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1. Guests of the Rajah of Tehri-Garhwal

Our trucks wind up passes and traverse gorges
with rivers whitening the rocks.

The terraced slopes are giant staircases
in a wilderness of former chieftains,

each with his ‘Garh’, his fortress.
But Ajai Pal subdued them

and made a mountain kingdom
in the days of our Bluebeard Henry.

Three hundred years go by,
and then the Gurkhas kukri the king.

We war down the Gurkhas, restore a king
and recruit Garhwalis, each with his kukri,

his head shaven, and a tiny pigtail
that angels can pull him up to heaven with.

2. Killing

I can still hear it crashing through the branches,
the thump as it hit the ground.

The size of a large dwarf, thickset
with powerful hands, it’s quite a weight.

I look in the ape’s wise face
and the bloody hole in its heart.

The killer has a quiff, a 303,
and a face like banana fool.

There are those in this war
who can’t wait to do a killing.

We hide the body in the undergrowth.
It hasn’t happened.

3. Bordering Tibet

Dark kids dip in our dak-house pool,
and dart out like otters.

Tibetan traders trudge, mules loaded with
borax, yak tails, herbs, and the underwool of goats.

Robed in saffron, a sadhu
strides down the path, giving me a tiger look.

Out there, the priestdom of monks, magic,
buttered tea and polyandry is living in peace.

I try to imagine a circular city
less than a mile in diameter,

where, above the huge ski-jump of Potala Hill,
flat roof, tiered windows and balconies,

they have explanations of me
and the legless man in Bombay.

They look out serenely on a cosmos
where desire and life are the only problems.

I stand here with my whey-face
in a mass-production war,

dressed in the colour of dung
and training to kill.

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