Part 3: PHYSICAL DEPRIVATION

Many Goldfish Swimming
After the Flood
The Photographer and his Wife
Chocolate
The Drawing of a Dream
Living in a Barn
Dreaming Mounds
No Return Mail
Presence
Reconstruction
Karl
A Hole in the Fence
Out of the Gaping Mouth
In Pahn's Garden
Lying
Goldfish
A Common Thread
The New World
The Separation
Testing the Water
.

Many Goldfish Swimming

.
On profusion
                                                  of stones
camped
                                          on a gray gravel bar
arising by a creek
low
exposed sand            and driftwood
signs of people

Ahgreyeuss Pahn crosses                                        
                                                    the heavy morning
noting a presence
                            which elicits fear
and he hides                                              

joining                                                  
                            others in his fear
They conceal together    behind a log
                                             wondering if they are safe

Knowing that the creek                           
                         must go somewhere
they follow it

As they parallel its course
                            the water turns black
and there are pools with
                              familiar
                                                               darkness       and goldfish

They come to a place where
        a trickle comes
                                               into the creek from the side
over a small but aesthetic
                                                   waterfall—
it is Ahgreyeuss Pahn’s
built of his hand
and so he stays here                   
                            while the others go on…


…Ahgreyeuss visits a house of young uniformed people
where there are three girls     visiting
                                                                    from Japan…

…he meets them later in a bar

in the smoke
              and colored lights
                            among tables
                                                     and glass
                                        by the surly at the counter

They sit                                      
listening to the lottery     

Ahgreyeuss has many tickets
but he is not lucky     

He looks up from his tickets
and finds
                            that the third girl
                                                                     is gone
In his wondering                                   
he listens                                             
                                                                     and hears a squeaking—
a chair
a door
a boot
                perhaps
but not so near
          a scream—
                                             he worries

He runs around the block

He searches for her        

                     with a flashlight in dawn
          out by the harbor
            in the grey and water
hunting the presence     
                                                to see if it has taken her


                                                          The sky lightens
there is nothing there
but lily pads                               

He crosses the heavy morning                               
                                                 of the estuary
back to the hills and creek
to the fall
                    and flooding—

it has rained                      

                         and
downstream from the black rocks
left                            
lying                        
at the stages         
of the flood       
are    
lines
        of dead
     goldfish

Ahnjehlia                              
greets                                          
him                                 
"Still"

she remarks
“In the grey ponds           look!
The flood has left                      
           many goldfish
swimming”           
.
.

After the Flood

Rain
and under water green lowlands

Sitting inside
                           then through sliding door
                                 water               glassy
                on the walks
slick
                                                                                    in the air
                                                             with every grey
                                  coming down from the sky

         already soggy
                                   yesterday
now             
      in the evening
                             in the dusk and drowning
          Ahgreyeuss goes out into the wet
       to visit with creeks
and drag the woods for dead                                                        

Silt                                             
washes off the leaves
                       clear overflowing streams

and cows have come up from flooded pastures
                                                       to Ahgreyeuss Pahn’s wood

He sees glistening dung                                                                 
the color of the smoke            
of burning oak-wood

Mostly water the cows have                                 

 eaten                                                  
 drunk                                                  
breathed                                            
tread                                                   

The first one comes                                                                
staggers                                                                      
drops                                                                                      
drowned in the sodden air

Ahgreyeuss pulls her from his creek                  
black
shiny
He searches for dark                                           

            beauty

The mounds                                                           
and carcasses                                

on the sod                                   
and sinking into the ground                         
will begin to smell                      

He worries briefly                           
but comes to think
       
these mounds              
will rot rich


The Photographer and his Wife

Alone                                                                                            
sitting                                                         
sniffing to realize
                                        the mold
                                     wet north
in a wooden ghost house

Victorian
bare
                              broken and no-ones

climbing out to the balcony                         
and traversing                                                   
the knobs and ledges          
clutching to wet                                              
        graham cracker shingles
digging feet into the rotting wood             

descending to                               

the ground floor               

                                   
                                          On a porch
Ahgreyeuss Pahn finds living here          
                                                         a photographer and a woman
looking at photographs of dreams

There is a dream of nearby
                                    The woman standing
                                             by a small cave
                                           There is slanting rain
                                                       It is only striking her face
                                                           between shadow
                                                             and limbs

There is a dream of a man in bed
                   Faceless
                                 No background

Ahgreyeuss says                                                    
“This is a real dream”



The three of them journey south on foot
                              through mountains       coastal        and damp
going home
                                     Soon

they have come to                                          
          the Sacramento River
too wide                               to swim            or wade
                                                                   across      looking
for a bridge…

…now in a car
the photographer drives                                   
very fast                and curvy
through grassland
outcrop hills  
so fast                            
                                  that Pahn’s body is thrown          out of the car

The photographer pulls over                       
and stops     
to search for Pahn’s body
over barbed wire         
down cattle roads
                           toward the river        They are
chased off by ranchers
They                                            
go down to a creek            
to get around them
Looking for a bridge again       
they wade in                                                          
                                                chest deep
pushing upstream     between
       vertical            sandstone walls
           covered            with inscriptions 
                   that darken
                                                         and deepen        as they wade
becoming            carvings and caves   

 from which come
  faceless spirit-people
in the deep     and muddy
calm                    
                                     who menace intangibly

                                             From upstream


floating

comes a basketball

Ahgreyeuss Pahn grabs it        holds it up
                                                                     to the spirit people
and they disperse
                                   He throws it at them
and they smudge away

   
                                     Having cleared the air
Ahgreyeuss wades by himself                                                      
to where the shore slopes southward
and he climbs into the hills                                    
to find   
his translucent-light-blue-wife           
lying            sleeping 

                              
 From the Artemisia and stones
he lifts her              
She smiles
and the two of them begin
                                                      to walk
back


Chocolate

.On a riverboat
as Pahn steps into a room
a man steps out

Pahn means to think nothing of this
but cries instead
and Rakhehla holds him
and she sings to him
his old songs
and though he can’t decide if she understands them
or if knowing them (him)
makes a difference
finally he feels something
even if it isn’t love
and so it is time to join the men

Pahn sits with laughers
friends of hers
They eat chocolate
Pahn eats chocolate
and laughs too

Pahn sees the price—
eight dollars
for one big slab
and there are many

Leaving the steamboat
he walks
and something is wrong
His sister
Ahnjehlia
garden and heather
sits near a gate
upset
Pahn asks why

She won’t answer
but her stomach is sick and coming up
Pahn speculates that she
has eaten too much chocolate
.
.

The Drawing of a Dream

                          …In disheveled
                                  in student housing
                           kitchen and cupboard
doors leading
                           to the private quarters
alone                                      
             Ahgreyeuss Pahn
                  is an anxious stranger
A woman comes in from privacy                                                          
freckled dark                                                                 
to eat toast                                                                                 
ignoring Pahn…

…Pahn walks through a door                                                                    
to find a studio                                                                
large                  modern..
bone white walls
easels
canvas 

 drop-cloth

A photographer takes pictures                                                      
of his girlfriend
while Pahn gets in his way                                


Pahn looks out over the fields and woods
lies down     covering himself                       
                           with a white sleeping bag
He listens                                                           
to other rooms                        
through the heating vent

The photographer (now an artist) is a little annoyed
but Pahn seems to have       a place here—
no longer            a stranger…                             

…Now he possesses the place                        
                                              modern mansion
wearing a suit                       
drinking                                    
      looking over his spring estate
expecting friends                   

They arrive in an old station wagon

rusted and muddied
A woman stands near them                                
and though she resembles                               
                                   a pleasant waitress
                                                             that he met in Portland
                                                               at a Thai restaurant
she is                                                                  
in fact          evil                              
and of the             
                                       CIA

She drives a square     business car                      
        and tells Pahn’s friends that they cannot park
in the place where they have parked                                       

and she threatens Pahn also


In disbelief                                                                                 
Pahn is livid                                                                         
and throws her to the ground
to hurt her
                             tearing her clothes
and lying on top of her
But stopping to wonder                                              
at his own actions
Pahn ceases                                                              
thinking                                         
“I will get in trouble
and
it is not what I mean”

So he forgets…

                               ….he walks
leaving home and room-mates
to hitchhike…                        


              …the university is his grammar school
He hitchhikes there      many times                                              
remembering every ride                                       
Wayland comes by          and asks about the drivers                
and Pahn says                                                               
“They are all good and friendly
                                                                     and come soon”…

…Pahn is no place now                               
There is nothing behind him

he looks only
and sees
from no age
no shape
but speaks
to impressions of
people near

                      Penelopeya
               Ahnjehlia
                       and another woman
                                     
his future bride?
A pair of hands       show drawings
Images       from his childhood
                              a spotted dog
Excited                                                                
Pahn asks Penelopeya
                                          Did we have a spotted dog?”

The drawing comes animated
and a dancing woman crosses the lawn in front of their big
                                                                white
                                                                                           house
She is                                                                    
mother           
sister                
and someone else      

Pahn holds a basketball                                    
and he is happy                      

Mother/sister/other                                            
throws the ball high
              past hoop and houses
and Pahn exclaims                               


“It is as a dream
It will go higher than it could and come
down slowly like in my dreams of falling and
never touch the ground”


so it falls                                                                                
metamorphosing                                                   
to freeze into the drawing
                         as a many colored mushroom                  


And Pahn asks                                                                         
“Who drew this wonderful picture of a dream”…

…It is in a book                                                                      
He is in the library                                                  
with Galaksaura               
He says


“I didn’t know you animated
Did you draw this”

“Yes”
She says                                                          

.

.

Living in a Barn

 .The phone rings                                                   
Pahn knows it is for him         
               but there is no one there to answer…

…he is at a river                                                       
a shelter
in age and ruin                         
                      healing in to the riverbank        rotting

   away its scar of newness

He doesn’t know what the shelter was for
gear?
  tools?
     books?
People worked here
Pahn has come to find something
with Rahbin and Ahnjehlia
They sit to look                         

The river is muddy
              and carries things away
There are intimations of the library
                 and the view from here is the same as it is
                                                                                     from there
except
There is freezer ice                     
melting with rain
                  in Wildcat Canyon
                                            distinctly out of proportion
and causing this melt flood

They move about                               
Crawling
                              stepping on old boards
                                            loose and rotting
that hint of old men

Pahn leaves his companions                                
                                            and enters the shelter
For a moment it is a garage

   but Pahn’s mind changes—
                                                 it becomes the library
 ..and in his confusion               
he feels shaking                            

Awakening in his barn
in his bed
he wonders                                 
if he is feeling an earthquake
or if
                he has just rolled over in his sleep

The shelter is again a garage               
                    for now
and the earth is indeed shaking

He stands in a stuccoed arch                                         
facing asphalt and power lines
panicked
He runs in circles                                                             
until the temblor stops…

…This pavement suggests a city                         
and there are city folk                      
talking about the flood                  
showing Pahn the water marks
on their mobile homes         
           without showing themselves

The earthquake bids him inside again
                                                                   It is a school now
He wends through sheets of broken glass
and fallen beams    Here
the earthquake has made ghouls            
                                    left among the children of this school
                and the children          who are threatened by the ghouls
ask Pahn to save them

Pahn shatters the ghouls                                        
with splintered boards
                  as is they were made of glass
and leaves           Down the sidewalk
as if he were going somewhere
he walks on a street of real distance                
wearing only a towel
to face a real city
lost
People deride his manner of dress                    
push him down

He comes to the barn again                      

still no essence
he supposes
this time it is a museum

There is a dark-skinned family             
picnicking outside        
The father rests by a telephone
off the hook               Inside the door           is Michael Jackson
talking on another telephone                                           
The father asks Pahn to hang up for him
Pahn hangs up perplexed                           
Inside
Michael calls his family                          
                                                           The telephones are black
                                             The telephones are always black

There is another family here                            
down the hall    foreign
Penelopeya is with them     
                                                                 She accompanies Pahn outside
and back in again                               
        to see Uncle Lotho
                     and an auntish woman
                             who are comparing gold

At last              they walk through a door
past the black telephone
into the library            
where uncle Lotho

is Pahn’s supervisor                                              
                                      and Pahn is working on a spirit drawing
Uncle Lotho chides Pahn                                     
because this spirit drawing is wrong
                              but what does he know
                                         about spirit drawings anyway?


and he chides Pahn                                     
for leaving old maps out

                                                                    Pahn wants to leave
but doesn’t know where to go

He goes out back with Penelopeya                   
and here is the river

the flood receded                        
Penelopeya does a strange thing—She climbs
                                                            high into a maple
and jumps down smiling

Uncle Lotho has come out to watch and he is also
                       smiling
He says she does this every day                             




Pahn hears the phone ring in his barn
Uncle Lotho answers           
                              hangs up
Penelopeya asks for whom they were calling
Uncle Lotho says it was for                            
                                 Ahgreyeuss Pahn

But he is not there

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Some of these poems originally appeared in the following publications

Avocet
Dream International Quarterly
mojo risin'
The Muse Apprentice Guild (The MAG)
Transfer

My Photos

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