Submissions by Djinn

I. CONTEXT

My kin and I
Peered with Floridian gecko eyes
Out of cardboard-shuttered windows
Down into parking lots that breathed
Life, roads jellied with organisms
Among which, I relay:
The beautifully patterned young women
The fat jawed men-to-be, including me
Reflected in the glass pane
And these and more
The feathered, weathered scholar professors
Whitman’s learned astronomers
Eliot’s Phoenician sailors cat-calling
Ginsberg’s own marine seraphim
These colors, and more
Streets strewn in littered directions
Ungodly...

Having dropped LSD,
I stand, petting a cactus.
But it does not anticipate my blood.
You do.

I.

Himalayan ecstasy sung through
The notes of a cassette player that
Sat on the table between us,
And I decided, on a moment’s hesitance
To bid Far East along the Orient.

Backpacking on silver trips
The icy skippers treading water
Nightly borealis bother
Tombs of British cannon fodder
Never did tribes sing sadder sorrow.

And each tomorrow and tomorrow
Brought me closer to that high steep
Below the brow of the mountain’s peak
Speechless squalls of ice rolled deep
Lulling doomed men off to sleep.

At length,...

The mind and body must be subjected to extreme stimulus, by means of drugs and music.”
- Hunter S. Thompson

I.

Kanpur, on the Ganges River,
Visions of fever and spice
Corrugated tin, tanning skin
Monkeys in trash bins
Thinning bulls, the Rules of Djinn

I was witness to a singular experience
Myriad urban scents that traveled on orient
Breezes drifting through waves of opium
And poppy plant
Profound, messianic chants

In an insensate nauseousness
Skirting vibrations of the Krishna Consciousness
Self-prescribed...