Snow and Dirty Rain

[Fata Morgana]

I do not want to be calm.
I understand what it means to turn
Back into stone,
The elephant’s huge eye closing…

I wanted to be the first breath on the first skin,
The air wild there.
A china cup on the motorway.
New blood striding out of my heart.

Look at me when you say that.
Look at me. One wet red petal in a marble bowl,
O the fate of my name sliding
In your throat.

Eve Jones

 

[Fata Morgana]

Back from the wind, he called to me
with a mouthful of crickets—

scent of ash and lilac rising
from his hair. I waited

for the night to wane
into years before reaching

for his hands, my finger tracing
the broken lines in his palm.

My shadow beneath his shadow
across the hardwood. And we danced

like that

— from “Lazarus,” Ocean Vuong

 

[Equinoxe]

Now, I
In pillars of pine and
A cedar roofed-hut
Shall remain enclosed,
Moss heavy on my sleeves.

- Princess Shikishi, tr. Thomas McAuley (I think)

 

[Fata Morgana]

Forgive us our trespasses.
Of which the first is love. The sad, unrepeatable fact
that the loves we shouldn’t foster burrow faster and linger longer
than sanctioned kinds can. Loves that thrive on absence, on lack
of return, or worse, on harm, are unkillable, Father.
They do not die in us. And you know how we’ve tried.
Loves nursed, inexplicably, on thoughts of sex,
a return to touched places, a backwards glance, a sigh -
they come back like the tide. They are with us at the terminus
when cancer catches us. They have never been away.
Forgive us the people we love – their dragnet influence.
Those disallowed to us, those who frighten us, those who stay
on uninvited in our lives and every night revisit us.
Accept from us the inappropriate
by which our dreams and daily scenes stay separate.

Sinead Morrissey

 

[Fata Morgana]

Now, I
In pillars of pine and
A cedar roofed-hut
Shall remain enclosed,
Moss heavy on my sleeves.

- Princess Shikishi, tr. I don't know

I want moss heavy on my sleeves.

 

[Jennifer]

.....

 

[Equinoxe]

I want moss heavy on my sleeves.

Indeed!

I am quite taken with that little poem today.

 

[Fata Morgana]

Indeed!

I am quite taken with that little poem today.

It's beautiful for sure.

I love the smell of moss.

 

[Fata Morgana]

He had forgotten how to walk,
the child they found roosting
upside down in the cave depths,
cauled in silence and darkness,
arms folded across his chest.

For years he had gleaned beetles
from the chamber floor, snaffled
moths and mosquitoes in mid-air,
lapped from the silted pool at twilight.

Startled by halogen beams,
spelunkers’ thudding boots,
his family, roused from torpor,
had abandoned its crevices, swarmed
above the harnessed men,
through the hibernaculum mouth
and disappeared into the woods.

Now, monitored by behaviourists
behind an observation pane,
the boy huddles on a cot, his head
against his knees, eyes closed,
squeaking as if echolocation
might guide him home.

Pipistrelle, Michelle McGrane

 

[Fata Morgana]

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice turns wine into vinegar.

When he arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes at the door
With his bloody hands,
Though there are primroses
Growing about his feet.

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides...
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.

The dog barks.
The wild god smiles,
Holds out his hand.
The dog licks his wounds
And leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens are beginning to sing
An ancient song in the mouth of your kettle.

'I haven't much,' you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are moles in his eyes.

When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it's fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again,
Evict the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where it all went to.

The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of otters and red nightingales.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes.
The moles rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exhalts and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to old enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the great grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and the pain and joy of living.

In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds his fists on the table.
The moon leans in through the window, smiling.

The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.

'Why did you leave me to die?'
Asks the wild god and you say:
'I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn't know how. I'm sorry.'

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer...
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart...

There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice turns wine into vinegar
And death to life in return.

Tom Hirons

 

[Fata Morgana]

There is a small chance I might be dying.
I wonder who will belong to you next,
one waterfall after another waterfall.
I have never told you,
but the problem will always be in
your bones. Each one small as a partridge’s
or hare’s. Each one with my name printed on.
I am sorry for
your life, your face is the face
of a warrior, your hamstrings pitch
you forward like revolvers. But there
are not more fish in the sea for you.
The masons got to you when you
were a child. Carpenters, builders,
roofers. They dug the other names
out of you like herb gardens and
threw them away. They left you with mine,
some record labels, a pothole and one generator
to keep it going. So if in fact I am dying, I want
you to know I am not a gun woman, I am not
here to be the shadow warning others of your
shadow. I am still here to bear witness to
our butterflies, our limbo, our pretending to be
travelers in our own bed. Your bones are my
bones, separated at birth. If I am dying, no
other woman will love you as I have, will
pet your head as if it is the thick fur of a sick
dog. If I am dying, I lay crumpled, an exit
ramp made of pillows. But ah, when
I was alive, with your bones
I was able to stand.

The Dying Bones, Heather Schime

 

[Fata Morgana]

When I breathe in
there is a sound in my body
sadder than the winter
wind.

Ishikawa Takuboku

 

[Fata Morgana]

I have learned to camouflage myself in church,
Masking my body
With the body of a saint.
Last night frost glazed the face of Mary Magdalene,
And snow rode up to the altar windows.
Before morning, the sparrows came down
To the body of Saint Francis.
Now he is upholstered in oak leaves
Like a living room chair.
This morning we are preparing a crucifixion.
I am thinking of you now.
With the velvet at my knees
And the silverware shining on the altar
And the stained glass moving out of focus
And the cross veiled in black,
I am present for the news of an enormous death.
I take the bread on my tongue
Like one of Christ’s fingers,
And the wine rides through my breast
Like a dark hearse.
All the while I am thinking of you.
An avalanche of white carnations
Is drifting across your voice
As it drifts across the voices of confession.
But the snow keeps whispering of you over and over.

Thomas James

 

[Tathagata]

When I breathe in
there is a sound in my body
sadder than the winter
wind.

Ishikawa Takuboku

Very Nice

 

[Fata Morgana]

Very Nice

Innit? I love melon collie stuff.

 

[Tathagata]

Always this


The Lake Isle of Innisfree
By William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

 

[Fata Morgana]

That always gives me chicken skin.

 

[Fata Morgana]

This has always been a fave of mine.

Beautiful, sobbing
high-geared fucking
and then to lie silently
like deer tracks in the
freshly-fallen snow beside
the one you love.
That’s all.

Richard Brautigan

 

[Tathagata]

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass -Ezra Pound

 

[Tathagata]

Beautiful, sobbing
high-geared fucking
and then to lie silently
like deer tracks in the
freshly-fallen snow beside
the one you love.
That’s all.

Richard Brautigan

Love this guy

 

[Fata Morgana]

Love this guy

Me too.


Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
I wouldn’t wish that on you. I don’t
want to see your eyes forgotten
on a rainy day, lost in the endless purse
of those who can remember nothing.

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
I don’t want to see you end up that way
with your body being poured like wounded
marble into the architecture of those who make
bridges out of crippled birds.

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
There are so many better things for you
than to see your feelings sold
as magic lanterns to somebody whose body
casts no light.

Richard Brautigan

 

[Tathagata]

There is rust in my mouth,
the stain of an old kiss
- Anne Sexton

 

[Jennifer]

I love haiku:

 

[Fata Morgana]

Love Sexton too.

Then my black-eyed rival came.
The lady of water, rising on the beach,
a piano at her fingertips, shame
on her lips and a flute’s speech.
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Anne Sexton

 

[Fata Morgana]

& I. Us. Honey. Darling. Sweetheart, was I talking war in my sleep again? Come closer. Yes, place your head against my chest. The moon on a windowsill. I want to stitch up all your wounds with kisses, but I also know that sometimes the seed is hurting for red in the soil. Sometimes. Sometimes I hold you like Achilles’ shield, your mouth on mine, my trembling inside your heart & sex.

Yousef Komuakaa