Shanti Shanti

Shanti Shanti

What, you want to jig now?
the Twin speaks thus to me, he mocks
Come on we’re on the move
heading deeper into these, your sylvan girders
to the schoolmarms’ worried home
where they will speak to you great truths
and give to you their Roman oaths

You will see you will see
that they will take your burden
and in so doing
you will forget the fire’s bloom
and lose yourself in dozing
in a happy, silent tomb

Shanti, right? Shanti?
say what you mean to say
say it straight to me

All right enough of it
I don’t speak it
Don’t speak Sanskrit
Don’t never know how I’ll learn now
adrift away from those core-home bones,
that degrading prayer and corpse,
all drugged now like this, pill-swilled and windblown
my soul’s no soul no more
my soul’s no soul at all

I walk, we walk, he walks
I stall, crawl, and mutter

Jedi, right? Jedi?

What are you trying to say?
Just say it

Just means “knowledgeable warrior”
No way, dude
Yes way, it does
That’s what it means

I’m not myself anymore
Not since the pill I’ve swallowed
See now see now visions have swallowed me
in turn, flowing Thameslike
Nilelike, Redlike, Mississippilike
they thirst themselves upon me
deeper than the first wrought deep they’ve sank and flowed
till they spill out ceaselessly
in words I can’t believe
Reprieve, reprieve, reprieve!
I plea
Art thou not so bold too? To float
upon these rivers: the Ganges
inside of me, Rebel Bone a
riptide, an overflowing
the Missouri, the Missouri!

Whence this ranting, toward where
Why, and for what?
Am I the Drunken King, that fool?
No surely, I am not
For it is he we go to meet,
not these ladies of the school

I heard there are those devout
who can recite the whole Qu’ran
Like Mohammed or something
He must have done that
once, first, to bring it down
from on high
He must have recited it

Not just some of it no but all of it
Every last word of it
from forth to aft and again
imagine from aft to forth
a great, religious gibberish in reverse
some unholy revelation undoing itself
golden, blue, blue and golden
Princely, wiser than wise
Not just the good parts going forward
No but all of it, each and every word a summoning:
a holy book like a bell!
a bell to ring the boys to war
to sing the joys of war
a holy book – we’ve got one too - like a well
and inside it, reflections borne
and deeper

well well well

Again my twin is laughing,
Surrounded by homunculi
I blink, I swing, I lash
and they’re gone from my sight unabashed

To recite words like that
must take some measure
One must be good at it like Hasan i Sabbah must have been good
all busy in his bleeding work at Alamut
with a pipe and a knife turned against those tired Sunni throats
like his men had good aim and virgins waiting to stain them
but somehow pure, somehow
because sex’s economy in heaven must depend
on blood shed here on earth
and nails drilled through martyr’s hands

like Wounded Knee
and our kingly Wounded Head in Texas
came down on the whole of we
we who are going somewhere
we who are released by
the Father Emperor
who is never angry anymore
nor a snakehandler
nor even Italian
or Hebrew or anything but
pale-brewed whiteness
some kind of same-sick purity
a Credit Card to call on
when the Iron Land topples round you
and the blade’s about to fall
the arrow well set and drawn

We've almost got it right,
but still it is so wrong
In love of God there is no room
for near misses
You are either weak
or you are strong

We who are going somewhere
surely it is up
surely it must be up
but just as surely love isn’t enough
nor peace
because peace ain’t real
you’re just dreaming

I don't even know
don't know what's
what's real what's
me at all
a blow, a cry, a strong blow
I’ve dust within my eye
I don’t even know

My thoughts take me as we go
till, unthinking, I lose my way
and let my twin guide me
till we’re deep within the iron maze

There with some sweet alacrity upon the grisly iron maze
two parading schoolmarms stand, Victorian in fashion,
umbrellas in their tireless grip
asweat, lashing looks with those towering books in hand
their hair nettled back like towers, like spikes
so brown it must hurt them

We are here
She, the left, is religion
She, the right, economy
Silence now, don't you speak
Silence there: upon your knees

I do
I kneel
Ego video
That is to say
I see

The left one holds her golden book aloft
in her sweet right hand
and looks down from the towering parapet
The right too holds her own blue book up high
this in her dark left grip

They gaze they upon my twin and me
one dour, one bright,
and switching they grin and weave

They move, quickly, and form a pair
four arms now aswing
like some weird Eastern god
while behind them the doughy man now
does his kooky jig
and my twin, smiling,
says

Listen
to not is sin
Watch
tis here the rule

Where then is the Drunken King?

There is no Drunken King
only his Brother Fool
adrift in vicissitudes
lost beneath the amber moon

And who then is he, this fool?

He is you, my soul
He has always been only you

Read the Lyric from the Beginning