SAINT THOMAS , VERSES 93 – 102
Mark Traill
14 April 2008, 12:30Secure a room
After many refusals
“But Sir you’re unwell
And I know a good £hospital!”
I need a bed
I need clean water
I need a toilet
Then after a daughter
To care for the saint
As he sleeps in his sweat
To mop up his brow
And clean up his bed
Sunrise sunrise, one more sunrise
I feel no better
Just one more sunrise
My bed is wetter
Just one more sunrise
I can’t forget her
Just one more sunrise
Should write a letter
Just one more sunrise
To make things better
Just one more sunrise
Wish I’d never met her
Just one more sunrise
Cramps receding and fever abates
One more sunrise is enough for the saint
He prays in his dreams to the martyrs of yonder
Who tell him the gods have never been fonder…
BENARES.COM is a cyber café
Where pilgrims download they’re prayers for the day
Its terminals and screens the saint does not seek
In the cyber café that’s swarming with freaks
For the saint has heard of a gentleman here
Who keeps hold of a crop that’ll turn your head queer
In the cyber café you can also buy milk
And music and carvings and fabulous silk
“Good day to you sir, I want your money
I have chai, I have mango, I have ghee, I have honey
This is my sitar, I will play you a chord
Just give me a dollar and I will pray for your lord”
[[[…inhale green fumes…
through nostrils in plumes…
grey halos obscured the workstations…]]]
“Shave, sir?” and I think why not?
My beard is thick it’s mighty hot
Is that my face beneath this mask?
Emaciation, skins so dark
Drink “Thumbs Up And Taste The Thunder!!!”
Kashi’s lanes warp in my summer
Waif of Benares, as brittle as faith
No tourist will speak a word to his face
I’m an apparition in Varanasi
High on God’s love
Or is it Bang Lassi?
Burka clad females are black jangling ghosts
A dog on a chain nearly rips out my throat
The raging bullock impales me on horns
Turning corners in corners
The river that mourns
Gods of the dead have their own regulation
Children forbidden a warm immolation
And those yet born are placed in a box
As those who have perished via small pox
Charter a boat
For almost an hour
Hand in the water
Primordial power
Baptise myself
Unholy shower
Swim with the souls
No longer sour
Son rise son rise, he has his dad’s eyes
A foetus in chains
Son rise, Son rise
Chastity in vain
Son rise, Son rise
This river’s insane
Son rise, Son rise
Absolving my shame
Son rise, Son rise
But distilling the pain
Son rise, Son rise
The saint is to blame
Son rise, Son rise
Face emerging and summer awaits
Son rise Son rise too much for the saint
His prayers in the river to the martyrs of past
Were answered in Sanskrit and tied to a mast…
Who is this lord? was the saint’s contemplation
As the martyrs did whisper of manifestation
The ghats and their pyres spit red rings of fire
And sat in these circles are Sadhu’s getting higher
The flames making way, the saint joins his mystic
Together chanting verses for Agni in Sanskrit
The lord he did speak with
The lord he had heard
Was Shiva, “Boom Shanker!!!” his truth is his word
Now chanti, come chanti, now offer your ganja
In chillum to Shiva who lives in the ganga
Absolved in the waters, redeemed in the fires
The saint found his strength and walked to the pyres
Is that a ghost? A phantom? A soul?
It cannot be Baba, his face is aglow
“Ello me old mate! Fancy seeing you!
Glad to see you discovered your shoes!
Deep breaths! Say “Aum” and don’t try to guess
How I bounced back from my heap, from my mess
The phoenix rises from all conflagrations
I’m lucky my eyes see all constellations
So lend me the palms of your hands dear saint
And allow me to picture your progenies fate”
“Your health is rude, and so are you
You are no Baba you’re a peasant in shoes
You’re spoiling my trip, my journals unwritten
You follow my tail and pretend you’re not smitten
This phoenix rose on the prayers of a saint
And the reason you’re well is because of my fate
So do run along to Sakshi Vinayak
And once you are there please never come back”
The saint turned on foot to start on his tome
Never to mourn his distance from Rome
And once he had written of distant lands
He never once felt the blood on his hands
That bloodied his rupees as he paid for departure
Onward to Agra (forgotten by martyrs)
