Rehearsal: Malika (One Day in the Rainy Season [1971] Dir. Mani Kaul) 

There is a scent of wine in the 
clouds. Open the door. There is a 
mirror the color of soil—it smells 
like clouds. It smells like wine. I 
was caught in the storm. The 
black clouds dumped cold rain. I 
felt like a fawn pierced by an arrow. 
My lord carried me like a 
cloud on his back. The world calls 
me back—a mother, a clan, a 
state. An obligation. I refuse. I 
will stay here, even if I am 
nothing but refuse. Cold clods,  
sticky after rain. What is a poet? 
A mountain dweller. Proximity to 
the divine. Never anywhere then 
entering with gusts of strong 
rain. Bringing the chill of the
mountains across the threshold. 
Spattering the hearth. The heart. 
Its bright red stove glowing like 
a face. Eyes searching for 
mountain flowers.

**

One Day in the Rainy Season (1971) Dir. Mani Kaul 

Remember me. What a poem can do. What a world can’t. Force the poem to speak. What a poem can. Open a path to you. Reveal a path into the mountains. What a poet can. Enter the storm. What a world can’t. Reproduce the poem. What a world can. Snare a poet. Drag him dripping red sediment like a cloud—a stand in for the storm. What a poet can’t. Let the clouds part, the world enter. What a world can. Parch the soil. Colonize the heart. What a poem can. Find the truth, the heart’s poverty—us here. What a world can’t. Become the chill, the smell of flowers. What a poet can. Speak your name. In truth, I only love my emotions. They are pure, tender, eternal. 

**

Ātman 

The singularity 
of the supermassive 
black hole at the center
of the galaxy  
awaits a single word 

Awaits an improvised tent 
to shield it from the storm 

The word nudging like a shoot 
into the singularity of the black hole 
at the center of the galaxy  
huddles in the tent 
of madness 

A storm whips 
the tent of madness 
like glass baking, a sky 
quaking with red fissures  

The supermassive 
black hole at the center
of the galaxy is really 
nothing, a gem 

A gem on the finger
of a lady traveling  
through Occitania  

The lady wears 
the gem of night 
on her finger, legs 
plodding through heavy skirts 

The singularity 
dreams she was a lady 
in Occitania running 
in her heavy white
creases like a gardenia 
far, far from Cartagena 

A carmen, a garden 
where God once 
walked  

The singularity awaits a word 
like a clock 

A carpet of heart, lush red 

A star born, star dead 

The scar is a 
boy and stands 
up

***

Lotus 

Lord
that
is like
us

we
are
trying
to climb

through
the muck
and praise
you

and be
your
children
forever

***

The Cell (2000) Dir. Tarsem

a woman in a white dress
rides a black horse
through red dunes under  
blue sky and dismounts 
and the horse turns into a 
toy 
she walks along a dune’s 
seam 
a mirror in a dry lakebed 
beckons her
a child is a monster
…
a big joint
a photo of her running track 
a bust (phrenology?)
an IMac computer 
a photo of a child/patient 
a clipping titled “Namibian Seal Hunting on the Rise” 
St. Michael 
el corazón (lotería)
a large glass of milk 

a clipping with a photo of the same child as above (likely the same photo as the above but through cuts uncovered and retacked beside a map with descriptions of Namibia and South Africa) titled “Billionaires Son Found in Coma on Seal Beach”

booty
kitty
…
Fantastic Planet
Buddha lamp 
palmistry pillow
sheets 
Namibia 
lakebed 
tree trunk 
sealboy
…
cigarette burns from the print on the Amazon digital transfer at 19:05 and 19:12
…
“Should have left him the way he was. 
He used to suspend himself, didn’t he?”  
cigarette burn at 37:38
“Yeah.” 
“Yeah. They’re comforted by the feeling of weightlessness, like floating in water.” 
ibid 37:45
…
a piece of silky blue cloth covers their faces
bodies sheathed in glossy thick red striations 
slabs sink into the floor  
their bodies hover  
trumpets
an intricate coral-colored stitching is reflected in her eye
circuitry 
drift
sink 
sleep
dream 
enter another’s dream 
stay awake?
…
cigarette burn at 55:58
dog soothingly licks fingers as they prep for another session 
ibid 56:05
…
lights go out 
alarm beeps 
dog whimpers, yips
rumbling
sound and scale distortion 
lights again 
a rustling sound? 
faces frozen 
I’m already in 
…
locked in a closet watching a child be abused 
standing in a glass bowl filled with rustling eels 
I should have drowned you like the runt of the litter
a flash bulb pops—a picture of a room appears on the closet wall
sound of a bowl wobbling 
Playing with dolls? You little faggot!
[Gasping] God.
What are you some kind of woman? …
Woman!
Mama’s boy!
I didn’t raise no faggot!
sounds of a wobbling bloody bowl and a child beaten with an iron form a bridge 
she enters the photograph 
a green room 
a killer, naked back studded with suspension rings
a naked female victim 
an albino puppy 
a wobbling bloody bowl 
a bloody bathtub 
a gloved hand holding a cigarette 
a cloud of smoke 
rain and thunder 
an open window  
two glass jars on the windowsill
bowls and tools scattered on the floor
…
baptism means being buried and reborn like a woman transformed into an object or doll or a Bitch. Whore. Cunt! or a child a man or an employee of a corporation or will to dominate and kill the Christ life or the feminine that threatens to overturn an empire or emperor or CEO or psyche or butterfly tortured killed and reborn as a dragon 
…
cigarette burns at 1:13:45 and 1:13:52
…
Isis admits the devil into her garden 
a child 
a man 
to save him 
to kill him 
to be baptized 
to die 
to be born again

***