Element
monsoonal triptych
//
the lurch
and rumble of distant, compounding thunder
my favorite season is surrounding me
horizon thickener, high-humbler shadow
of mountain matter; wanting always more
//
the roar
before the rain gets here—i hear it, do you?
hot prophecy of gutters fish-flooding fields
a landslide, eating bodies, spills raw earth
white sound; what leaves are caught in it; coming
//
the opening
of space, the possible wet-through as words
after the waterwall; tree-creepers ring
syncoptic service unreserved, pure nuncial
desire; protean passant—rhythmic return
//
Needleworker
Pierce me once—the crying; pierce me twice—
The dying; pierce me thrice—my laughing tomb:
This quivering feline skin, some kind of lark,
Sharp noise, felt aerial, fled human wound.
O Queequeg, Lucy’s love, my Nobody!
Unmake ambergris soufflé to scrap and salt;
Pets, lapping shattered tiramisu, whet
Our mongrel tongues; embroidering the asp.
Bull-revelry, before we dance the waltz?
Your sutra swans around my ichthyan lisp,
To charm the vipers out—that feather in
Your bonnet inks my tapestry with bone.
I move to tiger with you on the cusp
Of animality, that golden-threaded throne.
//
🌘
Gold. Beef? //
silver tongue,
golden ear,
Lover absent,
garden near—
The title of this poem is homonymous with my husband’s name.
This poem, from further back, has a pretty obvious W. B. Yeats reference that I forgot to mention. “Sailing to Byzantium” is an old favorite of everybody’s, including mine. I feel like I understand it differently now than when I first read it, ~25 years ago.
I love Yeats and would never write against him on purpose. But “Military Parade” does express a reversal; and then I noticed how “Sailing to Byzantium”, with its explicit goldsmithery, is roughly opposite to “Begging Season”, which is earthy and humble, in material, scale, texture. And then I noticed . . . how consistently not-gold my poetry is, where gold is postponed, doubted, displaced. Even my homonymous husband poem rejects its golden ring. A cascade of questions followed, beginning with: Whence the pattern? It wasn’t quite calculated. Things just seemed true at the time.
Am I weird about gold? Why? How did I get that way?
If I wrote more gold poetry, would I attract more mean green ($)?
A mischievous question like that is based on an esoteric, witchcrafty mode that Yeats and I share, by lineage (his being mine, and he being part of mine). I don’t dismiss the utility of mantra. And I wouldn’t put it past him, to craft gold into presence. So. Could I write a gold poem? Should I? What would mine be?
Finding in myself no poem of gold—Is this (would Yeats say) a sign that I lack imaginative ambition, symbolic understanding, spiritual daring?
Gold does appear, in my crafted imagination, my images and dreams, but rarely is its presence pure or simple. The negation—an optical or organic filtering—of gold feels important to me. It certainly reflects a material condition; I see little gold in my day-to-day. Does it also express a worthy poetic commitment, to limit gold’s presence—to the very limits?
. . . Do I have (vegan) beef with Yeats?
Consider my family, friends, and allies. What is the meaning of gold, in my community? How does gold function in poetry—mine, others'? Commence a catalogue of golden ships. (Fascinating, for sure; forthcoming, maybe—this would be an amazing list. I have a certain intuition that Phaedrus will back me up; and Socrates never would, but the Republic—seminal, in this respect—experiments with pure, psycho-political gold.)
Does the meaning of gold change based on history? Upon witnessing newer distortions—the cruel and tacky deployment of gold, the dictator’s ballroom, the ecocidal tyranny of it all—would Yeats himself admit symbolic defeat? (Doubtful.)
Or is there a—poetic, erotic, alchemical, theological—gold standard? Is gold truer than history?
The narrator frames himself as a refugee, sick with desire and bereft of self-knowledge. He is not unlike the beggar. He calls upon sages—emergent from God’s holy fire!—to teach him how to sing. He remakes his own body out of gold, and Byzantium—like a halfway house of gold birds on golden boughs—becomes his artificial refuge. The lords and ladies of Byzantium are his final, appreciative audience. He entertains them with gold-wrought songs of the very world—natural, historical—that he has fled.
The narrator is rescued from nature by his own luxuriant hypothesis, this golden ear. Wonderfully, he has crafted his savior into presence. And it might be us. But let’s be honest—was a poet ever rescued by gold?
Or does a poet set out to rescue gold?
. . . To rescue gold, from what?
I believe these are deep and important questions, all of which touch on power and the image. I also observe that questions of gold, not unlike worlds of gold, initiate a seduction. Yeats’ poem embodies the transcendent height of a poetic (symbolic, alchemical, technological) fantasy, rescuing as it escapes. While my senses slip ever so comfortably into gold’s embrace.
I see the allure . . . and it feels like a rub.
//
See also: this reply from Angles Morts.
invitation //
Δ
Screenshot slaps—
To ring a sucker. You think
Your appetite entitles you
To moonstained blood?
And you, and you, and all of you.
Scrap mouths, yapping from
Ass-ends of snakes.
Shut it. Shut it. Shut yourself!
Your little o’s and u’s and y’s
Without wisdom—
All bite, all bitches' bark—your traps,
Fracked actuary lines.
My splintered flotsam pierces
Fiercer than your fangs.
Your slit-tangled tongues,
Your whore-hooked hounds,
Your dog-groveling snack,
The politician’s lie. Your island—
Ground to grit, and sifted by
My epicurean babble.
I suck off
One billion suns, you snatch
Six bones from Ithaca—
And don’t dare swallow.
I am the throat, I am
The eye. Black
As red as wine, neither
Skin nor flesh, as I
Exhale his brutal
Homecoming; I am
Cauldron of slaughtered
Maidens’ morning.
His alibi, to coast right by you.
As if the smiling tide
That governed him—
A king!—stoppered with wax.
Just try—you cannot shut
Your maggots fingering,
Their heads, nailbeds, uncut, exposed.
I am the shuttering.
Shot-shallow loons, aswirl
My spiral bowel, prowling
Pack of orphan pups, your howling
Hungers feed a woken Why—
My delta consumes,
Your keystroke masturbates
A corpse’s withered sty.
Pregnant with his child,
All men belong to me.
My one
Unconquerable O—
Your place to die.
//
Echo
Echo is opposite the word. He is
Mornings and evenly draws rainstorms down
From higher altitudes. Palm nectar slips the weather
From misty lakes, my ashes, unspooling ghosts.
But can you memorize the blues? Cintaku—
A promise to be golden rings untrue.
My skin is apple nude, my flesh a snowy hue.
This guava is Antarctica for your bottomless thirst.
//
lucid //
Sideview
(for Sylvia)
Nylon-strapped into the backseat, the infant
Of reckless parentage, jaw-broken logic
Like antifreeze for mastery, injected
Muscularity, a pink mouse curled inside a clenched
Fist—We lost a sideview. It ricocheted, sent sparks
Scattering plastic, wires fraying the blurry way.
Ecstatic and encaged, I prayed to conjure
From atrocity, your feral, foresty freedom.
At screaming speed, twigs slashing my impossible—
If I could drive a car, if that were conceivable—
I would flood this weapon with atmospheres of Earth.
I would beatify the shattered sea of glass.
Acid fog dissolves the orange caul, cap-cradled
By undulating power lines—of deathless exhaust.
//
🌕
feathering //
Servant
Tugging, the tusked equine,
Weightier than I am,
Was stamping and dragging
Its hooves, stubborn as dirt.
Fire married this mare, with
My tiger’s fang, dripping,
Driven as divine work—
To crack the crocodile.
If Earth would just hold still,
I could stanza your bridle.
Be mine—our lashes will
Whip rows into the jungle.
Eyes rolling, muzzle defied
Flea-bitten game—To bind
Me, noble by a thread,
Burning by landslide letter.
Your father spotted stripes
Rendered to mountain blades.
He didn’t dare to breathe—a whispered
Kris, my stalking shade.
Desire, the conquered theme,
Laid bare the ravined island—
Servant by my reins,
Red rivers spilling by mane and tail.
//
🌘
Frame-shaken . . . wow // (all ok)
The Myna // Sang Jalak
The Myna
So here we are, in this
Third World. Palm trees,
Rice paddies, machetes.
Doves couple on concrete walls.
Seasalt breeze, like surface
Fire . . . Sapphire, emerald.
Sanctuary comes, commands
Silence. Our mothers cut tongues
To police. Masked,
The myna bird speaks
On the mulberry tree. Elsewhere,
Ants against an elephant.
//
Sang Jalak
Jadi disinilah kita,
Di Dunia Ketiga ini. Pohon palem,
Sawah, parang.
Merpati bercinta di dinding beton.
Angin laut asin, seperti permukaan
Api . . . Safir, zamrud.
Suaka datang, menuntut
Keheningan. Ibu-ibu kita memotong
Lidah ke polisi. Bertopeng—
Jalak Bali berbicara,
Di pohon murbei. Di tempat lain,
Semut melawan gajah.
//
indissoluble ochre //
military parade (no country for children)
a block of human souls, murder
of mirrors: organism heaves
a moving multitude of cells,
populous lung, as if to breathe.
populous gun, snap-locks to form:
fifty by fifty by fifty, we
as one, on riven necks, heads turn.
the mass of bodies march past Xi.
in uniform, blind discipline:
black boots, white arms, clean unison
defines the face; grey, seamless film,
a weapon’s youthful complexion.
meanwhile, across Pacific waves,
the people’s whore, instead of school,
deploys machines to make selves, slaves;
the suicidal human rule.
chip factories to feed the stocks:
by battery classroom, killing ground
to grind the greening down, by glass
addiction, into tyrant’s hound.
the glaze that, dying, skins the eyes,
steals vision from the animal;
filters from birth its grave sunrise
and petrifies the living soul.
the glaze that, seeing, sells and tells;
in masks, they empty out the homes.
nobody ever goes inside;
nobody ever is alone.
meanwhile, across Atlantic storms,
in cradle of brave humankind,
the eye its fatal flaw confirms:
the fracture of the human mind.
dust-craven, shame of patriarchs
forsook a sacred covenant;
belched blood on gift of holy land;
made blasphemy of government.
what child is this? his ribs exposed;
the second coming, came, disposed;
the final coming, coming’s close;
bodies of babes, unmade by drones.
around the blue planet repeats
this multiplicative device;
our genocide is not abroad;
the ovens crowd these hollow spaces.
proving, mobilization awed
gold-burnished by Byzantium;
the heart speaks broken memory;
this is no country for children.
so genius passed: neither in form,
nor in the scripted paedophage;
bereaved, God’s mercy, nature-borne;
a mother’s keening song, through rage.
//
🌔
endives and mallows
this morning, handsome as a child, touches
with warming fingers the amethyst mallow.
delivers, gladly, each from darkening time:
the businessman, lucid as professor;
the tyrant, same as refugee, receives
his quickening caress, the goldenlight of youth.
but not each child. nor any child— the sun
has blinded all with his apparition.
a forest of light is teething in the seed,
dog star, a diamond cleverly effaced.
her baby will be different from the rest:
impeccable smile, a garden’s wondering, walking train—
daily untangling from the priest’s embrace;
to carry off, intact, her very name.
//
splinterwha
the resource re-
considering
skipping stones
whistling
in crevasses
stellar, hollow (
reckon starving
metric Io
reaches out ( g -
lossy limb
bittermallow
idiot(es) wind
whips ( w h i n i n g
past mumbling
nettles offset
private alphabets
boolean ( b r e a s t
nipple, teething
shooter —
wounding ) strings,
splintervolta
tablet dissolves
like ambien
sound-guarded Kali
graphic stems
roots’ f r a c t a l
externality
inscribed iamb ( so
so many
times ) my ear
sheltered, Delphi-like
in serif lobe
omega ( brooding,
loaded ) blood suss-
staining ends
threaded, mute
( litters
leaf
ground ) grammar
thick bundles,
shorn bodies from
brushes, hair-
lines
t um b l e w ee d
to thrift
the thistle, this
still tick-ling
or if sewn spider-
silk knew, s o w i n g
( m i l k s o f t
the habit of
( public
beauty )
a mustard seed
//
wishy-washy //
breathtakes
put these to rest, then
i may never write like this again,
there for the transition
between one phase and another.
with my fist through the glass
and my hands selecting the shards
poring over mistakes, the juice
rolling downhill dissembling
the brakes
breathtakes
with the drawn down
twilight. let there be lapses—
return to the system
of mouth and ear
the first time, that nation
of land and rivers and conurbations
a lot of loose ends
a lot of loose thoughts
first the sketch
and then the questions
like a green-scaled salmon, upriver
to the delta of your jaw.
//
Waalaikumsalam, selamat tilem, peace 🌑
qoop (O the genius)
a slick tongue slides around his marble curve.
force never felt so powerless before,
swept off your glacial nerve, flooding coastal
cities; by pull, arousal virginal
to witness one sun-surrendering bud
of violet, untouched America. he hides
in plainest word who dresses in flowers,
lying in a meadow— the modest egg thief.
mineralocean turns the ten tropics
ragged, wed to the staggering moon— but if
no yolk, she’s alabaster. jade at noon,
obsidian midnight, gravity’s appetite
dilates, lapis un-stone— a vowelbirths
the polished shadow of ingenious nature.
//
🌒
poly-seasonal //