ascend descend

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDIT: Rahul Lal's images
EXCERPT: a partial reading
chomolungma. she is giving. palm up. cupping velvet jewels, prayers. the men—gulping steam, frost, milk-ice—gag. here: the red beryl-tipped crown—dented, polished tin. everest. mountain. mount it—swell flesh, peel temple; let the rest—the edges (meat) wax—drip in blistering puddles. here: the crown. here: the universe. the frame: black opal—eyes, balled/sunken/drowned. our prayers/confetti. here: the universe. here: the eyes—jeweled cosmos. here: tanzanite whiskers coiled on wrists. come to the foot hills, to the spun silk threads—they, bodies of a blue-violet variety, are all spent blood & slush. cold lips. flushed, emptied, dead. here: the frills. here: that painite, that red-black, iron rust, that beady, strung thick drop. let it crumble. let it crash into its core [implode mid-palm, consoled, confined]. let the surface steal the reading, steel the nerves, still the slow slop, the bloodletting, then make it stale. here: the pressured tip of staves. here: a head of alexandrite to puncture the sides. men: tucked lips, furrowed brows, clean-unclean geometry, bone structure crushed. here: against blue-green/green-red/red-pink—alexandrite—the eyes: a hue of lies & light, but transient. close the lips around it. here: loop the tongue along the mineral. then here: take it to the heart. take it through. here: the musgravite mask—the black-purple beast—the coarse-cored creature—watch the lines align by sun on bouncing snow—how rare. here: she touches short strands—light—life—gravel/textures/rays—then houses it in molars. here: the mask of decay calls. palm up, cupping velvet jewels, prayers. she is giving. reach for her.
straddling— top-top. it is not remarkable that chen died. the traffic jam, the six bodies, the search. i say thank you
for telling me that chen died. down the mountain he went. thirty feet below. four hundred above. another hump of rock and ice, and sherpas who smile into snow-crusted beards. they call them the icefall doctors. they are paid for everything: for the ladders laid over gaps, for the rods with rope, for the trails. if it echoes, the ice will give way. if it echoes, do i run?
there are icefall doctors in the icefalls, frozen, folded
into glacial
gaps
underfoot, crackling. loud, like trees popping out of place. staring down steep-steep ice straight down, there is a static rope to hang me. a tether with tension, ready to fling me. a neon noose. the both of us shattered: the ice and i— eyes rising & such— the shattered between us are marked by anchors, mocked by pickets, stabbed and twisted, screwed into ice.
the slopes are filled with dreams, or dreamers stuck in corpses, or dreamy scenic frames, or no dream at all. the englishman and the indian are both dead. so now we inspect. compare frost nipped fingers to incipient frostbitten toes. the cold chop-chops. “i’m fucked,” then takes bare structures frozen flesh, frozen black on the inside, frozen pink white tendon, until the whisper out is half hot breath, half chilled frost, and the blood crystal to veins. pull the sleeping bag over and bite the wind, or take the winds bite, or swoon. “once you recover,” the bits will melt away, the larynx will shake free, and on and on to the next camp until the radio breaks. so chen is dead.
mountain madness to people who don’t climb mountains is the inhale-exhale. the right foot, then left. the whistling suction of empty lungs filling, spilling over, burning trails from chest to biceps, thighs to throat— not the rush! not thrill!
what i was doing was recognizing the seriousness of purpose. halfway up, side to side— jammed— slamming ice-ax to ice a sixth, a seventh, an eighth time. i pause. wait-wait. at camp i chop ice. axe to ice. rusted metal to old mountain until old mountain gives way, or packed snow can be pocketed, bagged in packages, melted to purified water, bottled and boiled and stewed. “more, more.”
four breaths, three heaves, two grunts, a swallow. burned chest, singed muscles, a lift, a fall, then a crash and a sweep, then slashed, then ice. it is dry everywhere and everywhere is filled with water, and everywhere is mounted on rock until snow creeps up our boots swallows our knees, bites into our thighs, warms the fat in our hips with the chilled kiss and promise of sleep. even the water welled in our eyes freeze. captures us in mid blink, sticks lid to mucus, holds mucus until hard, makes hardness sound like ripping, rips lashes till they transplant, then hum and vibrate from shut to spastic to desperate, then free.
the canyon fills with cloud. the mist and fog return. fluid pushes the brain, rushes up and touches every bent angle of cartilage/bone with no warning, little fuss, until it wakes a day late: drunk, inversely flipped, from the harness and the buckle down.
this is an empty understanding, a sweet loss, those garments, those ropes, those coats— discolored, varicolored—downward. this cuts the slope pushes choked white bruises into gory knots of mummified, glorified vessels. vassals of summits, of steps. stop stay here don’t move listen. the collective voice:
i ride the slope, the storm. then shiver. i stumble over a man. not a man, but a body of the mountain. i whisper: solitude
but something stranger watches: is it the masses? are they the climbers?
they stop. they speak. they glance. they preach. their breaths: haggard and short. they school me, scold: fool. their eyes say: fool.
i wonder: where lies the softness of man? is he too busy to lend his warmth? are his limbs too short to reach my knee, my knee, now black, and nubbed.
i say: come, come touch me. of his oxygen: is it too sweet to share? of his gear: is it too heavy a burden? and the bonds, are they tight and stifling? do they jerk and choke?
my brethren are where? i say: passing me! on to the top! on to the world! passing me on.
is the frozen indian in the green boots my new brother? compare us as so. as such, you pass us on.
on to the top.
but, i swear: i see a breath in him. a quiver. life. i see the indian breathe. or i see his chest heave. his voice: i swear, it bellows, moans. he grunts.
the indian chokes on ice, on snot in lungs. he sputters my name. i swear. i swear. left alone, one wonders: do all the bodies quiver here.
was that soft shriek beneath the swirled storm all along a slow, corroded welcome?
i pray. i whisper it too, to the men creeping up creeping down on lines hunched: welcome.
i hook their eyes. it is their eyes to mine. they see my breath. they must. “welcome” “hello.”
a huff.
i breathe. they see me breathe. they watch the breath, they breathe – sing song, on melody, on cue. they watch that huff turn to mist, to spit. then nothing. then the wind. “hello”
i breathe. all the mountain quivers for that breath and all the bodies now joined as one with their murderer vibrate into a hymn a howl.
i know they saw me shiver i felt them shiver at the sight of me the two of us, the three, and four, the score of us shivered together.
could it be the storm that shook us all? were our shoulders burdened all the same?
when i nod… i assure you, it is a nod… they look off. they look away, they pass me on.
i wonder: my brethren are where? passing me! on to the top! on to the world! passing me on!
but how certain are they? how sure are those men that i am dead, or dying, or as good as dead, or am unworthy of life, or of turning back, or resigned, or already lost, or presumed to be, or aware of my dying, of my death?
as if a spore, both self-aware and aware of nothing. how sure are they? when they descend, when their soul becomes a cluster of fear becomes a rattling of empty tanks, they will see me again and wonder:
is he dead yet? was he not dying before. maybe, maybe he is dying now. ahh, the man is lost! the man is lost.
how sure will they be then? as sure as the men who untuck me from my capsuled grave? who press their mask into my face? who dig and unearth me? who hear my heart rumble full staccato?
“i am here.” who see the easing of trickling breath! “i am here.”
who nonetheless tuck my folded form back into the cave, a tomb. as sure as those men, i hope.
when they descend i will shiver to a new chorus. my brethren are where? on the mountain everest!
the collective voice: where is mystery? in the rags, in the molten meat, in the unnamed immortals. in the anonymous, in the carcass heaps?
is the mystery in the bodies tucked in by pink, tucked in by blue?
does mystery become a space, vast and evaporated? does it turn to salted milk, to crisp skin paper, to curls, to the shape of curd?
what happens to the body as it turns? is it renamed? does it hesitate, does it hesitate and pause, pause and rewind, rewind and retreat, retreat and stumble, stumble and lie, lie, freeze, or sleep?
sleep: the final stretch. is that where mystery is? how wonderful.
how wonderful that it stretches into a long gaping whine, until the whine itself unwinds itself, until it pulls and bends, until it clenches its fists, picks raw, picks so raw the soul. how wonderful.
what is the name? the sweet hand? the precious ankle? the untitled slip of death, a wrapping sheath, a veiled wraith? are we the mountain yet? are we everest? is that the name?
the mountain marks –
all its remnants, all its inactive macabre, all its memorial stages, all its benchmarks. all its guides and beacons. it marks itself with flags. marks with a stream of blue red green yellow orange splattered in triangle chains.
but the mountain is not sick of hellos or goodbyes. the mountain is asleep. dormant. it cannot hear you. it is not singing. it is not calling. the mountain is unconscious. your feet trampling? a dream. the mountain, the mounted bodies, the bounty of man, collects as one hollow gasp, one dream. a dream.
the collective voice.
i fall in the black sleep – the sweet pit-ash, and swallow: the coal. the sour kiss “deep.” the “inhale” “deep” the “inhale”: now, i flush the lungs of soot. sputter. quick! cringe. burn bright black. churn cool burnt lava down throat. i fall awake. misty eyed. a foul slumber – grim and shut. and lay folded and hooded, in a fateful, fatal fetal position, with feet tucked in, tucked away. my dark doze. my black pit coma. the white rock will bury us. will burn us down.
i fall sober. how sinster: that dreary unsheathed shadow. how sluggish the draw, that balling up, that pulling of flesh to tight thin brown. i suffocate. and the dream becomes hoarse. becomes a boring, unsettled grunt. becomes a cough that shakes the castle to sand. expired. i know there is no dream. i can not rest.
i fall numb. marked. i am dull flat inside. head tucked towards the stone wall, feeling with crossed arms: it’s getting warm. it’s so warm. i’m burning up. it’s getting so hot. then the abstract pensive browse becomes my slow repose. my bitter grisly bed: a path of astral weight, of footprints – feet still attached, not intact. attached.
i fall absolutely. like a milepost. like a landmark thick and dry. then dry and thick. then unpleasant and awful. it is cold. it is skin nipped cold. it is peeling of flesh cold. it is sniveling cold. it is crying cold. it is soft stillness shivering cold. it is pain pain, so much pain cold. it is prickly stabs pricking scabs of flesh bashed, mounds of bone stoned flat by hills of ice. it is cold. it is so cold. cold. but you are almost there.
the mountain calls upon george mallory. the collective voice: mon dieu, mon dieu, mon dieu, george mallory
drift.
looking at you:
the sun-bleached skin tumbles tight-lipped reaches taut corners limbs cloth stripped. descends. descends. did it ever ascend?
was it always broken white tattered stripped gouged cracked jerked?
did it ever ascend?
have you conquered it? if you do not reach the bottom george mallory, have you conquered it? have you conquered the mountain or have you half-conquered the mountain
have you kissed the summit, left the kiss on the summit? have you tumbled down sun’s bed of white? have you turned to eye-white from sun’s kiss back?
george mallory does not answer
he is too busy
tumbling
can you vanquish the mountain? the mountain the monster
the beast sits, slaps sharp edges against whipping wind and rope, sharpens edges on bone, on crampon, on white sheets of spit turned sleet beneath nostrils, ice pillars, glued shut to cartilage. it thaws out when flesh thaws out, when white and brown and black ripens, sags, loosens, grabs pebble fingers until skull and bones become rock fragment tombs. the beast
the monster the mountain
or is the enemy the self? or is it the mountain? or is it the monster? is the enemy the self the monster?
why climb the mountain everest? he answers:
because it is there.
those who conquer, who vanquish, whose cheeks lifeless white turn rose red blush whose feet wobble, crumble creak by metal, by wool, whose skin sears off by each fine friction ridge, whose skin swallows indents of bruised meat bashed blue black dead… when asked have they vanquished an enemy they answer faux mouth, blind,
throat still struck, still thawing:
none but ourselves.
the mountain bellows. draws out its risky horn, mumbles the entire sound of feet crunching beneath avalanches. silent, it uncoils itself as self becomes rigid planks: dies frozen in a peel, in a strip, and falls
into gaps
into the valley of multicolored cadavers, a mixed heap of miscreants
in a flesh cloth trash grave snow tramples bodies beneath
pushes bodies into gaps into rainbow valley the mountain bellows. the collective voice:
blue blue red green pink green green red orange blue black blue yellow red red red socks socks left glove googles hems jackets jackets shirts shirts tags pants pick ax gloves ropes briefs black black green red
yellow pants green boots pink red jacket yellow rope left blue boot white gray sock white ankle bursting blue jacket white back red bleached yellow tent orange tent bundled black blue rope red orange jacket red left glove blue red jacket orange red jacket red right boot red right glove left foot red white flag orange oxygen canister black wool cap green
blue cap bundled hanging red brown orange pink black right leg black flip phone white white brown hair orange blue jacket yellow rope teeth left leg half a left hand gray rope white shrunken fingers black face black head black black red jacket blue rope yellow shirt beneath brown orange sweater beneath gray white jacket green trash blond hair right olive boot
blue red pink pink. black blue red black boots red black jacket yellow rod red blue cap orange canister green orange yellow
white. white. white. white. white.
white
the mountain as a whole breaches
breaches the lowest blue the cupped palm bed of heaven, the schism of white a break
the lowest circle of angels. the arched line a stadium of choirs
the mountain licks the angels’ wings, pulls up – pulls back, stains black and gold, red and black, pink. each feather is to tongue grainy, tight, wrung dry.
the mountain sucks their wounds fresh, slurps the ooze and filth. retreats
reveals landscape. the scene: punctured clouds.
the collective voice:
here above terrain… its voice tiny, soft: it becomes mewls of wind (beaten and flat, gouged and lashed, salted and split down the midriff seams/ axial slices). the melody of skies of clouds of peeling rock of shredded ice of the hugged chest bleeding lungs (the air/fluid the breath/drowning the sigh/froth the swallow/asphyxia drowning/drowning/drowning).
it becomes a wilted choir. here: everything slurs so, let the knees crackle and buckle. let the core lag and pulse. let it sing its psalms. let it howl.
o’ summit! o’ summit! (ruptured, dipped stuck to fog and snow.) o summit!
you keyhole. the bottom of old heavens. you top winds and jewels. summit!
your kiss hitches/sticks mid yawn. morning birds and teeth clasp, then tear earth.
the sky: tea, spilling over crystal sugar, molasses, thawed, flaked honey
let the spine fill with hoarfrost the lungs with hard rime, or the innards with slush
have the skin coat with frost have the hair ice melt to touch
let the nostrils/icicles/nasal glaciers klang! shake the rigid snot, frozen spittle. let it crumble to crushed shavings.
then watch. eyes crystal/ice over. watch it whittle to the marbled iris, watch it shatter/cut the cornea, watch high pitched glares grind optic nerve down to wet rust. watch the lens melt, ooze like goat milk on the fingertip. watch the vessels retract - reluctant at first, in a sense, reticent. watch the imminent resolution of crossed eyed astigmatism, watch
azure, white burned cornea caerulean. seared off singed edges. a milk white gunk. a crisp pupil sunken, iced over and baked. cobalt skies. unseen.
o summit, your beauty is acidic.
the mountain chants. i rest. i press the back back against the bag.
they ask me: what have i seen? “how many sunsets? sunrises? lustrous sheets of gold? red? amber? how many blues and blanks? storms? how many clouds trickled like mouth-puffs streaming from caverns? how many fleets of snow? palms of ice? weight in flayed skin, frozen/snipped off?”
they ask how was it: “to have seen the earth’s wild edges? twisted into center coils of itself. like puckered flesh pursed tight into an arc of blue, of white swirls, each swirl left untucked. how was it to have seen the earth untucked? to have seen it undone? loose? unraveled? how was it to be a god?”
i say: enough to have seen the mountain as it is.
i say: i meant only to descend, i meant not the white of toes, not the red of cheeks, not the prickly sting not the numbness, not the great, grand white, nor the pink, nor the black. nor the dead.
i say: i meant only to descend.
i say: the wind lashed me. i say the wind broke me until the skin came away. i say the flesh was beaten well. was bruised into tight, pleasant white. i say no corner of bone was left without the kiss of sun. without the press of dried joints. without a curse: the sun! without that curse: the sun! accursed, split into the seams of the unseemly.
i say i have seen enough sets & rises, enough to know by the way the day whimpers into night, with a shuffle, what the mountain is.
a sanctuary? a temple? “the body…” me. like christ but perched upright. but leaning on his rock, hands to knees, pleased. with grapes. or frozen wine.
“it rests forever, there.” tomorrow i will be gone. i will be cradled by new white, by a new bed of frozen shavings, then carried down, drifted further into the side of the mountain. my home.
“once with brown hair flapping in the wind eyes opened. blinking as if freshly thawed.” that is me, still. or was, once. look: i miss the head of hair now tanned skull, and eyes now paired pits.
what have i seen? they ask: how much of the mountain? how much of the view? a view, they wonder, like god’s yet what purpose is this angle to god?
am i a god of men, among men? i have seen the ascent, the descent of others. i have seen the peak at its best, its brightest, i have seen the eyes divert and sight diminish.
but what purpose is this angle but to play as the watchers? but to watch the men drink, but to mind their gold, brass cups but to observe the gulp everest-ambrosia. but to see them stumble drunk then crawl, hung over. what purpose is it to celebrate like a king for a moment amongst nothing. no glory. nothing. not air. nothing.
how divine am i? above crumbled bones, heaps of flesh and rope, how divine? i peek just briefly into rooms of gods then fall and sleep. it was assured. divinity. that fall from heaven.
they ask what have i seen? how was it? “to have lived the view of gods. to have seen the untucked earth? its rounded edges, its sweeping light? to be dragged down to mortality.”
i say:
this is my grave.
palms. sweat. fingers. jetting pulling (pull), squeezing (squeeze), jolt – (come, hold on) stay holding (hold me), tighten – together-together. stuck. skin-to-skin, trapped, wrapped ‘round limbs (squeeze) tighter, tilting – (hold me, my love), shoulder-to-cheek, cheek-to-cheek (touch me) tighten. wool gloves, burn; bond, bend, sweaty – (hold me) reach, reach – pulling, reach. jolt. gust. reach for me. reach for me. pulling apart. a part. apart. where did we part souls? where? where? sweet love. reach for me. (reach) are you reaching for me? (reach) cling. hold. follow. I will shield you from ice pellets, from fog-ice clustered in hail, bunched in blizzards, in thick white slop, the storm. I will shield (shield) reach for me! dig. step-step – climb, climb down! down! follow me, my dear – sweet love, reach for me – dig, dig feet in, grind feet in – listen to my call – (my dear) – my call (reach for me) – my call (pull!) – my call (reach!) – hold, hold, hold!!!
( release ) the collective voice:
we descend: hand in hand. locked in sweat and snow. knotted in twists, once, once matted. you. your frozen cradle. your pulse: the empty furnace clanging, klonking. we kiss. cold. the fingers slip from palm to ice, then ice to bone, then bone to soul, then drops into bellies. and fear? we feel it together. it is in our bellies: a brick black crushed charcoal, smeared on the seams of the gut, choked and charred. we feel together. the itch. the quiet wanting. we feel the coo. muted. disjointed. unfiltered. we feel our voices. our echoes. the packed. the pleather/feathers turn to slick slips, coats the skin (the coat – wet abrasive. the coat – weathered in) with sheets of sweat in sleet, with tears now hail – with spit; the crunch/snow. but then! but then! the eyes are glass: sick frost. and here? here, the sinking begins. begins to seep. to sag.
concede. we won’t. we circle the summit. we spiral, we flee. we stalk, we press. lips between digits, beneath soles, into paths. we walk. walk. walk.
walk
walk
walk
walk
walk
walk
walk shoulder the storm. march and haul march and haul uphill and down. march into thick and thin; inhale and swallow the heavy. haul the weight, haul the time. carry the seconds on bent bruised backs, on crippled, buckling knees. carry the hours until falling is the only direction.
collapse.
in dying the mind concludes / concocts this claim: the end is here. it tells self to lick its warmth.
then the gloved palms quiver. in dying the mind surrenders.
when the cloak descends; when it wraps our chests and heads, our torsos and hips– when it snaps us into place, tucks away our limbs, presses them home– it is okay. it is okay to go.
the descent:
a swirl. a swoosh stillness

stillness

still still
still
inside: the collective voice:
swoosh there! there in silence: a valley
swoosh a valley. finally, the wings are made. swoosh watch me descend watch me dive watch me. swoosh swoosh
i am icarus these wings: the tainted flippant twists. flopping. these wings: a windless seascape of papier-mâché. these wings: flaccid confetti. stuck to wax linings, to the labyrinth. in the diorama, in brilliant brown cross hatches over moist bulges, over welts wet from botched bloodletting, from rituals of trichotillomania, of feather plucking. aren’t these disgusting? these wings. aren’t they filthy? swoosh
i am icarus
watch me float above the mountain of soot. watch me fall and fall. watch me commiserate over familiar oblique drops, over sleek slopes, over the top, the summit. watch me for my winged descent or now is it the wingless descent? could it be the ascent of wind? the ascending, winding stairs or the inclined window of indecency: a view shook uneven, shamed back to black? watch me come together: the ice, the face. watch me smooth the ridges down to grooves, down to flat slates of rock, of teeth, of parts of bones that split and crackle then dissolve first. watch me unearth the earth. unravel the splinter-thin skin, the girth of salient scales stuck to loose lentil-laden lips of wide, gritty, compassionate mirth, joy, filth. watch the overfilling of wounds, of graves – these ice cliffs, those frozen pits of pith and pulp. and stink. watch that firth of spilt crisp air, that tinny shrill, that dry, gasping creek. watch the carving of ice, the slanted curve from board and wing to stiff snow, reedy air. watch me.
swoosh swoosh
i am icarus
disemboweled and void, i emptied myself throughout the mountain; left innards beside boulders, hair in clumps beneath trash. i am the dark spot sliding out into the gray blue white swoosh
the feathers stick. they come together and freeze. the solid wings anchor. those frozen tips dip the head down, down to ice, to cliffs, they sink shoulders, drag feet. then nothing happens. nothing ever happens.
i float i stream along the horizon until i sink into a white off-white heaven nothing happens. not this time.
the mountain shrieks, fits its fat lips on corner crevices of ice, rock, tilts over, teasing until the bottom of the valley croaks back. the collective voice:
in bundles of bones tied in twists of rope knotted in red, green to turquoise jacket shrapnel: a portrait tainted by blue kissing lips, folded, unfolded, folded again to rest back against chest. decades later when she who knows and who does not know who wishes who no longer believes in wishes. when she answers she will mourn, as if his corpse bundle was still fresh, still smelling of his cheap cigar.
there they are. in order. bundled
alphabetically; descending like blocks of muscle bone puddled. like pooled blood, together coagulating down the corpse’s lowest.
in the snowstorm, we are arranged slanted. we, with our disarray. with our joints unhooked. our cartilage cracked- our bones brittle mush, our flesh stretched white. there they are: leather bodies, knotted, placed in order. their flesh stretched white.
the collective voice
name me with grief at your breasts. name me let it feel thick (that name), let it sink. let it sag. let the plume peak in the throat, let it scratch. then stroke the flaxen wool strapped to skull, still. name me or let me lay a canker. a rotted spot on the mountain.
name me hold my degloved hand – stripped down, peeled – clasp the unsweetened, spoiled veins: twisted, turned to twine – strung, thrusted to bursting black ulcers. curl the fingers to the numbed, non-beating blue heart please. name me look to the pits of my gaze. anonymous. look. see me. do i look untitled? is this body untagged? look. look. name me do not bury me with no name.
name me. name me. name me.
the collective voice:

The Mountain Everest