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”           

.

.

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

Reconstruction

.…through broken
columns
marble
white
geometric
ruins in a coastal sunlight                   
and Mediterranean     
sky      Ahgreyeuss walks    
past women    in pairs   
into current
life       and courtyard      a dark
thin woman       and a blond
fleshy woman      of forty
years or more        They are walking
                                                 the sharp edge
of history           Pahn’s mind
                                                 is empty       He turns
and tears restraint                                                            
knocking the women
                                                             unconscious
dragging
desire to the water                                                                 
without concern           holding
                                                     them
up clasping
                                                     around them    from behind
floating            amplexus          dying                                          
in the chlorinated pool         rubbery
                                       bleached…

…awakening on the shore     dressed
and smiling     they walk away                            
                                                      undreaming
the past             leading Ahgreyeuss
into the bedroom
             where he awakens
again from forgotten   limbs                                                     

…

In the loft of a beach house     Nomioss consoles
but scolds       the windows
                                                                                        high and blue
the house empty

Out in the sea                                                                              
a swell forms driving                                                
into the shore    
                                                 upsetting the house
                                                     leaving              a cloudy
                             sky      and muddy        waters           broken
                                                     glass                  and driftwood
                             the cool                            satisfied
aftermath of a storm                 
                                   a new beach                       Ahgreyeuss and
                                                           Nomioss are
right side up
in the deserted
air breathing it
in with sea spray
walking thoughtlessly
realizing abruptly
               that people       must have been           hurt—
they go to the bluffs                                                     
finding many casualties
and many half buried
embedded in the mud            still alive—
the brothers wash         them
and dress         them
The brothers are calling for help                                              
when 
           an angry
sheriff stops   them
telling the brothers to leave   the survivors
                             there

…

When Ahgreyeuss gets to town
                          the earth begins to shake
and things to fall                                                 
                                            He wonders
if it is safer     inside                                         
                                  or out   but nowhere
is safe                                      
there are many people
gathered          by a giant      
                                      computer with lights
          bells
                     buttons
                        knobs
and a crystal ball             glowing
                                                         intermittently

Pahn squeezes
the ball             rubbing          feeling
like the captain          of a ship  unsure
that his actions will stop         the shaking                             

                                                     The townspeople taunt him
saying                                           
that he doesn’t know what he is

                                                    doing
but rain
begins to fall
                                               and he continues
                                                             to rub        certain
now         that the swaying
will stop          and the rain will fall heavily
into the soil    until
it freezes      

Pahn is wondering       if it was his own power or a coming
into harmony            or a greater     force
or an accident
               when
Ahnjehlia drives                   
                                                  up in a dark blue         car

and she drives with Ahgreyeuss

                                    off by the great waves      the clouds
that move        down to light              the earth

the snow coming    to cover
                                                              her body

Karl

 They have come
                         Pahn and Ahnjehlia
                                             to the Santa Clara valley
The bay has risen                                                                 
and covered the valley floor
They cling to a flagpole above the water
         awaiting the tide
The water is a uniform                          
                   mirror grey
that rests in the basin like smog

Before long it recedes again                               
And the two siblings drive                               

past                                              
the salt evaporation ponds 
              that have replaced the tidelands
down a                                        
sunken freeway
               to the west side
                              to learning
to Stanford

They go into the university      unsure
through mineshafts                                                   
dark timbered
askew                                             
Students leave
in an unleveled evacuation

The doors become hidden
    and turning to find a way out
Pahn looses Ahnjehlia                  

There is a young man
standing dark   Karl
                                      worried
         and he shows Pahn the way out

Pahn walks to the shore of the bay
now losing Karl      too
                                               Looking around
instead of Karl he finds
an old man
who is waiting for Karl

Pahn and the old man go off
searching                         
following a trail
southward
homeward through the foothills
hiking with friends
who come
           and go
past ranches form childhood

In these dry hills       is a porch                                                 
It holds a musical instrument                                                       
like a piano       
   in the shape of a turtle             
and though the old man is skeptical                   
                             of Pahn’s abilities
Pahn sits down to play      The keys                  
are large and white                 
The land is warm and arid
This dark man smiles
He is restless
                He reaches down to play beside Pahn
Part of the time   Pahn seems
to be able to play
but sometimes
                         he is lost and missing notes

They leave the porch quietly
looking again for Karl
who comes skipping
                                       old now
joyfully hugging Pahn
                                     warm
They walk to find Ahnjehlia
though they sense vaguely

having already found her