Fragments 8

Just last night I shook her treasonous hand.

Next time she will be more afraid to steal:

She will be silent or I will shred her

Into ribbons fit for the hair of queens.

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Hollow bones and brutal pride are coupled

With decay (relentless, always the price).

The privilege of the skies is a swift end.

Some lovers are too much for their feathers.

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Sirens at stoplights,

our mortality.

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(Sitting in a chair with eyes like venom,

How lovely, the vibrant hues of poison!)

Our temporary problems are resolved

In simulacra of aged French novels

That were written by two men, yet by none.

There is a beauty in futility

That remains unmatched through the rifts of time.

In heavy summer days it sleeps, famished.

Serpent

Hurry, let out the line or you will drown!

It is an older and more terrible

Thing that you have snared in your foolishness

Than has been released since the dawn of man.

Be wary of what is caught in the deep!

Though your eyes see only life, blue as air

Shoving you into envelopes and nets,

The enemy will give bitter judgment.

Can you not feel the danger rising up?

No! Your hook is in the Leviathan,

It tangles further in those deathly jaws,

They will close and carry you beneath time!

It will not avail you to hail the gods,

For you have seized a monster they all fear.

When you are crushed by the pressure below,

Recall that you went fishing while well fed.

Carmen 8

Hallucinations of your black shadow

Leaving streaks of your path in airy wakes,

(Our days) risking another in the sun.

I almost gave up yesterday morning.

You were not yet gone, but that truth faded

Like the hair you finally stopped dyeing.

How long will it take for this to collapse

(Bright temple with its burrowing termites)?

To call someone immortal is to ask

Them to die quickly. Just ask Catullus.

Fragments 7

A song in my soul for a hundred years,

A soaring mass composed for gods unreal.

______________________________________

Darling, when this bottle is through

It shall be you that I devour.

______________________________________

In one of the notebooks I do not write in

(it is full) there is an incomplete record of your frailty

that makes black markers in the pages;

your scorned, unhappy hair, from heaps

(how little I managed to save!)

______________________________________

when I cut off your head

such things shall not be said

in couplets

______________________________________

That flea with purpled blood, I fear it comes

Far out of dusty past in new hunger

(A priest, not wishing to be parasite,

Still steals the grandeur of any goddess,

A quick-snapped photograph can split a soul

Or send a boulder racing down a hill)

And it will cease when it has had its fill.

_________________________________

Even if my words are thieved from Ovid

Nobody around would ever notice.

Carmen 7

He was almost sorry to have kissed her so early in the night

(feeling as if he had brushed his teeth before

remembering that he had not yet finished his drink)

because the conversation had been very pleasant,

and if this were no good they would surely

not return to laughter, but the wine had been good

and the kiss was good

and afterward the wine was still very good

and they did not throw the bottle out in the morning.

Sorcerer

I.

They came through the catacombs, soundless

in their armor. The man in the lead kicked through

a thick door on his second attempt and the twelve

(for twelve there were) rushed into the cavern

with weapons drawn. The ceiling of the mountain's belly

hung twenty feet above their heads. The area was dimly lit

by oil-soaked rags and in a corner a man sat with two women.

The three stood up in fear and the younger woman of the two,

fat still on her face but not upon her hips, came toward the soldiers

with arms outstretched, shrieking incantations in a language

they did not speak.

A short man, made taller by his sword, stepped forward,

pierced her through the heart with a casual flick of his arm,

and she fell, her cursing paused, deadly danger muted.

The prey's beard was disheveled and there were stains

on his shirt. His belt was bare, he held not even a kitchen knife.

"After so long you have come. I admit I thought it would

take less time. Long years ago we were enemies, it is true,

but I thought your land one that would accept retreat

and not hound a man until he sees his daughter slain!

I have cast no new spells against your hearths and homes.

Our battle was long ago, yet you have spent

the wealth of whole nations, murdering so many thousands,

and all in search of an old man."

The man with a bloody sword had a hungry mouth

but his course was delayed by the commander of the squad.

"Enemy of the empire," the commander said,

"You have been condemned in your absence."

His mouth was dry and he walked slowly across the mountain

and took a dagger from its sheath and ran it into his quarry's

kidneys, first the right and then the left, and marveled that

the dying so often display an unnerving silence.

"Take his body. Leave the women."

The largest of the twelve brave men made clothed his naked blade

and took the corpse of the sorcerer from the rock.

II.

He was smaller in death than when he made the earth shake,

his violence a threat mothers gave their children to help them sleep.

He was guilty because he had been condemned

and he had an obligation to vindicate justice.

He was ragged in the way that sacks of potatoes are

when they are left forgotten in musty cupboards

and then discovered, all hoary like frost in early summer.

His body was hung from the capitol walls

and the emperor performed ritual sacrifice of a bull

and held a feast and consolidated his political position.

Molten

Valkyrie, you flailed and your dress had shifted

so that your left breast was taut in the wind

(nipple proud like an icicle in the beard of an Arctic explorer),

your morse code teeth telling of terrors

while the blood tide was rising through your leg.

Your kiss was rust. You have lived for ages.

If it is allowed, I will make you steel again.

Artist

Blindfolded in a dark room, film fed into a spool

meticulous, walls washed with alcohol

(the sort that murders optic nerves),

red grease pencil like a pallbearer,

her hands the way that silk is made,

she gave birth and only needed light.

Search

Unable to remember how he came to be swimming,

he thrashed against the blue. Fainter than

cloud-locked stars, a line from him is drawn

to a land beyond all horizons.

He pulls at the thread-thin band of gold that guides him,

hard, desperate, feeling the salt of the sea

and the ice of the air burning in his hands.

In madness he swims further into the channel,

dragging all those in his life on a net on his heels.

He stops between continents, water treaded,

fingering the broken strand of hope,

never to ring the world like Jormangund of old.

For long moments he exhales and sinks low,

falling into ice when snow is in the air.

The temptation is overcome and he returns to the beach.

One should never be more trouble than they're worth.

Plants

Weeds can choke them (if they wish)

and everywhere they seem to be

(and so not-quite-like gold pieces),

and if you withhold water they will perish

just as humans do (only they will not go mad first).

Stylite

I.

In a time when goddesses were stronger

And held more sway upon the swords of men,

Great wars would have been waged in jealousy

So that a hero could claim her as prize,

But this modern age gives all more idols

Than idle hands in long past years had wrought.

II.

Close enough for scent, honeysuckle grew.

Without a grunt she lifted up a stone

Atop the ancient pillar, in ruins

All surrounded, and laid it in mortar.

In repetitions plain as old field songs,

Bit by bit she built up her balustrade,

Perfectly placed for her elbows to rest.

As she sat to wonder at the nightfall,

Two bluebirds flew to her, berries as gifts

(They were their feathers, her eyes, all deep rivers).

On her tower for a time there was peace,

Her provenance the work of the divine.

A rabbit, once murdered in pointless wrath

(Its tiny body broken on a fence),

Climbed resurrected, and offered itself,

A garden's thief returning what was owed.

Quail laid their eggs, smaller than fingertips,

In corners the wind did not dare to tread.

Which god had sired her, that she was thus,

A beauty sharper than a white diamond,

Her words more precious even than red gold?

No language could conceive her radiance!

But, lo! her refuge ceased to be secret

And suppliants gathered, seeking holy

Favors, their twisted tongues with their small schemes,

Suitors preying for cracks in masonry.

Crowns of kingdoms great and small were offered.

Mystic women promised to cure all ills.

Why should she return to the rocky earth,

That these pitiful fools should lick her boots

Instead of this new worship, eyes in praise,

Each plea pathetic in desperation?

Letters on their lined paper floated high,

Drunks drank beer and played acoustic guitars.

One night there were none around, and she mused:

"They killed Socrates for his proud courage,

Would they have followed him so far away?

Perhaps, perhaps, but they sought him for thought,

Never for the base pursuit of body.

Gods, what did one below say this morning,

With their fist beating upon stones battered,

Broken silence like an infantile hope

That mists away with dandelion florets?

-Oh, if only I cared for memory,

For what is it but claims upon a shore,

Fighting for earth that the sea will swallow?

They struggle to save me as if I drown

And am not ensconced within these safe heights!

But, even if deep in the freezing surf,

Why should I be bothered by fishermen?

Land from beneath water longs to return,

All islands are perversions of the world!"

All attempts at solitude seemed in vain:

From far below, the same advice was begged.

What should be done if drought consumed flowers?

"Pray if you wish, but wait and rain will come."

How could the pain of her absence be cured?

"Shall I bear a burden that you may stand?"

III.

In time she came to hold conversation

With the stars, weaving blankets with their stares.

"Hello bright moments, gently lying clocks,

You who have been dead longer than the gods.

I am a sorceress. You are summoned."

A silvered globe hung loosely in the clouds.

Three women came in a single instant,

The mother, laughing maid, and hunchbacked crone.

The youngest said, "You have asked a question."

The Wise one cackled, "All words are requests."

The saddest whispered, "We shall give answers."

High on her pillar, no fear ever rose.

"How can I make these suitors disappear?

Oh, I do not deny some slight appeal,

But they are Legion, demons of the deep

Who would have me in chains, golden tethers

As if such gestures lessen shackle's bite!"

From young to old, they interrupted her:

"Oh, do fishing boats capsize from full nets?"

"My dear, some have killed for such attention."

"Would you prefer a bench beside a loom?"

She shook her head and stomped her feet twice.

"I shake the dust of my land at your door,

I, a woman who will keep promises.

If you waste my time in childish riddles

I will call up fury of young suns."

From old to young, the three laughed and replied:

"Once I was confused with the dread Helen."

"I have children enough to know your tone."

"Perhaps I should stand nearby, to compare?"

A silence like a cannonade stood still.

A flicker of contemplation passed by

(Tears falling, never before having wept).

"Why do they all insist that they love me?

How is it learned to ignore their prayers?"

The crone let fall her shoulders, sighing grey.

"You know full well that they are traitors all,

That with soft skin they will tear you apart

If there is no way for them to find knives."

The mother crossed her arms and cradled air.

"Every sacred thing imagined has fled."

The maiden let her voice crawl out kindly.

"You are last of the truly immortal.

We would never have come for another.

It is not familial cowardice,

Only that these humans changed horribly,

Wishing to worship by eating gods alive.

Ah, the ramblings of youth, you know all this."

She slumped against the railing she had made.

"No, you are wrong, that cannot be the way!

To leave, take back my place as far-off star,

There is too much to do, I cannot flee,

The weight of shirked duty ringing, crushing..."

She blinked and two had disappeared, the crone

Remaining (though now standing by her side).

"Now that we are alone," the hag observed,

"We can discuss unpalatable things.

It must have occurred to you to kill them.

Since you did not do this reflexively,

I am sure you had a boring reason.

I will not try to convince you from it.

"If you do not wish to die, then grow old.

These men and women are deceived with ease,

Wrinkles and white hair will expose their lies,

And after they leave you can wear the face

You choose. You will need to build this taller."

More believe in the stars than in the gods,

But both were perishing in the sunrise.

The Old One said goodbye as the dead do.

She paced in the space she allowed herself.

"I wonder about that letter, the last.

Something about two thousand years ago,

A poet from a powerful empire

Who was suspicious that I existed."

IV.

The water in waves does not find shorelines,

It spins in storms, it barely moves an inch,

And there are many ways to be a saint.

Bonsai

Her blue eye's corner caught upon the leaves.

"Do you want it? Is it not beautiful?"

-Yes, as ripples born from stones not yet thrown.

For a tidy ten dollars, it was mine,

To sit in sun and be watered weekly.

Each morning's first ray brings fresh white flowers

Hidden in the green of its new branches.

It is called by some the Fukien Tea Tree,

Carmona retusa (lord of castles

Beaten back), and if care is not taken

It will burst its pot and grow great and tall,

But I prune away shoots that grow each day

(Butterfly shears ensuring that this soul

Shall never rise in awful heresy).

When she undertook to buy me a tree,

She did not know of Dante's suicides,

Nor that harpies have their fill from the twigs.

Merchant of Death

The birds exploded upward in fear with each strike

of hammer to anvil. His fiery beard was matted in sweat

and he became aware of an armored man at the entrance

of his forge. He took five minutes more and turned.

"What is it, my lord?"

The helmet in the soldier's hands gleamed like raven's eyes

and he said, "I have come for what I am owed. I cannot wait

a single day longer. Why do you delay me? Do you think

that I will not take your head for this treason?

Remember what can be lost."

The smith's eyebrows narrowed and in his eyes there was danger.

"Would you hurry Arrhenius? Shall I send you afield,

upon some mighty charger, wielding a weapon brittle as a virgin?

It cannot be today. Tomorrow. Tomorrow."

The warrior left behind the horseshoes and bundled nails

hanging on their hooks beneath the meager overhang,

mounted his roan horse, and rode away, muttering.

The metal was insulated for its annealing.

In the hands of the smith were small and intricate tools

and he was carving delicate patterns into brass.

Tonight he would not be permitted to return home.

While he slept with fitful dreams the crystals had shifted.

When the sun was threatening to come again he rolled from

his woven reed mat and put blade to grindstone,

the sparks less pain than point would grant,

the clamor weak in compare to clash of edge on bone.

An immense blaze,

red as a lover's tongue when speech has ceased, lapped at the sky.

With heavy tongs he pulled the iron free and plunged it into water.

The steam was an offering to that god who never fails to thirst.

A dozen times more, he made this violent prayer.

In the distance, dust came from wind that was not wind,

the feet of men keeping strong-booted time, their greaves

no longer bright. A stallion sped ahead and was held in reins

just as hilt and guard were fastened. There was no sunset

but the air held the promise of blood and so for a time all men

were dusted crimson. The smith handed the sword

to a man bred for battle, raised from the womb

for the raw work of war. (Oh, better that his mother drank him away!)

The champion tossed a pouch of copper and silver on the ground

and said, "You have done your duty." He rode to be with the banners.

The men marched by. There may have been a thousand. Who could count

so many? He saw their dirty greaves and recognized his hammerstrokes.

The metal plates fitted to their tunics had been mostly his work,

though for such pedestrian labor others had been contracted.

No helm seemed to sit upon a brow as design intended.

Their scabbards were worn and some blades were notched even then.

In front there were the greybeards, their faces stony and proud,

who having been pious all their lives felt no need to beg mercy.

There was the baker's first son, walking beside his brother,

neither having the embarrassment of a shaving cut beneath their belts,

marching. There was the son of a farmer, his skin brown

as the loam he worked just two weeks before. There was

the son of a woodcutter, his face harder than the throwing axes

hanging from harnesses about his waist.

Who would return? Their faces all became the same.

One mother's boy through darkest magic made a hundred,

a sacrifice set with loaded dice, death hurried

though death has never failed to find a door to knock upon,

somewhere in the distance a field parched, laying fallow,

waiting patiently for the sweet gift of the spear.

Behind the conscripts strode men armored head to foot.

The birds no longer seemed to fear a sound.

On all their chests, he saw his breastplates bound,

each longsword from his forge waiting to be whetted,

and all for an offense none recalled but none could forgive,

four hundred men-at-arms clothed for killing by his craft.

He placed two sacks of provisions onto his donkey's back

and heard the hooves but did not feel the air. Each o'erturned

rock seemed the sound of a crushed instep, the tired panting

of everyday exertion of the tenor of pierced lungs,

an indistinct animal cry of pain in the forest the gasping

of a horse that had always preferred sugar to apples

(though of course it would eagerly accept either).

Six days later he arrived at his village.

He knocked upon the door of Greta, who sold cheese and bread.

He knew that her husband would not be home.

In his outstretched hand were silver and copper, pieces of round metal

stamped with the visage of a noble man, and he found he had no words.

She shook her head and with hands thinner than rice paper she

gathered two loaves and a half pound of a hard yellow wedge,

tied it in a leather satchel, and nodded her head in goodbye.

He came to his house, fed his animal, gathered his things,

and opened his door. Immediately he was struck in his stomach.

He looked down to see a mass of bouncing curls with arms

pulled as far around his body as they could go. He lifted his son aloft.

"Ah, Goibniu, you grow stronger by the day. Have you tended the garden?

Are the eggs of the chickens gathered? A month is long to be alone

for one of seven years, even for a man so fine as yourself,

and to remember all the responsibilities of our house is a feat indeed!

Now, if you have made mistakes, it is of no great importance.

Oh, how overjoyed I am to see you! Come, speak to me!"

Goibniu released his grip upon his father and said,

"I have behaved honorably, sir. I have said prayers

to my dear departed mother each night as the stars grow bright,

I have treated animals with kindness, foiled the advances of the weeds,

trusted that the supplies of food you left would suffice until you came again.

Why were you gone so long? You said you held no anger for me,

that all would be explained when you returned. Do not think me rude,

but now that we have embraced, will you keep your promise?"

The smith reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of brass

of exceedingly fine workmanship. All around its treelike form

were birds in miniature (the jay with its proud crown, a sparrow forlorn,

a swan without a home). "Look," the man said, and he removed

a slender pin from what must have been the eye of a owl.

"They all will sing a different song."

He placed the pin through the eye of the sparrow and twisted a dial

beneath the sculpted gift. The strains of the nightingale emerged.

He laughed, "Oh, yes, they all sing different songs, but I'm afraid

that they're not always right for the birds!"

Seven feathered beauties were contained therein and with each

passing song Goibniu's eyes grew with tears. "These tunes,"

he said, "they were not just of the birds. Did not my mother

whistle them at my cradle? Did she make that mournful song

while hanging laundry on a line? Oh, what skill you have!

My father, the most skilled craftsman who drew breath!"

"Ah, my son, you will make the very gods rise against me in anger.

I am but a man, and you too can make anything you desire.

We are not better than others, we must work. Why do you think

that I had to be so long departed? I needed perfect concentration

in order to make you this gift, time for contemplation so that

it would be perfect, would preserve my beloved wife's voice

for you, you who I love above all others. I am sorry to have left you.

Please forgive me." The boy murmured tired phrases.

Soon both were asleep.