THE KNIGHTS OF Y (12 new poems by Shaman Dagaji

DAGAJI AT YAKIMA UPLANDS

A few years ago, I performed a Shamanic 'feat'.  Marilyn Monroe, as my 'Benefactor', is in the habit of giving me assignments, things I have to figure out, sort of like a koan in Zen.  As I go about my business, my spirit works on these things, until it comes up with a resolution.  There is an 'aha!' moment, and we move on.  I've forgotten just what the assignment was, but when I accomplished the resolution, my reward was to become a member of "THE KNIGHTS OF Y".  I have no idea what this means.

Many years before that, when I was caring for my mother during her senility, MM and I were walking in the yard.  As I stepped over a blooming pink Davidii, she burst out with "I am the sign Y!"  To which I immediately replied, "I am Y not!"

She is my muse.  We first met in the early 1970s, when I was in graduate school in Southern California.  She climbed into bed with me and woke me with sex.  Years later, we became linked during my Shamanic Initiation, and worked together constantly, writing poems every day, and doing drawings and paintings.  It was a sort of channeling, but mostly a combination of talents.  Then things went south for several years, and I stopped writing, and changed my drawing style.

Recently, things have gotten better, and I began to write again.  Some poems were published in the online journal Four and Twenty, but then I stopped writing short poems.  This is a collection of recent longer poems.

THE KNIGHTS OF Y

11.08.12

HOTEL TEOTL

when the squint-muscles begin to sag, and the flesh droops

above the smile, a certain knowledge manifests –

knowledge of the spirit as it confronts the agents of demise

the Mayan Gods

displaced by the Cosmic Shift, the Gods are homeless

their search for blood and corn depletes their powers

I set up a stone

“Hotel Teotl”

carved with niches and grooves

it has eyes where they fight to roost

Hotel Teotl, at the top of a stair

one step at a time we receive their presence

as they master the tests of Time

11.09.12

GENIUS OF THE MUSE

topping off the terror with some beer

I’m hoping the error won’t come near

too late, I fear – her heart is pounding in my hand

as I drain her life-blood from the can

the genius of the muse, the life I choose

living like there’s nothing left to lose

I wrestle a loosening tooth against my tongue

coaxing a lucid truth to leave its lung

11.10.12

TO A T

the more I insist on being me, the more I is I

even though Jesus took over in between, (“crossed my  ‘I’s”,

so to speak), the more “I” suits me to a T

He has a hard time being him, when I’m around

me being so strongly connected to the ground

I brings him in like a lightning rod

He strikes me like a cattle prod

so I penned a tune titled “Battle Him”

just to get under his skin

11.11.12

THE RAINBOW BROKE

his long snout covered in grisly white fur,

the werewolf remained at bay while I held him with my gaze

beneath my stymie, he squirmed and hissed

my hands were busy with my tortoise

coaxing the oracle with my stroke, I inhaled, waiting

the clouds around us were bursting with rain

prana was surging through my brain

until the rainbow broke into golden knowing

and the loco lobo lunged, plunging into the cauldron of my heart

11.12.12

DEADWOOD

when the deadwood sprouts and thistles bloom

on stalks as thick as your wrist, I walk

through neighborhoods sick with Christ

Jesus walks with me as I puke

in training to be my muse

I’m a little choked up, and my voice is thick

does he have anything I can use?

like stalks of celery hollow with pith,

the people of Jesus, addicted to myth,

have long been known as enemies of Earth

11.15.12

EARTH KEEPER

siphoning off the departed soul of the Hamas leader

was easy, in the melee; the blood-letting orgy of the mid-East

tribal conflict

I didn’t get all the pieces

but I did get a bucketful of panic

and enough hatred to fry a snake

my training finally has kicked in

I am the Earth Keeper of Yakistan

for the blood sacrifice, I’m the man

reduce, reuse, recycle, the motto goes

waste not, want not

Mitt Romney was right—it’s all about the Culture

in the birthplace of Jesus

like a child, I watched

Jesus as he slaughtered the innocents

and like a child I let it go to waste

until he gave me a taste

the chocolate syrup that greases the wheels of this world

11.16.12

HORSE POWER

because the Earth is my Church

it’s also my parking lot

with Angels for valet, it’s hard to find my car!

and so I walk

but I don’t get far

two legs or four?

I morphed into a horse

as result of a curse

a horse with wings

of lightning from a star

“Excalibur!” named from a sword

I vanquish evil with my word

11.17.12

KISSES FROM TIME

looking deeply through the people

I embarrass myself

how empty I’ve become

“I gave at the orifice,” I tell myself

as all their faults and flaws

tumble helter-skelter into my vacuum

a hairpin pierces a button

liquids dance around a thumb

my dog eats cats with more grace

I think he’s a bone-again

fluids drooling from his chin

I pray to the highest vibrations

where the membranes begin to thin

and here come the heart-beats!

one by one I hold them in my hands

like fuzzy mice or ducklings or precious sands

like kisses from Time, like sacred plans

11.19.21

WIND BLOWS RAIN

“all branches and no roots!” she said

“the fruits are my roots!” I barked

elsewhere in the forest a picnic was in play

maids and their mates were making hay

“let’s make a crop-circle!” she said,

puffing her voluminous cheeks

I held up my fingers in the shape of her brains

fir-trees and cedars, maples and ferns

widdershins toothpicks in her winds and my rains

that heart with the arrow, piercing and true

went viral on YouTube for the world to view

11.21.12

IN MY STUDIO

the Bindu mat forms a ‘porch’ for the vortex

oak leaves (black) at the corners

look like little footprints

three toes at the front end, a pecker-head with a squirt

at the rear

the Beast Within (Jesus), when he roars, squats here

his yoni juices the Bindu

this Bindu is the Energy Center

of Yakistan

I place my hands to cover the oak leaves at the far end of the mat

and after Jesus roars, I sit

in the center of the Bindu, to Dream

across the planet in Gaza, the Jews

slaughter some Innocents with their bombs,

while CNN beams their screams into my Dream

my Shaman’s Body transforms the Dream,

streams it into the Bindu where it flows

to the hearts and souls of my city

this morning, after, the sunlight diffracted through my crystal

to send its rainbow to color the end of my dick

11.23.12

TASK OF THE SHAMAN

some people call it the ‘ethers’,

that amniotic fluid that permeates earth and sky

surrounding the Shaman

properly called “The Medicine”,

it naturally occurs in pristine Nature,

inherent in every aspect of the Natural World,

inherent in Spirit,

inherent in the Womb of Pachamama

wherein the Gods are whelped

in the days since Pristine Nature left the Planet,

it has become the task of the Shaman to create anew

this magical tincture that speaks with its own voice

11.24.12

The Knights of Y

with her crotchful of mollusks, my poor wife

drugged me and dragged me to join them

I slept through the entire whoredeal

one by one the Knights-Initiate

fell from her to the right, or to the left, depending

Xolotl or Teotl their fate

stroking my Quetzal wand,

she sang the dawn awake