too many of my friends are junkies
too many of my psychic kin tattoo invisible revelations on themselves
signing their manifestos to etheric consciousness with little
hoofprint scars stretching from fingertip to fingertip
a gory religiosity akin to Kali’s sacred necklace of fifty human heads

Kali-Ma, Kali-Mother; Kali-Ma, Kali-Mother
too many of my friends are running out of blood, their veins
are collapsing, it takes them half an hour to get a hit
their blood whispers through their bodies, singing its own death chant
in a voice of fire, in a voice of glaciers, in a voice of sand that blows
forever
over emptiness

Kali-Ma, remember the giving of life as well as the giving of death
—-Kali-Ma…
Kali-Ma, remember the desire is for enlightenment and not oblivion
—-Kali-Ma…
Kali-Ma, their bones are growing light; help them to fly
Kali-Ma, their eyes burn with the pain of fire; help them that they see
with clear sight

Kali-Ma, their blood sings to death to them; remind them of life
that they be born once more
that they slide bloody through the gates of yes, that
they relax their hands nor try to stop the movement of the flowing now

too many of my friends have fallen into the white heat of the only flame
may they fly higher; may there be no end to flight

In: Word Alchemy, Grove Press, 1967

Lenore Kandel 🇺🇸 (1932-2009) conheceu Jack Kerouac em São Francisco e este imortalizou-a numa cena de Big Sur: “é inteligente, leu muito, escreve poesia, estuda o Zen, sabe tudo…” Publicou dois livros de poemas, The Love Book (1966) e Love Alchemy (1967), antes de sofrer um acidente de moto em 1970 (com o seu marido na altura, o poeta e membro dos Hells Angels, Billy Frisch) que lhe deixou graves sequelas na coluna. O seu primeiro livro foi acusado de obscenidade e foi confiscado das livrarias; Lenore respondeu ao crescimento das vendas doando uma percentagem à associação de polícias aposentados. Foi a única mulher que leu no mítico Festival Human Be-In em São Fran-cisco, juntamente com Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary e Michael McLure.

detalhe

A Queda dos Anjos Rebeldes
(The Fall of the Rebel Angels) – (1562) óleo sobre madeira, 117 × 162

Museus Reais de Belas-Artes da Bélgica, Bruxelas

It is different when you get to look and study a piece of work like this everyday. When on a daily basis you bend your fragile body over it and allow, you literally permit, you let it reflect you back. As in a routine. As in a fucking exercise. It is different when you begin to feel like a fallen angel yourself. The wings, you know. Not sure about the feathers, miss Dickinson, but definitely something that makes you believe you can fly.