505 History and politics poems

Lesson of the day: Syria and Styria. For Syria, read:His conquering banner shook from Syria. And for Styria: Look at this harp of  blood, mapping. Now I am tuned. I am going to go above my voice for the sake of the forest shaken on the bitumen. You can see stars in the skulls, winking, synapses, intermittent, on edge of shriek — perhaps a cluster of fir, birches? — Anyways. Don’t get too hung up on the terms; they have entropy in common, bad for the public weal, those obtuse centurions in the flare of the bougainvillea, their patent-seeking gift kindled. Divers speech. Cruelty. Justice. Never mind, but do pay attention to the skirmish — the white panther that flitters up the pole — its shade grows large on the ground.

At dawn I heard among bird calls the billions of marching feet in the churn and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet still wet from the mother's amniotic fluid, and very old halting feet, the feet of the very light and very heavy, all marching but not together, criss-crossing at every angle with sincere attempts not to touch, not to bump into each other, walking in the doors of houses and out the back door forty years later, finally knowing that time collapses on a single plateau where they were all their lives, knowing that time stops when the heart stops as they walk off the earth into the night air.

My eyes catch ruddy necks Sturdily pressed back. All a red-brick moving glint. Like flaming pendulums, hands Swing across the khaki— Mustard coloured khaki— To the automatic feet. We husband the ancient glory In these bared necks and hands. Not broke is the forge of Mars; But a subtler brain beats iron To shoe the hoofs of death. Who pays dynamic air now?— Blind fingers loose an iron cloud To rain immortal darkness On strong eyes.

For R. L. B. For all the far-flung continents he'd crossed, Revealing lands they found beyond belief; For all the roads that lay behind him, lost In caverns of some atavistic grief He'd carried with him since he was a boy; For all the years, he should be weary now. How then could he explain this welling joy, A old man on a wintry beach? Or how It seemed the wind bore perfumes of a whole New wilderness, a lush and green Brazil Over the dim horizon of his soul, Farther than memory, beyond his will, Where even now, in vibrant canopies, The twilight songs of bird to hidden bird Rose up in wild, untutored harmonies More lovely for their never being heard.

when your man comes home from prison, when he comes back like the wound and you are the stitch, when he comes back with pennies in his pocket and prayer fresh on his lips, you got to wash him down first. you got to have the wildweed and treebark boiled and calmed, waiting for his skin like a shining baptism back into what he was before gun barrels and bars chewed their claim in his hide and spit him stumbling backwards into screaming sunlight. you got to scrub loose the jailtime fingersmears from ashy skin, lather down the cuffmarks from ankle and wrist, rinse solitary’s stench loose from his hair, scrape curse and confession from the welted and the smooth, the hard and the soft, the furrowed and the lax. you got to hold tight that shadrach’s face between your palms, take crease and lid and lip and brow and rinse slow with river water, and when he opens his eyes you tell him calm and sure how a woman birthed him back whole again.

In my end is my beginning prologue With a sharp comb dipped in ink I’ve tattooed my life story all over my body. I’ve tattooed the footprints of my children — this way 
I carry their walking with me; the footprints of my twins who died before their feet touched the ground. And the footprints of my one-year-old son, James, whom I pray for daily. i: dent-de-lion Because I bore the lion of my father’s country my Maries and I picked dandelions — lion’s teeth. All our childhood we picked them — blowball, cankerwort, doon-head-clock, witch’s gowan, monk’s head, priest’s crown, worm rose Mary Queen of Scots Mary Queen of Scots I held their gold beneath my chin; imagined the lion rampant — its tongue, its claws on my skin. When I find the tallest stalk I know how much I’ll grow. I weave their sun bells into my wedding bouquet. When I blow seeds from the puffball and three remain — three children will I bear. Mary Queen of Scots Mary Queen of Scots ii: the caulbearer When he was born a shimmer of womb-skin stretched across his face — I knew then he would always be with me. I carried the caul through all my years in captivity. I imagined the membrane attached to his plump baby face like a coral headdress; I spoke to it, willed it to carry my letters, my messages into the drowning depths of his night sleeping head. iii: daffadowndilly Despite the westerly gales, despite the persistence of snowfall the daffodils are opening. They are opening the way tapestries, labored at one stitch at a time, suddenly arrive at something whole. Mary is stitching her name over and over, pulling the threads through her long fingers. For nineteen years her name has been a plaything. The ends of her fingers weave puns and anagrams. She is a woman of many names — she has woven a self to match each name — Tu te Marieras Veritas Armata Sa Vertue M’attire Tu as Martyre And the daffodils, they too have many names — Daffadowndilly, Narcissus, Lenten lily, Easter bell. How they weave themselves out of the grass, out of the green shoots and sheathed leaves; heads hung, necks waiting to be snapped. iv: the mermaid and the hare Though all my life I’ve worn dresses of mohair, damask, or serge, stiffened in the neck with buckram; though I wear breeding layers of petticoats, farthingales expanded with hoops of whalebone; they’ve removed my heart-shaped cap, my mourning veil, stripped me bare to the waist, replaced my silver hose-covered legs with the wet mucus of a fish tail. Two husbands dead — they visit me nightly. In dreams my hands turn into gudgeons, chubs, loaches; the white magic of a hare biting at my heels. v: snowdrops When they are ready they send for her. There are so many of them — men who must watch her die. The snowdrops outside her window change color in the sunrise. She is tired. She has lain awake all night. She is dressed in black with a long white veil — a caul to keep her son close to her. She counts the pearl acorn buttons on her satin dress; she counts the double string of rosary hanging from her waist. Her God is ready for her; his body hangs above her and she carries his cross into the great hall. Pearl queen — she imagines the hall is filled with pearls and the pearls are snowdrops. Into the sheer purity of it she will fall. She is going into the arms of her mother. In blood she came, in blood she will go — stripped to red petticoat, red bodice, red sleeves. She feels herself glowing in the center of the hall — sister to the fireplace; curls burning around her pale face, her auburn eyes. Hunkering for final prayer she commits herself, kneels to the block; hot fur, breath, the pounding heart of her lapdog pressing against her leg. She gasps as the phoenix in her chest breaks apart her body with two blows — one from each wing as it rose. vi: red and white Though it was the color of mourning, for my wedding I wanted to wear white — The color of fresh snow and milk The color of Isis and for wrapping the dead The color cloaking the early monks The color of the sacrificial lamb The color of the transfiguration of our Lord The color of the unicorn My colors are red and white — a white veil flows from my pale face and tight red curls. When I walk in the garden I scatter sunlight. I am titanium white I am Sirius I am an Arctic fox My heart is ermine I am a white horse ridden by Conquest; you will remember my name.

And then when you stand where it is quiet so that you notice when thought ends and listening begins when listening ends and seeing begins when a bird flies when you glide as a black bird and scream when you start to speak in the clear air and can speak of nothing but the light as if it were the first light when you cast a shadow on the rock and say my shadow stays and the rock passes away when at this moment it is true that it is good to attempt the entire mission you can call the desert by its name Translated from the German

We fought in Salem, as she nosed the rented car through streets that stubbornly refused to match the squiggled lines accordioning from my lap. She pressed me for direction as I spun the folding paper like a compass point, urged me for instruction as I traced the lines like Braille, my fingers blinded, tapping out the spell of history; I could not navigate this town. How could I explain the pall of Salem? There’s not an inch on Earth that isn't steeped in blood— corpses pushing up the cobblestones in every town, and the buildings that blunt the sky are girdered in bone. One could travel anywhere and feel that chill, the hovering of ghosts above the landscape, the past’s damp breath against the ear. This town, though, descended like a shroud upon my holiday; Salem, its rectilinearity compressed the ribbon of my spine and sealed my thighs like doorways to a crypt; Salem, its somber abnegation, grimmest reprobation sought to suck me to a hollow shell through which the vengeful cries of God then could be heard. My lover, steering wheel in hand, stared into narrow streets with the eyes of a dark bird. “Which way,” she cawed, “which way?” But mine glowed with the blankness of a woman swaying from a noose, clothing asunder, curses drowning in an airless throat, spirit driven from its home; it circled now above our heads. The useless atlas crumpled at my feet, it could not lead me to a place where threat did not bear down like heavy stones; we fought in Salem.

When liberty is headlong girl And runs her roads and wends her ways Liberty will shriek and whirl Her showery torch to see it blaze. When liberty is wedded wife And keeps the barn and counts the byre Liberty amends her life. She drowns her torch for fear of fire.

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all, That which is gendered in the wilderness From lonely prairies and God’s tenderness. Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream, Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream, Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave, Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire— Fire that freed the slave.