CIRCE'S PIGS€¦ · Web viewEach spoken word as long and slow. As dawn and dusk are syllables:...

PAVEL F (April 29–June 11, 1996) © Pavel Chichikov

TONGUES

Stones themselves can singBut low inhuman notesWinds of cold ravinesCome whistling down their throats,Inanimate and strongOceanic song,The basalt of the planetHarmonized by granite

Deadly, seldom dumbThe fluent human tongueModulates a pipeOf air, the lingual stipe,Sharp the common rosePrickles on its stemPuncturing does moreTo justify “amen”Than any human hymn,A flaccid metaphor

Croaking of the treesWhispered to the ManA sovereign remedyAt Gethsemane,Simples of the yarrow,Hyssop, sage and rueSpoken in the shadowsBuried in the tomb

Pavel ChichikovApril 28, 1996

1


THE WOUNDS

A wild flower with five spursCan burn for days unselfconsuming,Columbine displays a sign:Small flame-like petals burning;Five spurs inflict five wounds?Fainting dusk bleeds out the color,Foretelling hands and feet and side,Pale skin and dying tremor;But can it speak? Yes it saysEach spoken word as long and slowAs dawn and dusk are syllables:One is yes, the other no;Who can hear the flower speak,Children dreaming, the insane?Those who know the sacred woundsThis understanding may attain


2


HARD CITY

Seven workers fallen on hard times—If the week were burning Which way would the wind blow?

Burn the seven bodies on a pyreMade of kindling minutes, hoursIn their variable bulk

Let the widow-seconds throwTheir frail remainsOn the blaze of time

Acrid smoke blows north—Drifts toward faint PolarisIn long sea-winds

The hard city of timeColumns green, imperialBurns like jade, a black lustrous flame


3


ENOUGH

Rain is enough, so listen, listenEnough of it will wash awayEven cities made of steelInto the clay

Red the clay, the dark claySleeves of the earth’s granite armsRain is the music of the skyPercussive drums

Rain falls rhythm, falling hardA speaking drum, a single wordDrowns the clay, the deepest seaWhy not you and me?


4


IN THE CLEAR

The short demented phrases that it singsCommonly within a hedge, profuse,But now in sunlight cunningly abbreviatedDoubled phrases gurgled, gargled, twistedOut of shape like raveled silver yarn—

Torpedo-breasted, brown-streak-chested birdMore substantial, longer than a thrush,Perched above a hop vine in the clearPresenting eyes in gold admonishmentLeft and right, left and right, intent—

Who are you Thrasher, what’s the reasonTo abandon safety in this vernal season?

Pavel ChichikovMay 1, 1996

5


THE TRIBUTE

Stop, why brood on bitterness, how beautiful we are—Peonies as big as fists with yellow centersDogwood flowers, fair, compliant;Not insect stewards you revere our comelinessCultivate us though we love the bees;Courtiers and disregarded servantsYou bow and beg the favor of our smellDeeply grovel as you make our bedsAdulate our perfect uselessnessBeg attention though we turn us sunwards;We know how frantically you runMetabolistic animals who dreadThe stasis of the self-sufficient calm onesWho let themselves be tribute to the dead


6


SIX SIDESFor V.A.G.

Why travel anywhere?If you’re sitting on a treeJust lift your feet and let the earth spin underneath

No one spins a taleAs long and complicated as a spiderYet every story ends up with the same conclusion

The moon lifts oceansBut somehow holy buckets always leakAnd after all she stays as dry and powdery as ever

I don’t know whyA mirror makes me pause and laughT’ang Yin raised his arms and plucked the strings that held him

What’s the big dealDoes anything I do remain?I, a single grass-stem growing, cut the grass today

By standing still I moveMoving, nothing alters all around meWhy then does the world inside my skull change all with love?


7


EXEUNT

Beyond a french door Hamlet seesA semicircle, stage and lawn,Static screen of dreaming trees,A flat to frame a painted dawn;Upward out of earshot bendTrajectories of crossbow bolts,Contrails in the stratosphere,White evidence of clowns’ revolts;“How easy would it be to leapAcross the scenery —arriveSomewhere beyond the screen of sleepThey call existence, yet still live?”Hamlet simply walks the stageOf short-cut grasses toward the tallElms, disappears behind the page:Close book, end scene, exeunt all—


8


SELDOM

Voices of the animals, the stuttering of gannetsNo less meaningful than human words,Stone-croaking or silver whistlingEach to his own vocabulary—as life rewards

Seldom do I hear an apprehending toneAs if a meadowlark were singing human words,But then I know an overcoming sadness:“Dying, dying—living still”—unconsciously as birds

Seldom does a human being know as muchAs those without the mercy-gift of words,Though sensitive the fingertips to touchNot more than wings along the edge to winds


9


THE CROSS AS WHORE

Pail upon pail pulled from the wellSorrow and sickness, grief without endThe stink of indifference fouled the fleshPiss-wounds acrid as poisoned salt

The deep One heard the howling of childrenAbandoned, in agony, fouled with liceSoaked in their urine, nothing to eatNothing to drink in their dreadful sorrow

He came from the depth of a dying universeStricken with cancerous children’s painOffered Himself to the arms of the CrossThat baleful mother of man’s misery

Take Me, He said, instead of the blamelessOn My head place the fearsome crownInstead of blood-wounds wreaked on babiesRevenge your empty rage on My flesh

But still they scoop the pail from His sideWater and blood, black as beforeBeside the font they baptize deathIn the name of a fatherless son of a whore


10


KING RANA

Polyphonic grey nightfall,Green the courtyard roofed with soundRana with a rod and ballNight from night, bound by bound

Court an emerald facetedAngled on to a ragged bermPond a pot without a lidInto the ichor eggs and sperm

Throne of wood, runner of ryeCushion of vetch stuffed with downCrowds invisible to the eyeRaise a night-cry from the ground

Squeeze a shrilling from their skinsPush on high the sound of bellsCoronation hails the kingInvestiture invisible


11


PANTHEON

Into the dusk like a corridorRuns the meadow, vetch and rye,Teasel halberds stand uprightQueen Anne’s lace is brown and dry

In the angle where it endsWhy the invisible easy throne?A lord of vocalizing nightElbows out, rules his own

Why a frog in robe and crown—Tenniel’s drawing, or some deeper,Wilder meadow evening-sown?Early May with chants and peepers

No, there’s something dense and solemn ,With hesitation I come nearThe darkness of the little room—Something to respect and fear

Soft and heavy, dusk comes downAbove a presence I can’t see,A pantheonic echo-domeSpans a nightless revelry


12


BLESSING

I bless myself in broad daylightA crazy man who signs the crossAcross his chest, as others mightMutter or gesticulate—Or as the paddlers of canoesStroke left and right to keep them trueForehead touch to forestall prideChest to keep the heart insideArm sinister against the lewdDexter side against the shrewd

As druids must obsessivelyHave touched the acorn and the treeI touch a self that I have namedAccused unwisely then unshamedMy own cross that I hang uponLeft and right and up and down

But frequently I bless the joyForgetfulness might still destroy


13


MONKS

They saw heaven as unimproved landTo which, as it were, they would fall heirBy fiat of the Sovereign MonarchAnd so with charters in their handsWith fair unprosperous winds behind themThey sailed to a coast the like of whichHad been seen never save the slopes of Hekla:Coarse-grained, black, vile-winteredInfertile and immensely inhospitableShale above, granite beneath, and no soil in between

What were they to do? They must not thinkOf coming back without a good reportOf that which had been prophesied the best of placesThe Queen herself expected to live hereWhen all her policies had brought themselves to fruit—Quit of the world she would receive the golden westHer spiritual maturity’s divine last paymentFor she preserved the forms of God Almighty’s churchWhile freeing it, sans ritual, of cynical enslavement

To whom should they protest in this most empty land—Inhuman savages subsisting on bear’s carrion and berriesBears themselves within the greasy skins they wore as cloaksTwo or three too many to be subjects of Her Majesty?Nor would they, could they offer tribute other thanA few pierced violet-bordered trinkets, shells of clams;A problem, they half-starved with low provisioningAll the sea once more to cross before the cold fogsSeized them, changed their rigging into steel, Froze their yawning boots against the salt-paved deck

Stay here, some said—others laughed and swore, if thisBe refuge where is hell that we might shelter in itFor surely hell has nothing worse for pilgrims than the westThis paradise we were assured of by the best divinesWho ever mounted pulpits, pissing words gainst the wind;But one struck up a hymn and others, listeningFelt themselves light-headed, intentionally witheredLonger in the arm, as if they willed God’s own mutation,Image of the Father into feathers—then lofted lightlyAbove their own abandoned decks—Fulmars and Petrels

14


Monks—II

We know them, gliding lengthwise, taff-rail to the bowQuick black eyes glancing from their flicking headsSuperb in balance but unable to return or stayWho winter out at sea, report a hidden wayCarved and yet dispersed by winter cyclonesDescribed, although their cries are unintelligible;And if she had perceived and understoodShe would have known what sea birds tellIf they outlive a stormy winter far from any land—They never stretch their webs to land except to breed


15


MYSTERY

God cut His finger with an adzeBled heme, not ichorTrimmed a palm-wood doorPus gathered at the edge

Above the town of NazarethA pine forest grewWest a vein pressed blueAgainst Jezreel’s soft breast

Steep valleys lapsing eastward, Rounded Tabor, high GolanGilboa stopped the morning sunBeneath a blood-spot grew an orchard

He felt the pain of workFrom pulling at the sawThe strained muscle of the drawIn the middle of God’s back

God, ourselves, consanguineousFlesh and blood—lymph and matterA literal transfusion strangerThan a dove to feed us

Who saw the human eyeCrying at the smoky fireHis direct and knowing stareGod’s necessity to die?

We would have sat in silenceChewing at our breadNothing to be saidWanting peace and fearing violence

The human One sat near usScarred hands smelled of woodNo one understoodHow much Our Lord could fear us


16


MONSTERS

Do I hear old one speak?Archaeosaur with rugose scalesYarkon his name, LeviathanScatters monsters with his tail

Dark-voiced beats rise separatelyBoil enormous notesIn bayous thick with larval heatSelf-expanding thunderbolts

Now I see in darknessesIvory lightning, sheet by sheetCrush the sky in blinding jawsChopping with his teeth

Who’s the legend telling myths?Hiss by hiss he comes—Those who think they still existAre trying to remember psalms


17


THE FRONTIER

Red pine, white pine, a gate of lacquerHyssop and salvia, bloodroot and thymeTwo green sentries asked me to enter:Enter, remain here without any blame

Hyssop to purify, salvia’s wisdomBloodroot and cinnabar redden the gateThyme the simple of fever’s contentionYarrow seals injurious hate

Doctor of rhizomes, unholy FeCorymbs of flowers, leaves and racemesJuice of the vine, shori, yageInfusions of pallor, mordant of dreams

Stopped at the frontier, beyond the prismFell the unconscious valley of deathThat was before the oil of the chrismLight from His light and breath from His breath


18


THE GATE

Two dark pines, one white, one redGuard the jasper gate—the deadWalk freely in and out and IStand watching from the shade nearby

How many know the state of death? Some fewBut most of them are parvenueWho think they live in some great parkWhose gates are fastened after dark

They take assurance from the pathsThat seem familiar, and the glideOf green outstretching tempered hills,Groves coniferous and still

Some inspect like haunting beesThe tract of DioscoridesWhere poppies of forgetfulnessRelieve their newly dead distress

Those who comprehend how soonThey may expect the rising moonApprise their own souls of their state—The meaning of the trees, the gate


19


THE REMEDY

Can the tree forget the seedOr blood take refuge there to plead?Acid in the root unsealedEvery hate must wither, healed,As slugs the mucus of their trailsSlander, murder and betrayal,Stomas opened, every griefA toxin manifesting strife,Round the globings of the rainThat falls as weeping from the sane

Elongation tells anotherVerdict that the garden gathers:Love in love will train a psalmHigh and green from Bethlehem,The Towhee and the ChickadeeBow and sing devotedly,The wary and the indistinctShow beauty to its beauty linked,The hemlock and the yarrow wind:The one to heal the other’s wound


20


LIGHT IS THE WIND THAT LIFTS THE SOUL

A poem is a crystal made of time and spaceDichroic, pleochroic, With an index of refraction and dispersionSpecific gravity and hardnessRevealed in wordsAnd these are nothing more or less than light

I speak lightAnd you hear lightRefracted and dispersedCollected and dispersed againUntil the universe receives the wordsAnd makes them light

Pelagic birdWe call the soul—Lifted by lightThe bird is soaringLight is the windThat lifts the soul.


21


THE BARGAIN

Unknown bird—male out of trim?Juvenile and soigne, slimEgg-shard of a graceful hatchHood of umber, sings a catchJangles up a tambourineDaring other passerines

Spirit, as my own, unknownBut not like human ones—a loanReceived, returned and paidWith beauty for sufficient shade,Haunting of the peppertreeFor mercy made: a song for clay

Spirit is the Lord’s freeholdWhich may not be withheld or soldCome, as songs do, unaware Ungenerous it knows despair—Unconsciousness repays for heavenMind demands what should be given


22


CHATOYANCE

Now the wind delights itselfShaking fistfuls of the trees—North’s not finished yetCold winds move the mist asideDisclose the sky—Inside an agate, orange-blue,Glittering eyes appearAbove the clouds


23


THE SECRET

A demimondaine carpenterAbdomen a lump of jetWings a waterfall of motionAlways flowing, never wetKnowing where above the groundPick-pocket-pollen may be found

Sweet nectar toasted to her healthEat the wafers made of pollenCelebrate her wedding withA wealthy drone who comes from HollandHe’s the one who takes a sipOf royal-burgundy tulip

Legs begin a wedding danceHoppers improvise the hoppingPrancing of the fire-antsAround the fireweed non-stoppingCricket fiddle on their belliesStink-bugs demonstrate their smellies

Pallid condensation showsOn salvia and noble rue,Mullein, plantain—northwest blowsA colder wind—burning yewLeans eastward, southward,Evening bleeds the flowing clouds

Spread along her sapphire skin—Who can tell where daylight endsSeeping wounds of night begin—The dark coagulation windsBetween the stems, and allAre gone—but where I will not tell

Where I will not tell and sleep’sA skep of gold the bees to keep


24


WHAT SIN IS...

A flock of sheep outside, something too like goats,Lanky like them, short-faced, grey and roughHair, not wool along their flattened sides,Creatures feral and undisciplined enoughTo be chimeric dreamstock, inner herdsOf what awake may not be kept in words

A kitchen door slammed shut prevents themSo a black-faced kid stands close and stillGazing through the pane with one damp eyeAs round and black as water in a well—Least understood—remembered most:Young revenant of life we call a ghost

The endless locking out and keeping inThat some repression call and others sin


25


EUNUCHS

The house beside the hillWhere live those childlike menChildren’s minds forbiddenTo ever grow again

Hear them as you passThey howl or they groanObjecting to a bath,Each keeps a toy they own

Simple and deformedIn body as in mindIdiots de-wormedMake sounds of humankind

The timbre is adultWith which the inmates hollerAkin to the resultOf torture in a cellar

How does my compassionMake the yelling stop—As useless an intentionAs to pail the ocean up

I am my own rough vowelA eunuch-sterile heart,Compassionating soulsI listen and depart


26


THE CLOTH

True ikon, the towel, Not a relic but a memory—A face that fades on clothIs like the face that fades from viewIn the loving mind

MisunderstandThe phrase true ikon—I do not fadeBeloved One,It is myselfPreserved in You


27


WIND

I hear crying, cryingThose are instruments, not voicesForge us brass, forge us ironContrive the instrument of choices

Sacred as a dance of cranesOr sometimes that of weather vanesSave us, save us, say the windsWe are blind unknowing sins

Woodwind, brass wind, wind of ironHeart of metal, blood of stoneSacraments you cannot seeLet the solid wind go free


28


MUTATION

What was it that I feared about the witch?A modus by which she extends her reach,Transformation, use that winds a clockWhose time will never end another’s work,To be a creature’s creature and pretendThe appetites of others without end,Transformed to be an anti-eucharistA tongue to cut on bleeding amethyst,Head without a body, bodies without headsPredatory fingers spider-bred,Exchange: to give the form and fact of self,Receive the yellow vision of the wolf,Human as inhuman come to be:Miserere nobis, Domine


29


THE OTHER TREE

A change in the forecastThe last one of allA new cell in the eastCumulus upfalls,A massive heliodor,Rotational, abates—A windless shining boreTurning, rising heatStands from sky to seaThe other, hollow tree

Nothing whirls, progresses—Inside a form descendsWith ponderous addressProtected by the winds;Bulk and something swartNot particles or rainHolds the worlds apartThough never will again—Above the world’s horizonA judgment of misprision

Not the Judge of thronesNor agent of repentance,Awakener of bonesNor councilor—but sentence;One foot on the waterOne hand on the starsDarkens with a shutterThe lens of what occurs,Dimension brings togetherOblivion forever


30


THE QUARRY

A city of God—under siegeIn daylight broad as Sunday’s handBehind the street they infiltrateSilently as readers turn a page;As for the ending of this ageProvide the cellars profligateThe cesspool and the brazen fleeceThe emerald city and the police;Around a corner never seenBecause the streets are in the head,Miniatures of splendid strong reliefWhere formerly our judgment fledAre now the conquered of a thief;The haul is mind—unlimited:Soon unminded like a beastThat’s conquered—kingly for a feast


31


THE TARE

What are all the helpful, social things that must be done?I can’t do them. I’m Christopher at the river—Eating well and loving sleep—lazy, selfishA human clam with eyes set in around a rim of a stone

My baptismal name is Christopher—the useless saintWho could not fast, or sit or pray as well as sparrows do—O Christ, Baby, Child, Mary’s Son, LordYou have gripped my shoulders—I can feel the weight

If I had known that you were Christ I would have caviled,Made excuses, asked for centuries to reconsider,Once shrugged you downward at the river’s edge—But you returned and we are reconciled

I carry you as far as I can bear the heavinessOf your beloved, commanding neediness,But then the river lowers or the shore comes nearAnd though I think myself the burden I have been the tare


32


FITNESS

To be an eagle see afar To be a rose prick the fingerTo be a lion rush and strikeTo be a hornet use the stinger

Human beings must be blindTo find their way between two liesInside the cavern of the mindThe non-adaptive keep their eyes

Like the fish of covered riversTo fitness man his eyes deliversSacrifices mortal sightTo live through one more blinded night


33


TECHNOLOGY

Crown not of His thorns but of my thoughtsCrown of thoughts—skillful crown of thorns,Untrained blackthorn, savage to be taught,Sharp instrument by which my scalp is torn

Train them, said uncomprehending masters—Younger than their masters, taking liberties“My fingers wove in closely but my creaturesFreed themselves and afterward pierced me

“Pierced my skin and scalp unknowingly—It was my own thought wove the crown of thornsMade the timber sideways from the treePoured the technic staples from the iron”


34


THE MONSTRANCE

Faces on the silver-plated metalTelluric eyes dead as blackened argentDescendents of Daguerre are living stillThough life itself from living time be bent,Unsymboled or unsigned since light,Which never dies, is real, though time is not

Time the legend, fabulous, insaneDream and fluctuant delusion, madness;For everything lives now, detail and grain,Displayed inside a thinking monstrance,Front and back, sides the sameAs though there could be facets of a flame

The man who died is still aliveCan see as if on some changed plateMy face like breath unborn which thrivesReflected on the instant he awakes,That polished mirror shattered by decision,Invisible in moments of duration

He sees me, knows of me as onceI saw a long street pinned by timeAgainst a city’s shifting fluctuanceAbout to move the canopies of windows,

shading limes,Carriage spokes, horses’ legs and yetNever moved at all—the silver being set


35


TRADE GOODS

My life is mist upon a mirrorThe world behind me does not fade,Beaded planets, Occam’s razorSavage souls select in trade

Beads to count with, razors meantPerhaps to cut another’s faceIn scarifying or atonement,Signs of dumb unconscious grace

Much as you can see a mindBehind another flat reflectionSo I know the world as roundBehind its superposed dimensions

Yesterday a hummingbirdFace to face with flowering sageKnew itself without a wordOr waiting till another age


36


HOW NOBLE IN FORM...

Paradise on terra firma, classlessDrams of paradise for silly menSedatives in clear, enormous glassesBettors paying to Improvidence

Building heaven up with pick and shovelNostrils for the brick, sebum for the mortar,Palaces made waxen and primeval,Melting knighthood, halo from a garter

Chimeras transmuting as they flowBiting, picket one another’s scabs,Marry off the magpie to the crowWhelp their freakish bastards in their labs

Cadging silly God for an advanceOf precious blood to lose on games of chance—Becoming one of us to save this freakGod so far maintains His losing streak


37


PURGATORY

Strange, he said when he came back,Nothing matters, but the fairIs fascinating over there—The markets contain everything,Fruits and leaves, thoughts and feelingsAll displayed by stall and stack

Do you buy things, put them back?Nothing is for sale and yetA thought or feeling in my handCan be examined, dry or wet—Rage is bloody like a roseDry is love as cool carnelian

There’s no hurry, nothing’s finalTake your time, the market’s hugeEveryone who ever livedAll the children of the fallWalking round to see and touchThe world, the universe—there’s much

But here, he said, the stalls are sparseAction speeded as in farceFruit is spoiled before displayThe wool of passion ticked and frayedAnd just before you see a faceIt’s turned a corner in disgrace


38


SCIENTIA

Through the flame, Through the spectrumWind blows grainsOf pale corundumCrystal to be changed

Grains of crystalClouds His taskingGrains dispersedEverlastingOr else arranged

Morning at the doorwayA hare crouchesA green plantain leafIn its mouthNothing is changed

Ships in the meadowUnfurl the scentOf new-mown grassThe night is bentThe stars arranged


39


THE BOOK

Why pretend to be blind?They send someone to help me—I see as well as he

Better at onceThough he leads me by the armWhere traffic runs

The library is a streetThe street has books—There sits the tired priest

Tired too soon—I regain my sightBut you have yet to lose your own

Suppose an eye unseeingA blind man needingAnd one will be reading

One will be restingAnd not readingAnd not reading


40


LAZARUS

A bear sleeps restlessly in cavesBut when it chooses underhillA dry root-mothered living-graveIt will not wake from there untilTransepts burn across the navesOf lightless windowless cathedrals

Then the concentrated prayerOf oil consumed in stagnant airHas shown the end it has begun:Introit the famished sun,A taper carried by the PriestWarms the winter and the beast

So to sleep until the endOf winter cold and winter wind,Out from darkness—winter’s childGorges berries sweet and mildThough he knew not how or whenHe would be woken in his den


41


1 KINGS 17

Along the edge of sleep a wall aloneFacing stripped, brecciated stone,Upward from the vision runs a gullySplotched with dwarf ailanthus and with ivyThe wall remains, the valley runs away,Rubble, passage through the screen of dayInside the house where people once had livedRuined chambers no one could have saved

Dreaming is a wall preventing passageYet there is a channel for a messageLet the ravens come to me and save meBehind the wall, beneath Elijah’s wadi,There I would have lived until the hourDogs consumed the lady in the tower


42


RHYME FOR N. ON HER BIRTHDAY

I’ll grind your bones to make my breadSays he who lives on Beanstalk HeadI’ll use your bones to pick my teethThe proper way to serve a thief,But Jack’s astute and Jack is quickHe threatens Giant with a stickSwipes the goose and golden eggWhen he’s got them shakes a legDown the stalk the hero slides—Giant to his wife confides:Seems he’s fallen for my trickLike Jack who leaped the candlestick

Jack will not perceive it yet—No egg of gold will make an omeletCandlestick with golden handleGive a light without a candle,Even those who make the rulesBy having gold remain the fools,I’d rather live atop this vineSweet gentle one, enchantress mine,A thatch of clouds to keep us dryAbove our cottage in the skyNothing in our home to lackExcept the gold, the goose and Jack


43


THE POWERS

It rained all night, the weight of heaven’s seaLay on every blade and bush and treeDarkness hid the flashing of the falling dropsThe woman’s arms invisible, the hurried steps

All around the passive world spread varied cloudsGrumbling, flashing, uttering their oaths aloudWhile others drift, disperse and whitely growBut prove their condensation only made for show

But here it offered up its breast, a woman spent,The feminine of atmospheres that heaven sentAnd they speak well assigning gender to the earth and waterFire masculine and cloud his daughter

How wise it was to hide from shifting shapesSince first the earth donated caves to frightened apes,Rain and darkness, feminine, exchange their powerAs do the noonday shadow and the wizard’s tower

This the wise conversion of the rabbi PaulWho recognized a Master in a sudden fall:Powers bear the shifting as the rain through treesBut Christ has made immortal what His will may please


44


THE RISING

Called four eyes but never threeThree may see a trinity,Not as well as do the livingWho reach perception by forgivingYet well enough—as those who liveOn earth learn slowly to forgive—Eyes in love will not resentThe mortal selfhood God has sent

Obsidian a hornet’s gaze,Bright the facets of the bees,Emerald the globes of squidGreen as what the fathoms hide,But human eyes see what’s beneathThe blackest oceanic death,Contradicting all that’s shrewdA rising brilliant multitude


45


THE INQUEST

Always Adam Coroner pronounces idols dead,Deviled, disbelieved in, starved to death unfedThen tells all the neighbors: Believe in me instead

But never gives them satisfaction

God died in the morning, unsought for and unlivedShriveled to a drawing squittered in the head—Adam keeps the ghouls in darkness from the bed

But never gives them satisfaction

Adam unselfborn, himself by night effectedMidwives of the vacuum a freakish birth assistedSomething born from nothing, uninhabited

Who can give him satisfaction?

Adam on a slab, his corpse exhibited,Darker than the marble for all his blood has bledDenying at the inquest he will arise when bid

And he will get his satisfaction


46


SUPPER

Botulinum where the bullfrogs dieMaggots are the larvae of the flyBotulism toxin concentratedWaterfowl eat them to be satiatedHere’s a fowler shooting on the wingCarries famished teal on a stringBroils them on a fire at his campRakes the fire up against the dampBotulin the poison in the duckHas left him feeling cold and throwing upSpasms in his stomach, in a tranceHe watches as a pair of storks advanceStepping through a ropy autumn mistThey seem to hear the pumping in his wristSuppose he dies from eating poisoned meatHe’ll decompose tomorrow in the heatSwollen as the carcass of a dog—Maggots like us just as much as frogThere is a dispensation for the soulMarshes swallow bodies of us wholeBut who would think it foul or absurdTo be as one with decomposing birds


47


COMPRESSION

A half-inch mantis on a rose leaf Brown as old cigars and shaped the sameSlim and small enough to span my thumbnailFeels the weight descending of a fly,Then with flexible, deliberate regardTurns its bulging head, bends its whippish body,Looks behind as men do past their shoulders,Sentries on a watch, policemen on a streetSentient as any soldier, guard or picketGazing backward with a tiny greenish eye

Sentient, sentient, aware as you and IAs when deliberate we turn our headsTo see what may approach us, or descendAs guards who stand the midnight at a tomb—Awareness is the armor of the livingSoul another form of living, not the same,Awareness rushes out since never canThe living fill the wanting membrane of eternityUntil in death relaxing what is tensedThey leave the body that has been compressed


48


MOLY

The flowers of forgetfulness are large and roundThe flowers of remembrance are smallThe yellow spreading-one that Hermes gave Odysseus,Not mythical or white with blackish-silver roots,But small and gold, five-pointed, realStonecrop spills across the doorway in a surgeOf bitter, tonic wakefulness:You are not swine but fully human:Take this and be aware of what you lose—The witch may give you mash of bitter acornsIf you will grovel, gnash your tusks, and slaver—Your sows will drop your piglings, bornOn earth while Circe’s farmers hover—Accept this yellow flower or betray it—choose


49


DENSITY

Watch the face of one who lies, the strainOf lying more than that of weight on TitansWho shift whole globes with iron shoulders—sane,The cosmos long absorbs the lie’s compression,Irreducible as water is or neutrons,Assimilates the heat of pushing falsehood,Refractory, absorbs the energy of lies,Infinitely resists the pressing loadOf dense insanity which duplicity applies,And this compacted elasticity shows in liars’ eyes—Inside we feel the pressure grow with eachFalse lesson to ourselves we teach—That something vast, immovable resistsThe self-deluding lies of narcissists

Pavel ChichikovJune 1, 1996

50


NIGHTFALL

To lie is work, to love is workEverything that lives, movesBeads of energy along a stringOf some duration, lies or loves

A rosary moves prayer through timeDreaming is another testOf long duration, moves—Dreams are work, their worlds exist

A city dreamed in which I leftA kind of home to find a gift,Evening is a city where Love is dark and yet familiar

Dreaming is an evening Nightfall is a another placeNo one likes to enter yetMust to find a proper grace

I leave the sun although I wouldPrefer to stay, forgetAnd be as safe as possibleBut God the Father sets


51


THE TEST

I will not answer, mark the placeWhere questions difficult to faceAre answered with a tick of leadInside a tiny eyeless head

I will refuse to play alongTo care which answer’s right or wrongWill not make the paper neatOr take the time to think, compete

The sour damp of winter roomsWhere fantasies were swept with broomsAre now as dry as ever wereThe deserts that the wise prefer

Here the innocent confessHow noon and night are shadowlessTo prebendary priestsWhose absolutions never cease

I will not finish what I startLearn unholy states of artThe sacrilegious foul faithsOf intermittent spirits, wraiths

They will with prejudice cast outHeaven from the place of droughtThere preserve the desiccateImmobilized and perfect State


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OAK TREES

Lies before them, shields, the one-eyed menWho cannot see the depth of any thingMoved forward looking for a specimenWhich to themselves in fire they might bringBut I saw the wall, oak-trimmed, lowBread of limestoned clay, rounded bungalowGlowing pearl-dim in the sunSet in greening mounds as if in cameo

Tomb or home, perhaps a home, who can tell?A black-soaked bucket leaning oak-wise on a well,Who am I to reason with a waking dream?I will be there soon—not to blameFor seeing in my poverty my given home—But where will the one-eyed marchers dwell?They hold their lies before them as if shieldsCould see the pathways through the greening fields


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THRUST

Recurrent dream: sometimes a market, street, hotel—Hotel whose lift will not come up to expectationsRestaurant where satisfaction never is obtainedFood stalls serving nothing good, films in mid-performanceCrowded theater districts whose facing streets revolve,Nothing fixed, unpromising the greyish dusk—Toward home I ride a bicycle the lengths of islandsOftener through tunnels, shafts of different bores, diameters,Narrow, wide, sloped, ramped, filled with pitiful debrisAncient, guarded, peopled, empty, on my feet or on a bikeThrough passages—the whole night underground—Perhaps achieving ends which open outWin home, up dawn, the flag of day unfurling yet.But o the lengthy tunnel now, cross-sections madeAt different times, the shapes unequal, blade to blade


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LOOK UP

The black mulberry and the whiteMorus alba—Morus nigerStain the street in early JuneClepsydras of the ever-year

Provoke an upward lookSugared berries melt and fallBirds and squirrels gorge on themEvery sugar-loving beast

Praise God who loving makesDuration regular in trees,In cycles of the sweet and roundMoons change like mulberries


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MALPRACTICE

“Undignified the death of God”But proverbs run to finer stuff,New brooms sweep clean and haystacks hideA missing needle well enough—Yet will our saws extend their rangeIn time with technological exchangeAnd cast an ever finer netThe Savior’s murder to abet

How much scandal will there beWhen God’s removed from His crosstree?Now distasteful to beholdEven crucified in goldSoon we’ll ever thank Him forA diagnosis we deplore—Hang Him not but overdoseWith sedatives the Holy Ghost


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THE NAME

Let space and time be crystalline, Facets visible—unseen pavilions countlessLet all properties observable be opticLet things possess their own refractive indicesEvents their proper axesEntities in time their proper paths and colors—Let the cosmic gem be pleochroicRotating show all other colors—Let rotated bread and wineBe Precious Flesh and BloodFacets in our field of viewStill, serene and yet in motion—Even so this jeweler’s loop and gemEnd a line as simple as an apothem,Schematic mystery, unmeasured GodGeometry unprovable, unspoken word


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COMPLINE

The young wren in the dogwood leavesSlides as elvers do in coral,Is it true that one of itIs worth the tonnage of us all?

Spotless character, a songTo make us cheerful but the moth,Sings post-dinner cheerfully,Embroidered green the tablecloth

Flowers sewn with yellow threadRaised against a ground of green,How many fingers could be ledAround a pattern as serene?

The Lord assures that human soulsAre even pricier than wrens’So we sing as thrushes doAs angels did at Bethlehem

Then we doubt, in silence fallWhen thrushes of the evening singA litany of every lightStar by star and wing by wing


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STOREYS

All is well, all is wellTo look down from a porch-height viewGodling at the rose-bushesSomewhat as the Lord sees you

Yellow-jackets, bumblebeesMake the shining rose-leaves twitch—Smaller creatures, strenuous,Grapple with an anther-patch

Buttons made of strawberryClose an overcoat that liesDrying in the yellow sun—Fescues and domestic ryes

Towering like cumulusRed hawk watching from above—God who’s more mysteriousWatches hawks and all of us


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A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT

I saw the lizard blink its eye and turnA green-scaled snout to follow mySlight displacement from an upright stateTo one in which I met its chestnut eye

Three meters long with tetanus on its tongueOn Komodo they ambush deer and pigFollowing the trail of wounded preyBy smelling stinks of wounds they have infected

It isn’t cruel, has no taste for torment,Savors no revenge, agonies or foes,Does not flay the skinful it resentsOr brood a hatch of toxic imagoes

I know of cruelty to innocentChildren, women, animals and hearthsSo heinous, unforgivable and bentThat payment back would bankrupt even death

Only one glib love-confessing animalSpreads blacker plagues than flea-infested ratsOffers up petitions for its soulOutsucks the body-lice and vampire bats

Refined in cruelty, coarse in lizard speechA chimera of mandrake and of leech,What does Atonement mean if God has sentHis only Son: a desperate expedient


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SHOJI

A flash of light as if a screen exploding—What does it mean to see the day curl back?Prophets know that only larkspur floweringCan make the rigid afternoon grow slack

Use distinction: worlds by that are knownExcept for shadeless light that always knows,Tigers differentiate the hiding fawnFrom thickets when a bending current blows

But when contrasting shade has disappearedAnd light is evenly poured down like milkIt means the judgment of the world draws nearJustice spinning from the worm like silk

Then no likeness, but the thing itselfPoised between a mountain and the gulf,Knows what Cain and Adam knew before:The sky rolled back like paper on a door


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PULLING UP THEIR BUCKETS...

Pulling up their buckets of green airGlow-worms fly away—To dump them where?Ornithopters hauling up the lightTired flowers clean up with the night


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PLACE OF WAITING

The sparrow on the maple’s corpse(Angular and headless friend)Pans a shortened piping noteMoments long from end-to-end

Stocky breasted, head thrown backStubby beak unscissored wide,Takes possession of the neckIn simulation of our pride

Dead on dead the lignite risesSparrows perching on the bonesDo re mi their exercisesNotes unwritten no one owns

Like seeing someone’s corpse hung upOutside the window at the curbA body and a gibbet bothAre taken over by a bird

Suppose the afternoon can flyLike saints of super-normal faith,Could it rise to where we dieAlight and sing until our death?


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THE LIGHT ONE

Enormous evening, Terra spinsShoulder hulk against her shadowPushing light ahead of her—Heavy day to be tomorrow

Weight on weight of universeBalancing and pivotal,Pivot in a pith of verse:Above, below is doggerel

If light should ever break or bendWould there be a cosmic end?A photon-poem is as strongAs space is big and time is long


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SHADOW

Slurried clay spreads upward from the south,Summer, humid, skin-close, mindful—Resins of the sun come oozing out, profuse,Peonies curl up, dark magnolia blossoms—Alabaster cups, cones of seeds within, skin-like petals,Female musks—ancient smooth-skinned tree—Imperial dark jade of ages,Deep-shadowed one, immense of time

Beside the resting perpendicular of summerWorms play out their strings of milky wool,Beneath a great-leaved tree the breezes restDip their wings in liquid shadow—Dazed by heat they fold one foot against their breastsSleep until the waking sun begins to move


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WORLD IN A JAR

Lemon umbrels of the yarrow Foreshortened, as on Chinese jarsClouds of phoenix affluenceCondense the dragon’s yellow passage—

Feathered leaves—green-dragon wings—Lift the flowers calf-head high,Calm and merciful the earthPresuming models of the sky

No imitation of a worldA world itself on some small scale,As if a chromic-yellow stormWere raining down a dragon’s tail


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THE WHITE ONESFor V.A.G.

Have faith, He said, I’ll tell youAll in proper timeWhat it means to seeOld ones, young ones, white onesSkin as white as papThin forsaken husksChildren bleached by cancerOld women with half-lungsYoung women held to earthBy less life than a fly’s-weight

Metamorphic insects Hold tightly to the woodAnd then withdraw themselvesLeave the rest behind


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OVUM

Do visitors come, are they all around,Walk through doors not making soundOpen windows in solid wallsFind a gate where none are found?

Testimony all to the goodBut what’s the odds to go through woodWhat’s the odds to say odd things?No daylight people say you should

Unless you’re looney, looking for heed,Miracles, money—a normal needThose are motives they understand—They won’t go where the callers lead

I’m not sanguine they’ll understandRevenants from doorway landTented fringes close but far—Lifted by a colored wind

Revenants because they’ve beenHere before and entered inThe egg where no one thinks there isWall or window opening

Left again without a signExcept their traces in a mindThe shell outside is smooth and cleanInside the shell the egg is primed


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UNDERSTOOD?

In wood’s hollow see a sprigOf blossoms on a limetree twigYellow flowers, rigor slackened,Small and pale against the bracken

Tell me if you know this signA broken branch, a hollow screenOf limetrees in a silent woodTwilight coming—understood?

Not much to look at—sack of skinA heart, two lungs, a brain withinTwo staring eyes peeping outCan think and talk and sometimes doubt

Let’s go further—past the picket—Twilight’s growing up like thickets—First it’s thin and then it’s thickIn among the trees go quick

Step a long step—cross a brook—Hold the branch and blossoms upThis will serve you for a glowWhen all is darkness—do you know?


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CIRCE'S PIGS€¦ · Web viewEach spoken word as long and slow. As dawn and dusk are syllables:...

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