Part 4: AIKS

Pahn (invocation)
Acts and Events of Consequence
The Memory of a Prophetic Dream
Aiks (invocation)
The Red-haired Family
Expecting
Delivery
.

The Memory of a Prophetic Dream

.Pahn was looking at divided lights across
a spool table
with stump chairs
in a kitchen with yellow walls

and halfway in his reflection
and halfway through
the window    to the rainy dark north
outside

he was reminded
of a dream he had many years before
in which he had a wife named Aiks
and standing there     looking across the kitchen

he wondered
if the dream was prophetic and he might
yet    find her someday

Wayland came into the room
and Pahn turned to him saying

“I believe I will marry a woman
named Aiks”

Aiks

.                                                 A pale    and acorn
       stippled skin                of scuffing                dry
  history              behind
eyes                          walking through woods
                 golden
duff           layers of thick
   and giving    brown leaves    with
                                                          a head of autumn
                                                   late season light
           snuffling
  rooting
  rolling in the dust                  thick trunks
                                                          twisted branches
  late
life           mating              buoyant fur
..tangled
 
             rusty                          urgent
                                                                   we are gliding

                                                                 together
 
                                                      gliding on
 
                                               to each
                                  other
                      mixed
 
              gathered
                                                      dampened

                                             thermal
 
                                       flight
                                of transient

                                     earth

 

 

Delivery

.…with Aiks
             observing
across                     a distance

a vehicle           
       coming slowly

The vehicle stops                         
by a culvert       nearby
and men get out                 
retrieving two bodies                                                   
from the trunk and                      
dumping
                                                them over the side

They roll lightly down               
the bare slope                   
into a dry arroyo

changing as they turn
               into two young giraffes

a larger           
and a smaller                 

Standing up they look                    
                                  curiously
at Pahn and Aiks

healthy

a girl
and a boy—    

Eeunks                                                        

and Daphnis                                                     

 

 

Searching in a Mall

.Entering the mall

with a sense of vulva

Pahn hesitates
seeing
the lingerie show
lingering
on body stockings
sheer
dark
layered

Aiks has gone on
without him
while he was looking                                                
annoyed
at a man’s interest
in women’s bodies

Searching
                 for her
through the mall                                               
climbing many flights

eventually                                               
finding the private office
                                                in the upper levels
 
                            Bathing there
                          alone
                              finding his own body engaging

Pahn hears her
                                         coming up the stairs
and feels ashamed
 
                                         He holds
                                                                 his full

                                                         insistence
 
                                                             and feels compelled
to hide
                        the hard           and wishful
                     lonely nature

before
                               she comes in
                                     on him
 
                                                           in the midst

                                                            of water

.

.

An Old Love

.She doesn’t
seem   particularly
interested
without urgency
without doubt
just enough

Trying many positions
she becomes board
annoyed
   waiting
He feels               
first
guilty
                then angry
He gets harder            
uncaring
close
.

.

Freedom of

.

There is a woman
like an underwear add
                           or a magazine of nudes
                   who seems to be with him
but her heart is not in it

Leaning over her dark face
                kissing            her
               perfect
                     dark
                      lips
                   He wants them around him

        but is afraid to ask

Penetrating into
                            what seems like a void

She is too empty
or distracted
                                    and feeling nothing
he gives up

…

In a room
                          with a magazine
                                    of naked women
                                             explicit positions
liking neither                  
                              the models nor the photographs

…

In a studio
                              where one woman
                                           or more
is posing

…

Later
                 he is let out
of a white taxi
driven by a late
                                             middle aged man
Pahn realizes
                               as the taxi drives away
that he is naked
                                                            under a cloudy sky
                                               lit up by lightning
He runs first toward                                                           
the taxi to get his clothes

but changes his mind
and runs for home

through the neighborhood where he

grew up holding his genitals
to hide them

He doesn’t hold them now
              because no one is around
and he isn’t ashamed

Running faster than he thought he could
with little exertion                       
through the breeze
He is surprised at                                                      
                                            how good this feels
                                        the wind
on his thin body

When he arrives at his                                               
childhood home                                       
he finds Ahnjehlia and Aiks
                                                         and neither is concerned
by his nudity

Flying to China

.The plane is full of red
pandas
                 fertility
                                       health bounty

flying
                            toward the western mountains 
                                the wife and mother’s
side of the bed

to return them
to their homeland

They crash
and settle
                             into Aiks’ chaos
on the cool
                                 mossy sheet with mottled
boulders
 
          knees
 
                    elbows

trying to straighten
the blankets   to assess
what is left    debating
the course to take

Pahn finds

Djuturna
Isolated
 
                                                       from the wreckage by a buffer

of cool   empty
air    starting to walk
away
                                   quietly in
to tranquility around her

the path
appears    to part
 
                  and focus
                                   clearing
like murk settling                                                 
in slow moving                     

river                                        

.

.

A Night in Mixed Covers

.Lying beside Aiks                                        
awake or dreaming
thinking
of a body’s need
of skin
          of muscle

His want
                         is larger than usual
and he brings it
over
to show her

Twisting about her
like ropes of damp clay       hilly
an active landscape
inverted
and coming   apart
at   the   joints

He retracts                      
to find
her inner skin
on him
like a condom

Grasping
at her separated
                                       arms
thighs                    
and belly
 
                                       throwing
his own parts
                               into her
they tangle
                 into a melange

of wishes

             and limbs

.

.

Outflow

.Pahn’s desire
                                  is longer than usual
and his motive
more clear    He can
              reach himself
with his mouth
to enlarge
with his lungs
            to make himself
wider
 
                                                    In this aggrandizement
he knows
                         she’ll be interested

Saying nothing
            as he shows her

Quiet
as he feels

Fluid
               as he moves her

               pulling her
                               into the ocean
 
                           rising and falling
in the surf              
 
                        breathing
                       doubled
                        complacent
accepting
 
                        without landfall

                                                           she floats away

.

.

Surrogate

.Aiks is
            wanting
                            another baby
not
wanting to carry it
                                    consulting Lakhehsis
she decides
      to have Pahn
      inseminate
         a surrogate

Having
                         searched
for a while
they find            a             prostitute
 
                           and discuss
with the bellhop
the terms—
                           for $500
                             sitting
                                      in a chair
                                      in an elevator
the bellhop says
                                      Pahn may
 
                   But Pahn declines
remembering
                                 Djuturna
                         and thinks
                                            that it should

                                                           be she

.

.

The Day After Halloween

                Pahn has seen two deer
                         bounding into the woods
 
       down by his friend’s house
and has followed them                      
into the damp dead grasses
              and blackberry hummocks

Pahn has dreamed recently
                        of the deer in the foothills...walking
                     through the Fescue...among
                            the broken oaks
the leaves falling                                                                          

The day after Halloween
 the deer are grazing
              in Pahn’s neighborhood
 
                 on concrete
asphalt
wandering with resignation
through humanity
                         the children
running with them in a herd
                                                     jumping over fences
          eating the lawns
 
                Pahn walks over to separate
                                       Daphnis and Eeunks from the flock
 as he did                                
                    when he brought them home
taking them to the word of drywall
He tells them                                                             
the deer are still wild
            and dangerous to kids

He sits down                                                          
with other parents
commenting
                                     that more people are hurt each year
by deer                  
than by bear
 He regrets                                                      
that he has not raised them
in the wilderness
coated in pine needles                
not knowing of
                      toy stores
                   bubble gum
                          motorbikes
             soda
             television

…

Reclining

                             pressed against Aiks
Pahn wants to be inside her
all of the time
                         though he might only appease his body
occasionally
       he would be entangled with her
permanently...

…He is living in the world of people
    looking into their lives
alternately
exploring               
and shunning

He sits at a white                     
round table
next to Eeantha for whom
he cares
                 and
                                in whom he trusts
and Mehlia whose body he craves
whose light humor
and smiling face
                     he has thought might go
                            with a troubled mind

She hands him her box
which he examines
trying to understand its purpose
He is led to believe it is                                                  
for burning wood
He looks for the hole     to put in fuel
 but one shouldn’t light a fire
in a wooden box

And he looks closer                    
                                    because he is interested in her puzzle

Touching
                                      putting his fingers in the slots
she opens suddenly              
filled with paper
and hotdogs

Digging deeper
Pahn finds she has a plant                                     
among the shredded news

which he knows is intended
                                                     for the succulent bowl

of Aiks

.

.

His Mother From the Sky

.
…Pahn wants to get there
                        but there are no more tickets

He buys a ticket to another place      instead
thinking it is better to go somewhere
than to stay
After entering the station                                                   
he realizes
                that once inside
he may take any train he likes

…

wandering about a University building…

                                                                         …after a while
sitting on a balcony
with Yaohwa

looking over the side
he sees the backs of wild animals                                  dogs?
                                   peccaries?
he asks Yaohwa which they are                              
 
                                Yaohwa doesn’t know
but soon they show their tusks

Pahn sprays them with water                 
                                     from a hose
to shoo them away

he is making a mess with emotion     without effect

One peccary jumps up to the hose
biting the nozzle                   
Pahn shakes it                                                
to knock him off…


…Pahn is driving a rented camper-van
Aiks follows                              
in a car

They stop at a sign                                                          
and Pahn gets out of the van
The people in the car behind them     honk      
and Pahn gets back in the car
                    to get out of their way…

…They are sitting in the grass                         
             There is lightning in the distance    obscured
                                                 by the tall brush
Pahn gets up excitedly                                              
trying to get a better view
 
                     The electricity quickly cracks above
revealed                                                    
                               as a cloud-shrouded metallic rock
lightning rays pouring   from
                                                      a hole in its side
splintering
and                        
                                  cascading
                                   all
around                                           

Pahn’s awe turns to fear                                         
as the rock descends
as if to take him
 
          The clouds clear away showing
                            the rock in the shape of a silver bed
                                                                      with many lights

circling down to Pahn and Aiks
           turning into a geodesic sphere
                                               of shiny plates
                           encrusted with lights     and bolts

and Pahn shoos it away like the Peccary

What is he afraid of? …

…Back in the van                                              
Pahn misses the exit
pulling on cords to slow the vehicle
as it turns into a bobsled
sliding to a stop
nearly rolling

They have come to a place that they have
                                                                        visited recently
near Rakhehla’s land—

mild hills
                           of soft spring grass

and old blossoming   orchards

.

.

The storyteller now must stop

 to note         that legend says
Penelopeya was so frightened of
a boy/goat’s body that        when Pahn was born        she ran
away shrieking          thus Pahn      has no memory
of being carried by Penelopeya
                                                    no more
than the slightest sense
of her holding his hand        but
somedays sitting in his bath    thinking of Aiks
                                                               who is his greatest love
he feels       that sense of being lifted

It may be         that the loss of his mother
at birth
                is why
                                                         he so fears death
                                                        he has never quite thrived
and why   he wanders
                          about the pastures or
woods             searching for hands   to touch him
and beauty that comes willingly to him

but
this is just a legend                                                 

we have no way of knowing

.

.

Withdrawal

.
Staying in his hometown                    
thinking in the past                   
Pahn decides to try to find Rakhehla                
Wondering
why he hasn’t thought of it before
he calls information                  
and talks to her family   
getting her address            
                                         and phone number

She is living in the Heights                           
at the base of El Sereno                     
Pahn goes to see her                                                       
happy                                                      
that she is still alive…

        …and they talk awhile
        though he can’t hear the words
                       sitting on the floor
                                 in her wooden house
                                   in front of the empty fireplace
                   with her books
         and her easels
 
                                      And on the mountain
                                         in the background
                        there is a stream of pilgrims
      going into the wilderness
that Pahn for the moment
doesn’t need

…

Pahn and Aiks are by a river
 the water acting strangely
falling                                                
through chutes and ladders
the wild stone                                                        
and the engineered concrete

There is woodland nearby                                
where Pahn’s family owns a parcel
for camping


Looking across the wood

Pahn knows he has killed someone

and the body will soon be found

He knows he can hide
                         in the wilderness
He knows he needs
very little
just a steel knife
for carving
and a hatchet
                                    would help

He thinks for a moment                                         
he should have a gun to hunt
but thinks again
            that he doesn’t need even that
                He knows how to make a bow out of yew
and arrows
and to make fire with a wooden drill
and the habits of animals
and the plants he can eat

He knows it allfrom when he was a young hermit
and made plans
           to leave society
and spent his ten years
in the wilderness
avoiding
             civilization

He goes to a store to buy the knife and hatchet
but he hasn’t enough cash
                              and is afraid to use his credit card
because           it could be traced
                                     and they may have already found
                                                               the body

They may already be looking for him

…

He is in his bathroom                                     
looking in the mirror       
He sees that he has gone bald                        
and his head                                          
looks very strange

He combs the hair that is left      thinking it might help
and it grows   as he combs it
He sees a few strands        of forest green
as it lengthens
then more strands    of Kelly green
It gets greener         and brighter
as he combs out        the tangles
until it is fluorescent
                               day glow
                                                green bice

He asks his wife                                                           
               if someone has   put bleach in his hair
He wonders     how he can go to work
                               with this kind of hair
but he knows    he can

                 because              others have

.

.