Home › Magazine › Summer 2011 › Sleeping with the Hungry Ghost
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Sleeping with the Hungry Ghost

Anne Waldman

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Hungry ghost, a morphology all by itself between our realms

Hungry ghost: that dwells in consciousness, torments our desire

Sexy ghost, a performer, a demon, a gadfly

To never have enough be enough get enough

Dancing on coals

In a state of mind, bewitched, unsettled over what he thinks or she thinks, what they think

What the “I” thinks: hieroglyph for the hungry ghost

Unsatisfied—dancing on nails!

Jostled by waves, the real kind, that pull you under

Turbulent in a shadow realm between waking and sleep

Hungry ghost with sacrifices in the sand, hewn characters inthe mind, arms and legs that are brisk strokes of gestures in air, in language, flailing about, writing with the skeletal stylus of the hungry ghost

Sleeping with the hungry ghost who writes your book

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