Canto IV
From Lethe lept, conscious
breath takes surface suddenly
the roar of this place, its cacophony
of angelic howlings, oh i’ve seen
the letter of law: now pass we
liminal jaws: the great scaled
hall we crawl upon, who goes
empty handed. the boundaries
of a god are doubt and danger
inscribed Hecate, her crows
keep time clawed. we practice
low we move carefully
no crowbars, no flashlights, no
clever ideas: language be so
fleshy, so jealous fire
three of swords, she draws
etched here: i
f my name is part
your name how shall we walk
it, how shall we play the game
“a man was shot for asking a woman
to wear a mask. a mask protects.
a mask conceals self. a mask is a debate
inside the circles of no evidence to contrary.
your self is a mask on the unconscious
the masking we do to fit in, the masking
we do to not fit in, the masking we do
to be other, the masking we do to be
truth. cahun sd: under all these masks
other masks. do you know you cannot
talk to dragons—we have no idea
what year it is.” uncoiling beneath
us the serpent’s color rainbows,
it is the color of everything, and you
are it too. “you come from the world
of angels” forked licking at the air
“oh winged things—there must
be some symbol that speaks
to your soul about why you suffer
would you whisper it
into the beast. and so be it.”
the slithering holds lighted
cues in charcoal tongues: “repetition
does not exist. you can’t return to
any earlier place in the poem.
you can only move one way now.”
and the caging descends.
we both
know how to make a pattern. all
this time, all this time estranged
the caught notes, if you have not
cultivated love on this side, you go
through the portal empty handed
it’s all that will pass
can you imagine coming
into this place, hands emptied
of what we thought we held
two of swords, she draws: balanced
blindness, you better learn to hear
water at your back.
they remind
the stars of other stars. funny
when every song counted
it took everything to move
forward in the lined horizons,
a story is a beginning and an end.
love the language flabby
white America was protesting its right
to die. the way we’ve always done
before. the fourth chamber is degrees
in listening. how does the system
operate. we all receive same vibration.
you must frame me when i’m finished.
you can’t really create considering
every thing that’s been done and yet
imagined. you can’t think at all.
so you make a container. to hold it.
that’s the extent of the magic. so far
and the invocation. and the calling.
well of course, and forgiveness.
yes, we put it all in the code. i broke
the gargoyle. again, remember you forgot
to add the part about childhood
it’s really just a reflection
of what you were. the sadness
mirrored out. karma is our DNA.
just sit here telling myself all these stories
the “plandemic” flies through the wires
do you know truth when you hear it
or do we listen too often to one another
a poem is a landing. this river where we
poured dead, do you remember we held
grief in each arm, pulled it so close, to taste
the tremble of life leaving, there was nothing
man made about the way the body knows
how to take care of its own. remember that.
when you get over there. the delusion of division
will be set against the delusion being human
is a single species experience, not the complex
fragmenting that occurs within each one. each
cell erupts from division, division is what makes
us and division is what life struggles to overcome.
Insert I’s aubade in the epilogue. to light
we went on thus as far as the silence
kept us, the great worm taking back
its sleep. the gentle wound we laid down
for it to keep would be our treasury, wealth
for the coming travel. you have to seed
the path so you can map it home
seven times clockwise you round
whispers: i see you changed
mark the eye of that lizard as it slips
into sleep, mark the eye of that cold
heart, as it carries the rivulet of fire
you spoke into the program, enter
seven portals and as the old year
descends, let us walk along the path
to a bridge, where she will pour
water over your head, she will
incant by name: poet, i see
you, and deep in the eye of another
for as long as you tread where eyes
are used to catalogue, you will be
held in that light. echoes and reflections
are the glamour we use to entertain
here, the delusions we spin to keep
the matters at hand, to sort the macro-
and the microcosm into a balance
we could call up by number and name
To be lonely tightly until still sleeping
eight of cups, so we walk away from
what we know towards what is empty
But I’m still awake with eyes open
like two triangles it is natural
to be deadly, but oh, humanity
a country is divided in earnings
as much as in compassion
how many have to die before
we recall the connections that boated
us shore to shore. and after this
cycle, did they arise like smoke
tendrils curling in the dome above
the numbered beast, ninety three
counts round to escape a housing
Who could lose their skin and still
own it all could you break them
with one song: we are all abandoned
by love, you’ll repeat it till the bands
of fear loosen, while the bands of fear
On the teething field. It’s all over
grasping, still we ache but trespass
as intended from the snake, her dreaming
and from her dream of us in the belly
a morning where we wake to a nothing shine.
***************************************
italicized lines:
Spite, Danielle Pafunda
Sleeper Cell, Michael “Quess?” Moore
Death Industrial Complex, Candice Wuehle
Fake Moon, Alban Fischer
Some Notes on My Programming, Anselm Berrigan
Lizzie Speak, Kailey Tedesco
Sojourner Microcosms, Anselm Hollo
The Romance of Happy Workers, Anne Boyer
In the Key of Those Who Can No Longer Organize Their Environments, Stephanie Anderson
All the Garbage of the World Unite, Kim Hyesoon, trans by Don Mee Choi
IC, Serena Chopra
Something in the Way, Obstruction Blues, John Duvernoy
