist. Wanting to exist, as
ever. Suspended here, caught here, as "preta," one departed, here to haunt us—dead but
hovering, unfulfilled—wanting more. It's never enough. What could you possibly want?
What could ever fill this giant need? What would it take to make you say "enough."
My desire is never satisfied. You make love to me, never enough. I want more of you,
never enough. I want to absorb you, never enough. How to speak of these things? Never enough. How to find what I need. Never enough food, never enough water. Starving
as one might in Africa, in North Korea, in any pogrom, in all the refugee camps of the
world, in all the inner American cities, in all the diasporas of the world. Long
fingers never take hold of what they reach for. The thing, that thing-to-be-grasped is illusory, falls through itself. Evanescent yet subtle desire of all kinds tortures the body.
Then the mind inside feeding on itself, eating the brain, how horrible. Searching but unable
to find. Look out, never see. Notice? What? The food is there but throat is so small, and
stomach so large they cannot consume a fraction of what's proffered. Then I hallucinate— food & drink burst into flames inside them and burn them from within, Sometimes the
food turns into pus, blood, urine. Sometimes food becomes like iron, like straw.
My hunger in my desire unresolved. Avarice, stinginess, meanness. Scrimping, hoarding,
do you know the type? Conspicuous consumption, addictions of all kinds. I never wear
the clothes I have,
beautiful objects I'll hide from your view. Don't come near me with your inquisitiveness. No longer able to devour sensations with a hungry ghost mind yet avid for that scent,
that flower, that next other person. Fall in love over and over again, never settled
never satisfied never resolved, never at ease. If only … the eternal seeker, the eternal
student, the eternal con artist using people and situations. If only … everything everyone
is an object for consumption. Like the blood-drinking nocturnal rakshasa, like the wraiths
on the fringe of the nuclear holocaust. Like the endless "once upon the world" denizens
in their aftermath of destruction, ghosts hovering confused above the burial ground.
If only. avid for all the reminders of past success of wooing of winning of taking more
things in stride of standing empty handed of being naked in front of him for the
first time of being tongue-tied but mouth open lusting for more of him to swallow, of inching
down the path, ragged, ravenous clawing the ground for sustenance, squeezing plants for
water, catching rain in wretched, bony hands, or going shopping one more endlesstime. How
many more new processed crisp wrapped-up material goods can you handle? How many
more accoutrements to your machines and gadgets to the information highway? How many things to hoard, shoring up for the dark ages, how much more built in obsolescence, things that break down, won't work, won't hum won't move won't light
up won't sing won't dance won't do the job won't last won't resolve the panic won't
resolve the difficulty won't be remembered won't disappear but leave traces of stuff of useless
matter of waste that will take thousands of years to decay. She remembered the Hindu
legend of Brahma who embodies the creative energy of desire. He created the first
female —a mind-born daughter—with his tremendous mental powers. But because he was Brahma, the primordial god of desire, he felt inherent lust for her. He was also
good, true, pure—but was he? Other attributes of poor noble Brahma—so he was conflicted.
Brahma struggled to control his feeling. He yearned, he wanted. Sweat poured and
poured from his body as he fought restrained himself. "Pretas" or ghost, or literally
"departed ones" exited his body . . . you can't have it both ways.
Paid in full or in protracted pain? Intense radiation You blame the conflagration of ideology Of sinister nationalisms Where are the noble women? And why are they always interrupted as they start to speak That Eve you mentioned should be your verb To remind and castigate to reprimand and placate Ere she move like any old woman neglected You have a place for her in your stones? Any woman desire this Pilgrim, you are woman! Step lightly on these stones Take off your veil now so you breathe At fixed trine or place A grand trine in fire guides you At a rouse from sleep you dream You were being seduced by a daughter of Mara the Tempter Always called to account in speech saying "littler" I was "littler" oh "littler" Women buried alive for being widowed With humble gaze No, stand up to humility she says Your taciturn nature turned to good account A kind translation turned in pure amount And this is not even War And relish my gunpoint at dream Enlightenment they speak of enlightenment Endarkenment its kindly twin Meant you can't trust? And soonest mended
Tell me, tell me: is the rift ever mended? Translated it means "go on," keep a steady climb Spasmodically intermittently who had signs Who had signs and consigned herself here Illumined like a wimpled nun? Or the rest of Us? The greedy us, mollusks of hat and shoulders of need For approval, need of confirmation Always another raving observation checking itself or Galvanized to being epic: what if you aren't so good? And a gambled deck is driven by speed and drama A noble machine threshes in prone direction Circulate clockwise until you spiral the top Then bend sinister So by walking there one enters the mind of votary Paying homage is an artifact made by human beings To light up their own minds Reading its walls as moral code You blame the other predators before yourself Stupid ignorant mind that needed this one direction Stupa which is monument of stone Designed to wake you up to the nature— I mean details—of self-existing equanimity Insist on observance of formalities Bow again to your own hawk-mind here Its eyes are the eyes of search and destroy I mean destruction of ego Or resist this intrusion Organized research in the The scholarly way of a buddha System that thrives on nothing That seeks nothing that says You are here to disappear, poet
A bushwacker might respond to a sentence here Timed to metriculate a first cause But some say "mandate," didn't Dante mention this? Are you ready now to climb? We are errant we are scared so we Run to hide and reestablish Rules of engagement And are you author of such a book? Risible in "suchness"? Are you? Ready to examine your own mind? Softened by love in its heat? The way a fabric bends Are you game? Or are you phony? Are you on a quest? Are you solvent in your escapades? Do you eschew money laundering? Have you maintained accountability? Well bravo, I can speak to you Soldiers of the throne O you say they are stiff, corpses of the enemy No, the tithing won't tire A leer a tipsy insight Round watch straps and manganese The end of civilization ghosts all take seriously Shifting their perspectives Cell phones, it is reported in the dailies, Are scaring all the ghosts away Ghosts hungry for more action . . .
