I don’t want heaven unless I can drink it.

            I want the Soma my ancestors sipped

so I can feel the truth instead of think it.

            You’ve seen my Gods, right? All our poets tripped

on Soma back then, seeing visions of

            a sky-blue Vishnu with his thousand arms

                        and Kali rocking necklaces of skulls,

a coiled cobra, ten hoods flared aloft,

            Mohini’s nectar-sweet transgender charms,

                        Hanuman’s long jump flustering the gulls.
 

But was it neurological sheet lightning?

            Or did those psychedelic yogis prove

some riddles must escape the mind’s enlightening

and shove the language from its native groove?

The Amanita, or some other shroom,

            or else some relative of mescaline....

                        The Vedas never spill a recipe

or name an herb Nepali snows entomb,

            and so the swamis harp on discipline,

                        devotion, patient study, charity.

 

Me, I stay thirsty. Let my Soma simmer

            here on the stovetop, kettle whistling for a

minute, or at most an Indian summer.

            I want my cup to shimmersteam an aura

until my Gods and Goddesses appear.

            I’ll bow my head and take a sip and chat

                        them up in Sanskrit like a native speaker.
Then, nebbish flesh abandoned on the chair,

            I’ll step out, don illogic like a hat,

                         and stroll right past ascetic, monk, and seeker.

 

I want to take a shortcut, and why not?

            Why not attain Kailash without a climb?

The highest truths, I’ve read, transcend all thought,

and true samadhi sits outside of time.

The worlds we know are bubbles in a bong,

            the eyes we have are padlocks on a cloud.

                        I want to melt the long-sealed fontanelle

that’s iced me under like a bonewhite pond

            so that the Secret swirls in and out,

                        a taste on the tongue no tongue is graced to tell.