MET by Karin Falcone Krieger

Met        


standing Yakshi female nature spirit

mature spirited buxom

goddess, dispensing coins


thunderbolt bearing and seated

Yaksha male nature spirit

 god of fire or a Buddha of the future?



Durga slays buffalo

her old jewelry melted down

gold weapons in her hair


Krishna baffling the horse demon

standing thousand-armed

cosmic form



the lustration of Lakshmi

goddess of fortune

bathed with sacred water by elephants


        She dreams a god of transcendent wisdom,

 four armed, peaceful


He desires eight armed Tara

                                Buddhist goddess of salvation


They met at the museum.


Amorous royal couple!


Shiva & Uma

lord and lady dancing celestial



plaque from tantric ritual apron

mother goddess Matrika in black stone



fragment of pull toy



Yama lord of death


                        dancing skeletons



Rebirth:

goddess of dawn with seven dogs

embodied bodhisattva



Notes from the Southeast Asian collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hear Karin Falcone Krieger recite the poem on the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast:

Karin Falcone Krieger is a writer, visual artist, master gardener, personal chef and social justice warrior. Her recent reviews, interviews, journalism, poetry and essays have been published in Tupelo Quarterly, Tofu Ink Arts Press, LITPUB, Newsday, Contingent Magazine, BlazeVOX, The Laurel Review, and other publications. She composes poems made to order in public spaces on a 100 year old typewriter, and produced the pop-up zine artICHOKE. She is an alumna of SUNY Stony Brook and The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. She taught freshman composition as an adjunct instructor at several New York area colleges from 1999-2019. Links and other projects can be seen at www.karinfalconekrieger.com