You Remind Me of Canada

this song reminds me of Canada
this book reminds me of Canada
And you remind me of Canada
I wish I could go back there
go back there someday

Somewhere a song is being sung to me
as if I was the only one to hear it
Somewhere a book is being read to me
as if I was the only one to read it
Somewhere a lovely girl with long and curly hair
flaming red is looking after me

And she reminds me of Canada
this film reminds me of Canada
this song reminds me of Canada
I wish I could go back there
go back there someday

O Canada

gentle flowing rivers swaying trees
deer feed on apples ripening in late summer’s heat
wild flowers explode like slow motion fireworks
over glowing fields

This tree reminds me of Canada
this song reminds me of Canada
and you remind me of Canada
I wish I could go back there
go back there someday

cities sprawling streets people walking
cafes bars and patisseries
guitars fiddle players singers’ harmony
unwinding tunes that echo over piney mountain peaks

This street reminds me of Canada
this song reminds me of Canada
and you remind me of Canada
I wish I could go back there
go back there someday

O Canada

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Harbour Tableaux

the Harbour
is the harbour
framed by the
living room window
a momentary drama
of stillness

the Bridge
is the bridge
despite being raised
by two metres
to allow super-size
container ships
to pass underneath

the Buildings
are the buildings
their human occupants
obscured
behind shades
drawn by nightfall

the Trees
are the trees
forecasting by waves
the strength
of the offshore breeze

the Seagulls
are the seagulls
shimmering wings
brush the watercolours
of the morning fog

the Crows
are the crows
shrieks of hunger
calling to mates
interrupt the burbling
of the morning news
on the radio.

quiet, like dark coffee.

Bahuchara Mata

Bahuchara Mata
Deviputra
Queen of Charan
daughter of royal caste
poetess, warrior
mother goddess
emanation of Durga

Your weapons are sword
and scripture
trident and
mudra of protection

You are the fierce one
who rides the rooster
the cock
of potent fertility
should a man lack virility
he begs for your empowerment
a woman who wants to conceive
implores your help

Tritya pakriti
third gender
Goddess of the Hijra
they who serve you
revere your power

Bahuchara Mata
herself born a woman
when she cut off her own breasts
to stop the desecration of her body
and so became a goddess.

Bahuchara Mata~
I chant to the Devi
invoke her power
of transformation
for I too seek the cock
carved from ritual and magic
A fierce longing
to sever my own breasts
to end the desecration
of my identity
as Lady, Woman, Female
to obtain the rupakaya
of a masculine spirit being

As the cock crows at dawn
The Dai
mother-guru of the Hijras
knots the twine
around the cock and balls
of the devotee
she raises her blade
and with one skillful slice
the cock is severed
from the body.
the new Hijra
bleeds a river of release
blood smeared
all over her body
—menstruation.

Through ritual castration
the Hijra
cut themselves off
from the world of human flesh
and bind themselves to her
as spirit beings.
the scars
are the mark
of their devotion.

*  *  *  *  *  *
I am now
the same age my mother was
when she died of breast cancer
both breasts hacked off
to cut away the tumours
but the cancer
already spread to her bones.

I walked with my mother
through her last year of life.
When she came out of a coma
for those final few days,
it was only to say goodbye.

It was in my mother’s death
that I was reborn as third gender
butch, gender queer, female man
every week it was a new label
to frame some part of my identity
but the tumours
protruding from my chest
always bulged outside
the binding
of the squared circle

At 30 years old, I wanted them off
cancer magnets is what I called them.
Two small sacks of flesh
kept me chained to the wall
of heterosex

Now twenty-five years later,
I am walking, this time,
toward my own death.
I will go under the knife
I will lay down and die
on the operating table
and if I should wake up
I will blink my eyes
and draw a breath
in the strange tale
of another man’s life.

*  *  *  *  *  *
Bahuchara Mata
surgeon, midwife
you accompany the devotee
on their march to the charnal grounds,
there you wield your ritual knife
of castration
of immolation
they will be sacrificed
blood poured out
in honour
of the Great Goddess
they will bear her scars for life.

the devotee
laid unconscious
on the charnal ground
descends
into the underworld
and if the Great Mother
is so inclined
they come back
to the world of the living
as one of her children.

the egoic self
is stripped, shattered
it is revealed as nothing
it is emptiness, shunyata
cut away by the knife
of Bahuchara Mata
flesh is fashioned
into a new identity
that is no more solid
than the old
the devotee
comes to understand
that no identity is real
or eternal

Bahuchara Mata
surgeon, midwife,
you deliver the devotee
to the feet of Kali Ma
in the furnace of cremation
they will wear the face of death
and emerge
through reincarnation
as another gender
they will die
cross over
transform
and be reborn

Elegy for Victoria

i never want to forget you victoria if this is an elegy then let me sing with the voice of an operatic tenor let my voice waver your mahogany hair the colour that has so many shades of curry and apple and charcoal your eyes liquid pools of chocolate capture me like a bird trapped in a net breaks my wings I fear always I will never fly again
i needed you i listened to you breathe at night i wanted to touch you just feel your hand in mine

but i was too locked in to the pain in my head you said: you were my mother my sister my lover my friend and I never knew that you were so lonely one day you said to me: we used to know each other in another lifetime and I said you are probably right I believe we did know each other in another lifetime and perhaps we will meet again
in future lives

i never want to forget you even if remembering makes me weep and opens up another cavernous hole in my heart no matter how much it hurts
i never will forget you i will always weep for you your brown eyes are always staring at me I know that you can see me in the dark
i feel you in the dark i feel you everywhere

your picture is on my altar i pray for you everyday to this picture of you

i needed you too much i just never grew up and this was
my last chance for realization
i loved you as much as i could love you and you loved me
as much as you could love me
it could never have been any different we gave each other all that we had it could never have been any different

except now that we are older and life has changed us we could meet each other again and we would be different people
we would be like two strangers
who met and realized in a flash that they had known each other
in another life

Buddhafield physics

Buddhafield physics
gravitational waves
radiate from
black holes of shunyata
colliding into
vaginal cavity
of dark matter
chrysanthemum
of energy explodes
from threshold
of event horizon
Pakistani lesbian
proves Einstein’s theorem
of spacetime
She knows the secret of the universe
—that everything is relational.

Vows

April-May 2014

1
“I’m making bodhisattva vow!”
physio listens as she removes needles from my neck
her warm touch relieves my suffering

2
look up from your laptop
watch birds trace wingprints in the sky
tender leaves unfolding

3
queers gathered around
Scott Jones’ wheel chair
breath in each other’s presence
breath out fear

4
queen bee devi vermilion
drone of harmoniums offer devotion
illumination at the full moon

5
cold rain seeing breath
intense gaze from smoky blue eyes
steam rises from miso soup

6
Agony, shortness of breath
Padma, transcendence of passion
Amitabha, red-face chanting smile

7
NOFRAC signs bending in the wind
a band serenades protesters in Parade Square
organic soup for lunch at Farmer’s Market

8
infirmary lab clock
needle extracts bodily fluids
testo junkie surveillance

9
bare ground tethers thought balloons
green dreams of red tomatoes
and orange pumpkin blood

10
her finger penetrates deep
physic’s hand aligns neck bones
~snap~ woke for breakfast

Kathmandu

One very brief affair wreaks havoc on your life;
The shaking lasts only 30 seconds, but it rumbles on forever,
a seemingly endless series of aftershocks.
It lasted barely three months. It was over in November
but I’ve been digging myself out from the devastation ever since.
She’s gone—forever; all that’s left is the aftermath.
The echo that lives on in my head, an ever-repeating refrain:
why did you kiss me if you didn’t really want me? why?
I bury you in the rubble of Kathmandu—
Like the ancient Buddhist temples that were crushed into dust
erased from the landscape,
I forget you were ever here.
A site marker on the side of the road reads in devanagari:
“Once stood here the Temple of the Diaphanous
She Who Floats Ghostly Between the Pines.”