Poem 509
I think this came from a Hare Krishna illustrated leaflet given out on the street … looking it up I find it’s referencing a passage from the Srimad-Bhagavatam:
Hearing their master’s name chanted with great feeling by the dying Ajamila, the order carriers of Visnu, the Visnudutas, arrived within a second. They appeared just like Lord Visnu Himself. Their eyes were exactly like the petals of a lotus flower; they wore helmets of burnished gold, glimmering silk garments the color of topaz; and their perfectly formed bodies were decorated with garlands of sapphire and milk-white lotuses. They appeared fresh and youthful, and their dazzling effulgence illuminated the darkness of the death chamber. In their hands they held bows, arrows, swords, conchshells, clubs, discs, and lotus flowers. …
… I was entranced by the dazzling imagery and enjoyed expanding on it for my own hallucinogenic vision quest while (as seen in the last line) remaining sceptical of where the inspiration had come from (ie. the mercantile organisation that had thrust it into my hand) …
In Their Hands They Held Bows Arrows Swords Conch Shells Clubs Discs And Lotus Flowers
and they were bright very bright greased as guns in the yellow dust of skyweight six fingers to each hand breasts without nipples coming in electricity before the storm air depending dark and pouched they were coming from the west in points of laughter lightning stapling their hair to the mountains horses galloping in concentric circles magnetism sung everywhere played on strings of granite like a saw the high pure voice of the directions they came upon me when I was carving live water from the well when I was incarnating among the vegetables when I was the King crying loudly with open mouth they said bows arrows swords conch shells clubs discs and lotus flowers very cheap