Shopping List for the Dragon King

For Bob Ochs, who told me this story

With some American devotees

Yogi Chen

Went shopping in Chinatown

For the Dragon King

Who lives off Timber Cove

In the Pacific Ocean.

Yesterday Chen bought two bags

Of Industrial scrap diamond chips

And cheap bead necklaces, all colors,

From the Woolworth Dime Store.

Master Chen and the devotees go to a Chinese grocery

To look for red sea horses--need one or two per month

He says he wants a male fish with a long snout

A female who carries babies

Penis and vagina

The Yogi said

“Full Moon coming, love and good fortune,

Ghosts and demons love you.”

Next, the Chinese pharmacy

Basket by the door, dead beetles

Bulging-eyed

Chen scoops up a handful

Gives to the clerk who crushes them with a pestle.

The clerk knows all mysteries

Pours the contents out of the bowl, wraps in paper.

An American lady asks for antelope horn

She said she has a cold

Chen offers

Dristan tablet.

Yogi Chen and devotees go to lunch

Hunan Restaurant on Kearny

Chen is from Hunan, near Szechwan

He was a classmate of Chairman Mao.

As a Buddhist scholar, he fled the Communists

As a hermit in India, he meditated alone in a house for 15 years

Till he dreamt of the Big Sacrifice in California

On the Dragon's belly.

He came to the U.S., uses geomancy.

On the Dragon’s mountain spine that curls from Puget Sound to Baja California

He finds its belly button on three green hills

In Sonoma County

He buys the land

And prepares 

Big sacrifices.

Hunan waitress takes their order,

Rice and vegetables

Chen turns up his smiling face

Flirts with the waitress 

Tells devotees the next sacrifice

For Love Goddess

Will be in February

For the sacrifice, he’ll need fire

From a brothel.

Devotees giggle.

Sorry, not a laughing matter.

Afternoon

Yogi Chen said Now we need goldfish

So we won’t have another war.

Devotees pile into the Volkswagen and

Go to Lucky Dog Pet Shop.

600 goldfish cost nearly a 1000 dollars.

600 goldfish in 10 plastic bags of water

600 goldfish in the car’s back seat.

Chen directs now we must drive to Walnut Creek

Devotees drive and drive.

Eventually find Walnut Creek

running behind chain fence.

Devotees ask, “How do we get to creek?”

Chen points to a hole in fence.

The car stops. Doors open.

Devotees carry bags of goldfish through

fence hole,

climb downhill to creek.

Yogi Chen comes with bells and skull drum

Motion devotees gather round.

Chen prays that Kissinger brings peace

Rings bells, beats the skull drum

Dumps $1000 worth of goldfish

in creek

Keeps one big bag

Scrap diamonds.

That’s for the Dragon King.

“May our sacrifices find their Way

To the Big Sea Dragon.”