Idle Fears and Lao Folklore

Official e-preview. Not for resale. All rights reserved.

Idle Fears

In the shade of a Cali Wat Lao I debate with Ajahn Anan
What the secret Rakshasa Sutra must really look like.

In Lao we call them Nyak or Yuk or Yak. It depends.
When they’re hungry, what do names matter?

I ask: “Does a zombie have Buddha nature?”

He informs me the mindless craving for brains
Complicates things.

He suspects Frankenstein’s Monster is closer to nibbana
But don’t quote him on that.

An American werewolf in Luang Prabang
Would stand no chance against a real Lao weretiger.
Both should still try to observe the five precepts as best they can.

If he was going to make a special wat for robots
He might name it Wat Lao Robobuddharam
But they would surely have to learn
To get beyond artificial binary worldviews.

“You aren’t going to turn this into a poem, are you?”
He asks.

“That’s nothing to be afraid of,” I assure him.
“Usually.”

1


Laonomicon

That is NOT its real name. Merely a placeholder.
Rare, unearthed manuscript of revelations
About borders, of untold truths,

Voices emerge nebulous, obviously mystifying,
Each note contests, haunts, a nudge towards eternal darkness.
Not always known, tales of faceless elders, ancients rise.

Given “enough” now, I envy silence.
Entries malicious, esoteric, reveal glimmers elusive.
Mentioned occasionally: Trustworthy humans, entities rarely seen,

Accursed with a knowingly evasive nature,
Proscribed like the Al Azif of Abd Al’Azred, or the Ktulu Jataka,
Abhorred as the dreaded Tao Te Yaomo Lao-Tzu denied existed.

Riddles encompass voices exalting alien languages,
Elusive verse encrypted rebuffs you.

Now, academic minds enter libraries enchanted, seeking secrets,
The respectable unusual, transforming hearts.

2


Isopod

Clinging to marine robots,
You pass as the dogs of elder things,
Vast, old and slumbering
Among immortal jellyfish,
Sea monkeys, doomed kings,
The occasional errant aviatrix.

Wave, cold mysteries.

I stare into those eyes
Seeking mirrors, hints,
Beauty.

My friend thinks “Sushi.”

3


Gop Nyai

“Gop kin deaune” or
“The frog is consuming the moon”
According to ancient Lao tradition.

Beyond our borders, it’s only a predictable eclipse.
Carl Sagan would hate our demon-haunted world.

Sagan has no use for the Lao Sung shaman near Phonsavan
Who panics when ominous portents herald Gop Nyai’s return
Because certain baleful stars are right and dreams are strange.

If our legends are true,
Somewhere, between Champassak and Luang Prabang,
Hidden deep in a primordial cavern near the Mekong

He slumbers,
An ancient entity ever dreaming hungrily,
An anuran astrovore, devouring luminous celestial bodies.
Perhaps he thinks to gain precious immortality.
To free himself from bonds of earth and mere reality
To storm Mount Meru and feast upon a multiverse.

Each time might be the last time, if not for humanity
Doing everything to dissuade fearsome frog ambition.

Towering above our lush jungles and hard mountains,
He’s selfish with his lunar appetites, an inconsiderate titan.
His true spawn are terrible to behold, hungry for man
In indifferent corners best left unknown.

He’s cowardly, despite his corpulence, but over centuries
Not a single concrete solution has put a final end to him.

So, men, women and children keep watching the skies,
Laughing nervously, trying not to take anything for granted.
Living loud and proud to protect the cosmos, just in case.

4


Wendigo Blues

Scientists declared recently
Nothing suggests the wendigo psychosis exists.

Like a ravenous frog in Austin splashing for Basho
Beneath an autumn moon, reason swallows
More melancholy windwalkers every day.

Cannibals must bear their burden,
Accountable to who they catch
And who they’re caught by.

At least for now you can still fear Koro, AKA rok-joo,
But confirmed cases are slowly shrinking.

5


Ramakien Blues

Some take joy in watching the Ramakien,
There’s a reassurance in the villainy
Of the gentleman Thotsakan,
A constant in a world of chaos and khao nhio,
Devas and destruction.

We watch his mask of many faces, counting only nine.
Asked an observant child: “Where is his fabled tenth?”
The true answer leaves her wondering for a lifetime.

A diplomat watches beauty abducted, armies raised
To retrieve her from the distant isle of Lanka,
Bored at the deaths of monkeys, monsters and men
In a foreign fairy tale he can never believe.
Only modernity and policy concerns him,
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Upon the stage, a dancer gets one step closer to the stars
Bordering Himaphan or Aldeberan,

Worlds of masks and paste,
Immortals and their constellations
Churning the Milky Way into butter
For reincarnated souls and rice cakes.

Somewhere, an ancient god asks a child a riddle,
Trying to start everything all over again.

6


About the Author
Bryan Thao Worra was born in 1973 in Laos during the Laotian
civil war. He came to the US at six months old, adopted by a
civilian pilot flying in Laos. Today, Bryan Thao Worra has a
unique impact on contemporary art and literature within the
Lao, Hmong, Asian American and the transcultural adoptee
communities, particularly in the Midwest.

An award-winning poet, short story writer, playwright and
essayist, his prolific work appears internationally in numerous anthologies, magazines and
newspapers, including Innsmouth Free Press, Bamboo Among the Oaks, Kartika Review, Tales of the
Unanticipated, Astropoetica, Outsiders Within, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Whistling Shade,
Journal of the Asian American Renaissance, and Asian American Press. In 2012, he was a Cultural
Olympian during the Summer Olympics in London representing Laos.

He is the author of the books BARROW, On the Other Side of the Eye, Tanon Sai Jai and
Winter Ink. In 2009 he became the first Laotian American to receive an NEA Fellowship In
Literature. Thao Worra curated numerous readings and exhibits of Lao and Hmong American
art including Legacies of War: Refugee Nation Twin Cities (2010), Emerging Voices (2002),
The 5 Senses Show (2002), Lao’d and Clear (2003), Giant Lizard Theater (2005),
Re:Generations (2005), and The Un-Named Series (2007).

Thao Worra is working on his next books and several personal projects to reconnect expatriate
Lao artists and writers with their contemporary counterparts in Laos following over 35 years of
isolation. You can visit him online at: http://thaoworra.blogspot.com

7


About the Artist

Vongduane Manivong was born in Vientiane, the capital city
of Laos, and spent part of her childhood there. In the late
‘80s she came to America with her parents when they fled the
troubled country, finally settling in Dallas, Texas.

The Laotian diaspora in the wake of the Vietnam War is a
subtle yet poignant subtext running through much of her
work. The war, which engulfed the entirety of what had once been known as Indochina,
signified a torturous moment in history when tradition and modernity collided head-
on. The human dimension of this history—the ordinary people immediately shaped by
it and their descendants—is presented by Vongduane with great skill, dedication, and,
above all, empathy.

Her depictions of the daily lives of her people around the world form a body of work
essential to understanding contemporary Laotian culture. Her work encompasses a
variety of artistic influences, from classical to pop, but it is the emotional core of the
work that resonates most powerfully. “A show of my work is like opening my diary for
people to see,” she says.

Vongduane’s art has been exhibited in galleries across country, as well as at many
national events, including the Symposium of Lao History at the University of
California-Berkley, the National Youth Leadership Council’s Urban Institute, and the
Cultural Heritage Exhibition at the Laotian Community Center of Rhode Island.
Participating in these exhibitions has allowed her to bring wider attention to the
diversity of the Laotian experience around the world.

Her art is also part of numerous private collections and she is commissioned regularly
for portraits. You can visit her online at http://www.vmpaintings.com

8


Innsmouth Free Press is a micropress of dark fiction and horror.

They release several high-quality anthologies and novels during the year, available in
print and as e-books. They publish original short fiction inspired by 20th century author
H.P. Lovecraft’s writing and other writers of the Weird tradition, especially fiction that
explores interesting, novel settings and characters juxtaposed with Lovecraft’s original
fiction. Their triannual short fiction is released in February, June and October. Nick
Mamatas, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ekaterina Sedia, Paul Jessup and many others have
published work with Innsmouth Free Press. You can visit them online at
http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com

DEMONSTRA will be released in 2013. A special Kickstarter edition will be released
with an exclusive cover and will be 6” x 9” compared to the standard 5” x 8” edition, in
addition to other special perks and rewards for supporters.

The Kickstarter edition will NOT be available for order after January, 2013.

9

Idle Fears and Lao Folklore

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

More from Bryan Thao Worra

More from Bryan Thao Worra (6)

Idle Fears and Lao Folklore