electroshock therapy for the
climate
this was before the pandemic
before gastritis constipation heartburn strange headaches burning joints
i still masturbated back then compulsively of
course
that was the best
part
this was before the 45th president
back then my stomach tolerated german
beer zinfandel french champagne exquisite
belgian chocolate
what a beautiful time it was
during this edenic era i loafed around
dharamshala the town in india where the dalai lama lives
i stopped at a sidewalk café in mcleod ganj for a drink or two
sipping from my margarita i overheard two young men talking
their dark bristly eyebrows told me they
must be from israel dharma bums of some sort
thoughts are like clouds
they come and go
one of them said
they were drinking cannabis infused bhang lassi
& munched on what i imagined to be gluten
free falafel
waiting for my third margarita i reflected on their words
& thought to myself:
if this climatic metaphor holds up
may we then assume
that emotions are like rain?
if so what would the emotional equivalent be of
drought?
***
the dharma bums left & after four
or five to be honest i don’t
remember how many margaritas after all we’re in 2020 now this was before
brain fog glucose intolerance high cholesterol borderline diabetes acid reflux gluten allergy
i still watched porn back then compulsively of
course
that was the best part
i left my café looking for chocolate belgian or swiss i didn’t care as long as it was bitter & black
i headed towards the kalachakra temple the blackest & most occult of
buddhist sanctuaries
a sabziwalla there
close by sold my favorite imported pralines
probably because the month was june it so happened that on my way
i overheard two passers-by tourists perhaps from bombay or new delhi
one had a big moustache the other was almost bald:
it’s the second year that the monsoon rains
may not come at all
one of them said
a masticated chunk of chocolate was gliding down my throat while i reflected on their words thinking to
myself:
if the monsoon rains are skipping years
may we then assume that seasons can run off?
***
2012:
endoscopy
2013:
colonoscopy
2014: proton
pump inhibitors
2015: one
gallon of water per day
2016: federal
elections
2017: gluten
intolerance test
2018: lost 45
pounds
2019: spent a
year at a monastery
***
this was
during the pandemic after
federal elections
doing caca
had improved zinfandel
was a thing from the past
strange
headaches had
turned into normal headaches
i had
exchanged masturbation for meditation
& compulsion for
compassion
but was this the best part?
during this
post-edenic era i found
myself wearing a mask
sitting at a
sidewalk café
somewhere in hollywood
sipping from
my cup of licorice tea
this time i
overheard a voice in my head:
now you’re the dharma bum!
judging by
how i smelled i think
the voice was right
you know that thoughts are like clouds,
right? the voice continued
reflecting on
these words i looked up to the sky & thought to
myself:
if this climatic metaphor holds up
& it’s raining less and less
may we then assume that the sky is constipated?
the next moment more questions flooded my head:
if there’s an increase of both schizophrenia &
people born in the wrong body
may we then assume that the climate is into drag?
is the climate hallucinating?
is the
weather traumatized?
has the climate turned bi-polar?
are we sexually abusing the oceans?
does the weather have an existential crisis?
has the climate become sociopathic?
is drought the climatic equivalent of burnout?
feeling
haunted by constipation & these questions i ran back home as fast as i
could
i had to use
an enema
strangely it rained the exact moment i
relieved myself
musing over this weird coincidence i thought:
thoughts aren’t at all like clouds
they aren’t like foxes either, Ted Hughes
thoughts are like termites
they run amok inside my head
competing to swallow up not only each other
but also my pen
the hand holding the pen my
words my sanity
my sleep my bowels my muscles
my nervous system my
neurotransmitters
my tongue
this page
content with having finally voided my head i cleaned up my enema took a shower wore clothes again
back in my living room i looked outside of the window the rain had stopped
there were gorgeous cloud
formations
a marvelous rainbow roofed
our community
this definitely was the best part
“the body is
not fact of nature. like gender it is produced by discourses”
-judith butler
the one true body
“let them
hurl a thousand curses at me
pain finds
no purchase in my heart
i belong to
shiva”
-lalleshwari
(1320-1392)
think of a mute body bursting into flames the moment it looks at you
a body like the one i drag on my shoulders
even in sleep
especially in sleep
at night
one particular body smiles at me
its head wears a worn-out hat
other bodies sleepwalk in my direction
bodies woven into my matrass
fondling my groin
fondling my breasts
(copulating with the dead
truly is “out of this world”)
hundreds of decomposing arms
thousands of decomposing fingers
pointing at a brick house
at a prison
with only windows
with almost no walls
with only doors
dying limps programmed
by someone else’s memories
by someone else’s desires
by the memories of my dead
the memories of the excommunicated
by those who were forced to speak a borrowed language
***
listen carefully
these bodies stand firmly behind the
body synthetic
behind the one true body and sing
hundreds of thousands corpses march-march-marching
stomp-stomp-stomp and chant
hear hear:
the stomping of marching corpses wearing swastikas
stomp-stomp-stomp-stamping on my name
stamping on my body
this is also your body
this is also your name
we share this name
we share this body
we share this swastika
like a word being pulled through me
like a body being pulled through me
like a body pulled through another body
like a dead body pulled through my dead body
like a poem bringing news from the edge of being
like a metaphysical phone call to lalla asking her:
lalla, you
searched for your soul inside your body, but
what did you find instead?
Originally trained in clinical psychotherapy and
psychoanalysis, Giorgia Pavlidou is an American writer and painter
intermittently living in Greece and the US. She received her MA in Urdu
literature from Lucknow University, India and her MFA in Fiction from MMU
Manchester, UK, (though her meetings with visionary LA poet-philosopher Will
Alexander have been and still are exceedingly more impactful). Her work has
recently appeared in such places as Caesura, Lotus-Eater, Zoetic Press,
Maintenant Dada Journal, Puerto del Sol, Entropy. Additionally, Trainwreck
Press (trainwreckpress.com) launched her chapbook inside
the black hornet’s mind-tunnel in 2021. Ireland-based Strukturriss
Magazine selected her as the featured visual artist of their January 2022 issue
3.1. She’s an editor of SULΦUR online literary magazine.
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