 Vajradhara. Traditional thangka painting by Sherab Palden Beru (Scotland, India, b. Tibet) contemporary Saturn’s Fingerprints Ultimate reality may be more painful than any pain you experience in your life…although you would like to see things changing – not working out as they were, but reshuffling themselves – at the same time, the world remains as it is. – Chogyam Trungpa Slaughter your obsessions With other people’s opinions Vajra at the center alter (And we will get to that) A statue of some past at his knees, each known one carved by some master gone before Each figure a master that sat before them too, draped at their gold shoulders, white & yellow tufted garlands Signifying clouds the storm gathers, passing, the sun flies again into clearing Thought maybe a gender trafficking in rhythm At the base beyond, snow garudas purr & sim- ultaneous protect & indifferently prowl from a sitting position anywhere they are, they are Making white noise, the nerve Fierce & gentle, sensible, abundant The fashion gold plates stand straight up behind the sitter Robes absorb light’s disintegrating chalice dragons gather, enfold flowers in their wings mouths smoldering thunder beneath the hypnotic order & mazed beyond above the maze of day’s confessions, confusion, disillusions, denials, ruts turmeric in lapiz lazuli, lace, Ceylon, silk, saffron Along paths too overgrown with weeds, darker petals, kelp pools loop upright in the storm antler gather, the one who is one the one with the pillow, robes obscure paunch, & ass, the frame with all the blind aches & still he sits, nest pale, translucent skin ovening lungs / the shore, bled, the swerve murmur of roman lambs Orchards bringing song, Martyr in the wheel orchid strumming gasping wakes squall welts along the topaz raft branch & chimera suture bandage of a leaf-eating bandit’s wound Caught along the road the clouds blow away, mountains blow away, huts mown, trees gone down, grass burned, sky billowing, still, away… The pillow settles along rump’s adjusted torque Lungs, the day’s nudge – The summons of myth – That masks the truth of night Darkness takes what it does because we give it length What myth seeks to lift Is made smaller – without malice, a gentle shrine to here & task begins again to unmake it – Restless, skedaddle to the next indivisible jewel crown hovering inflamed Andrew K. Peterson Andrew K. Peterson is a poet and editor based in Boston. He is the author of four poetry books, most recently Good Game (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2020). His chapbook The Big Game is Every Night (Moria, 2017) was sent to the White House along with other chapbooks from the Locofo Chaps series as a collective protest against the current administration's policies. A previous chapbook bonjour meriwether and the rabid maps (Fact-Simile Press) appeared in an exhibition on poets' maps at the Univ. of Arizona Poetry Center. In 2017 he co-organized the Boston Poetry Marathon. He is a co-founder/editor of summer stock, an online literary journal.
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October 2023
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