Brett Dionysius

 

xxxxxxx. A pozzolanic bulk god

The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities--ever, however, implacable,
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropriated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.

T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages

(i)

The fresh scab of a pye-dog
heals over the wounded afternoon.
Didn't you know that they fuel
trucks in India with pig's blood;
axle grease is subcutaneous puppy
fat siphoned out & the rickshawallahs
sleep, wrapped in real polyp soft,
Alaskan fur seal. Scratch a shanty
& a pariah kite drops. The industry
of vultures picked clean as Pharsi
bones & carbon 60 poison scams
back fire on the false teeth godmen.
The city is an ultrasound,
& all the spoiled negatives
burn outdoors, outdoors.

(ii)

Here you are in pregnant traffic,
waiting, watching & waiting, trying
to elope to the Foreign Tourist
lounge, New Delhi Train Station,
when a ceiling fan of thought
oscillates through you:
Everywhere the strong, brown gods.
CO2 bleaches your lung's oyster
bed as a Tata's steel-belted claws
rend a black hole in the raw tar,
strewn from baskets that smoulder
with lotus. Beside the patched
highway, street-kids rigged
with canvas bags, prise off
the hub-cap of time & hawk it.

(iii)

I don't know much about gods;
but I know that the semi-trailer
is a primitive, pozzolanic bulk god.
Its chrome Mack fetish, soldered
Sphinx-like to the hooded cobra
of a sacrificial, bitumen altar.
Kalighat recycles the sump of goats
& airbrakes; a throaty afterthought
shatters the awe of smog-busters
engaged for a combustive nanosecond
in the puzzle of a road-kill.
The fox terrier cross, hardened
into an indecipherable Phaistos
Disc, on the bronze-age shoulder
of a busy, New Delhi Road.

 

xxxxxxxvi. New delhi station

"Baldwin. This is not Kings Cross
Station, Platform nine & three
quarters to Hogwart's School
of fucking witchcraft and wizardry!
I can't see the bloody Foreign
Tourist Booking Office anywhere."
"Excuse me Sir, Madam, can I help
you?" intervenes a slim man
in a torn cotton suit.
"Yes, we're looking for the Foreign
Tourist Booking Office. Do you know
where it is?"
"Please come with me, I will show
you. It is across the street --
the building with the blue front --
you go up the stairs at the side
to the second floor."
"But why is it over there? The sign
says its somewhere in this building!"
retorts Roxanne cocking one eyebrow;
loading that mental gun.
"That is an old sign Madam. Please
come this way, I will take you."
"Hang on a sec Baldwin, why should
we trust this guy?"
"Madam look -- this is my card see?
I work for the New Delhi Tourist
Commission see. I will help you.
Please."
"Nah, I don't think so. It's alright
we'll find our own way."
"Please Madam, why don't you trust
me? Here is my photo on the card.
Sir, your wife is not very trusting.
I am only trying to help you!"
"Um….you say it's back across that
road….shit Roxanne, how are we
going to cross over to the other
side of the street?"
"Baldwin, this is a scam, can't
you see it?"
"No Madam. I assure you this is not
a scam. Please follow me, I will help
you carry your bags."
"No Baldwin, don't follow him. It's
got to be inside the fucking New
Delhi Train Station somewhere!"

"Where are you going, Sir, Madam!"
"Excuse me. Have you been here
before? Have you been up these steps?
(Click of a Biro nib being pushed
into place)
"This is it Baldwin. Up here.
Up the stairs."
"No Madam, the Foreign Tourist
Booking Office is across the street…"
"I know. Across the street, in
the building with the blue front & up
the side stairs to the second floor!"
Roxanne pauses, sizes up the man's
mis-matched sunglasses, ID card,
notepad, biro & faded suit, before
she unleashes a round into her mental
chamber.
"Sorry sunshine, pull the other leg.
It plays 'Fuck me dead but I'm a
silly cunt. Now GET out of my way!"

 

xxxxxxxvii. Tourist interrupted

Vast, this vision
of energy
uninterrupted:
Valley of the Gods

Vicki Viidikas,
Kulu Valley (Himachal Pradesh)

"Can you believe this Baldwin?
These guys are selling package tours
to the Kulu Valley. Fuck that for
a joke. It says here, that 26
Westerners have disappeared there
since the mid-eighties. They didn't
know why until an Israeli airforce
guy went missing & the Israeli
government launched its own
investigation. Seems like people
were being attacked in their tents,
robbed & thrown off mountaintops.
Pleasant isn't it?"
"Geez Rox, it's like a Bermuda
Triangle of backpacker murders. Even
Milat didn't get that many, I think?
Serves them right though. Going off
the beaten track by themselves,
looking for their 'Eastern' spiritual
experience. They reckon they grow
really good dope in Himachal Pradesh
its probably all drug related or
something. Deals gone wrong, you
know what I mean."

"Yeah honey, I'm not about to vanish
without a trace in India. You though,
you could pass for Ganesha & probably
set up a cult or something! You'd
like that…power, money, women,
a Rolls Royce for every day
of the year!"
"Now who did that again? That's
right, the Bhagwan. I think he only
got up to 40 or 50 cars though.
Didn't reach his enlightenment with
Western automobiles."
"Quick Baldwin, here comes that
beggar again…the one with the snake.
Let's go before she asks us for a
photo. C'mon!"

 

xxxxxxxix. The desert of thar

The dune beetle raises its upturned
icebreaker hull at a perfect angle
to the morning star. A tear from
Lord Siva condenses on its convex
onyx chassis, inches down; obedient
mercury flows into a Corinthian
helmeted head. For fifteen minutes,
Baldwin high on bhang cookies, amuses
himself by flipping the beetle onto
its back, burying it in sand & then
watching the insect fight its way
to the surface only to be swamped
in mica again. The meaty hourglass
hand of god releases granule after
granule -- saturation bombing (insert
Vietnam War film footage of Hanoi
being bombed) etc. etc.
This is how Roxanne discovers her
husband. The sadistic, suburban
lizard torturing boy, caught
in the fusion of a new dopamine
memory.
"Baldwin, what the fuck are you
doing with that beetle?"
"I think I can. I think I can.
I think therefore I am. I think
therefore I am a beetle too. Oh,
what…Hi Rox, isn't it gorgeous?"
"Baldwin, you're delirious. Come
back to bed at once. You'll freeze
your nuts off out here!"
"Yes Ma'am, freeze the nuts off
a monkey's butt! I am the Lizard King
I can do anything! Hah!"
"Fuck me dead Baldwin, you're insane
& stop torturing dune beetles for
Christ's sake. C'mon!"
Half dragging, half tobogganing her
husband down the sand dune, Roxanne
catches the early morning glint
of the camel drivers' hyena teeth,
bared in laughter.

 

xxxxxxxx. Train Song 3

DON'T
SHED
BLOOD
SHED
HATRED

Indira Ghandi, railway sign, Shimla

"Jesus fucking Christ Baldwin,
some Indian army guy just groped
my breast!"
"What the fuck. Where is he? I'll
beat the living shit out of him."
"No you won't. This train is loaded
with the Indian army. They'll fucking
kill you without thinking. Have you
seen their eyes? They've all got
thousand yard stares. Must be from
being on the border with Pakistan."
"It's your blonde hair Rox, you're
driving the male population of India
nuts! Why don't you cover your hair
with a scarf, for Christ's sake?"
"Fuck off Baldwin. I'm not deferring
to these nutters, no fucking way!
The next bozo who wants a piece
of my ass is going to be in for
the shock of his life."
"Now Rox, have some mercy. The men
in India are all fucked up. You've
got the caste system, arranged
marriages, Bollywood fantasies -- half
the men will never find a woman."
"Fuck the men honey -- what about
the women. Do you see any mother in
laws dousing their son in laws in
kero & setting them alight? Do you
see any Indian women giving their
daughters an overdose of sleeping
pills, because they haven't got
a boy? Do you see the mis-use
of ultrasound equipment to detect
the sex of an unborn baby as a boon
to Indian women? Even the fucking
cows have a better life than most
women in India!"

That night in the bottom bunk
of their three tiered cabin, Baldwin
stayed on guard, kept eyeing off
the Indian army privates who
patrolled the corridors; who stopped
& stared at Roxanne's prone form --
at her hair buried under the goose
feather burquas of her sleeping bag.

 

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