Baby Hanuman mistook the sun
for a ripe mango
and sprang from earth to sky with mouth open wide:
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He collided with Rahu the shadow planet
on his journey to eclipse the sun.
He irritated Surya the sun god
by slavering him with saliva.
He pissed off Indra the god of order
with his cosmic error.
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Mouth burned, jaw broken, pride bruised
Hanuman
sitting Shiva and walking backwards
facing Surya
in atonement
invented yoga sun salutation
and made mistakes
a mitzvah.
This one is unpublished and likely unpublishable, so no reason not to put it up here. I’ve been writing a number of these lately in the style of Michael McClure, obvious to anyone who knows his work (and why wouldn’t you?). His mad sonnets were very personal and grew out of his dark night of the soul while I almost never write poems about personal feelings or states of mind. I am happy to write from a shared consciousness of mythology and public language. Not meditative but mediative. Some call that plagiarism. I call it Jamocha Almond Fudge. Or plagiarism. Anyway, I do like the formal madness of McClure’s sonnets, the way they break out of the form and violate the shapely to instead emphasize shape.
Jedediah Smith 