a blade is your friend
if you allow it to taste your flesh
yourself, offering something –
blood – for service.
until you are comfortable
with being cut by yourself,
you will not be comforted
by cutting others.
the opening of a wound
is an artist’s work,
a sculpture of skin and muscle
caused by skin and muscle,
not the edge of a sword.
giving your blood to your blade
makes it flesh of yourself,
makes its steel of yourself.
Kiai!
0
The Testament of Plymouth Garibaldi
Posted: December 20, 1992 in PoetryTags: Drink, Fear, Ghoul, Sleep, Street
I try to keep awake and watch the street
While Alan, friend and roommate, tries to sleep.
We take turns every night and sometimes treat
Ourselves to tugging off of something cheap.
I wake up in a sweat because I think
My turn to watch was now, when I had slept;
And Alan knows, he hands me a stiff drink
To chase away the ghouls from where they’ve crept.
Some lonely nights we both stay up and wait
To see if one is hiding ‘round the store,
Or walking past our window with that gait,
Or crouching with a whisper at our door.
Six months ago – it seems as many years –
I didn’t dare believe or know to fear.
Further Thoughts of Nathaniel Bishop
Posted: December 17, 1992 in PoetryTags: Bishop, Blood, Book, Child, Mind, Soul, Star
My dearest Ursula is just the kind
To wilfully abandon all her soul
To satiate my Master’s guessless mind
And pour her fiery blood into my bowl
Of copper wrought from star-flung metal
Which rests upon the altar ‘neath my books.
This pact of ours is something left to settle:
A child? If only it won’t have my looks!
A Bishop heir! You’ll lose the Langsford end
And you’ll be mine, or more correct, you’ll see
That you to great Agatha I might send
And you she’ll give to Him That Should Not Be.
To Bishop, yea, the fateful book was sent,
We need results from an experiment…
I gnaw my way through coffin ends for him.
By night I stoop my way through hallowed tombs.
He waits below his house in shadows dim
In corridors I’ve hollowed into rooms.
He waits and watched me return with spoils
I’ve taken from the dead’s eternal gloom.
Beneath the graves, there in the endless coils
Of tunnels carved through earth without a tool,
The Bishops keep us slaving at their toils.
They don’t believe we feel; they think we’re fools
And that because we live in places dark,
Nobody thinks we love, they call us ghouls.
Degenerate, perhaps; a canine mark
To my appearance, but I still feel.
I wish I was human, to walk the park
And had not fell so far to sadly steal.
[terza rima]
Him, the wind, is rattling my door
Like someone trying to get in.
I think that someone could be trying the knob
But it sounds like only the wind.
if I could give you a Crow
– as if a Crow would be mine
to give – I would
give you a Crow, black and fearless
to fly before you
herding your dreams
like a best friend who knew your mind.
a Crow, wise with the wind
and a crafty scavenger, like its kind;
always willing and able to find
each puzzle-piece of happiness,
every thing you could do.
Untitled Poem #138
Posted: December 11, 1992 in PoetryTags: Anger, Coyote, Death, Eagle, Forest, Frog, Love, Sad, World
he thought of strength
in terms of eagles and coyotes:
creatures of power,
of flight and of prey.
he could hear the frogs croak
for him and for the death
he knew was behind his shoulder.
he knew that his writing
had changed. he knew that
he needed to live very differently;
to tell those he loved
how he felt, angry or sad
and live as a warrior who has
stopped the world from turning
without his knowledge.
he wanted most of all
to hold himself, that part
of his being who saw and
who guided him through
the forests and others
that he could write about
but couldn’t thread.
the child:
he, long ago, was the dam-builder,
creator of landscapes in mud
and clay
with the courage to play
a God or an Emperor
to the hilt,
thinking plastic men had lives
to give and eyes
to see the wonders he had made,
the horrors of the floods
that would inundate
and kill
thousands of these men
buried under silt –
tons to them.
He Stood Like a Tree
Posted: December 6, 1992 in PoetryTags: Birds, Cloak, Clouds, Dark, Earth, Fly, Mind, Rain, Sea, Sky, Song, Tree, Wind, Wings
he stood like a tree
on the edge of a cliff
before the sea
and raised his arms
as if wearing a cloak,
as if they were wings.
his voice flew
to the clouds in the sky
calling them to fly
for him.
the breathing of the wind
hummed in his ears,
the earth fell away;
his body lay twisted
and broken open
where his mind had left
it alone, just a tool
that didn’t work this way.
climbing stairs
of cold dry air
ascending to grasp the halos
of those clouds,
flocking with birds
and smoothing his way
with the power of his thoughts.
no need for the wings
of physical flight;
the rain couldn’t touch him,
the dark couldn’t hold him,
and the songs couldn’t
sing him away.
seriously, now: forever
and whatever comes next I
love you no matter what.
putting that into terms
crushes me; it is beyond words,
the palette I can paint with.
I can try.
nobody can make things stay
that want to go; so
it is the same with you.
a promise means the best
that you can do,
not binding forever, maybe
doomed to failure.
and I promise love to you
as my best
whatever that means…
I go to Painted Cave
not to see the pictures
which aren’t easy to see,
but just to hunt for frogs
and watch the creek flow.
Painted Cave is not just
a hole in a rock of fissures;
you can feel the presence
of paintings in the logs
that lie in the brook below.
A coyote waits
in a shallow cave
with bared teeth,
ready to spring
and chew your throat.
A painting waits
in a shallow cave
with bared teeth,
ready to spring
and chew your throat.
Bishop Speaks Only in Riddles
Posted: November 30, 1992 in PoetryTags: Bishop, Fear, Flesh, Friends, Ghoul, Story
What secrets do I have hid up my sleeve
For careless players thinking it’s a game?
I warn them that it’s easy not to grieve
When their persona is alive and sane.
Nightmare of sewers made of rotting flesh,
The ever present threat: Nathaniel’s ghouls;
These horrors from the past, they still impress,
But blind the future to these witless fools.
Your characters will come and go my dears;
They never perish like the one before.
Just tally up your growing list of fears;
The ones that really scare you to the core.
And every time you think the story ends,
I’ll introduce one more of many friends.
Eagle Feathers
Posted: November 27, 1992 in PoetryTags: Brother, Cloud, Dark, Eagle, Fly, Horse, Sea, Sister, Sky, Wind
from my hair flutter many eagle feathers,
tied to the dark ends of curls,
framing my face in the chill wind
which flies over flat expanses:
the seas and the prairies.
it is this wind which cloaks
my feathered brothers and sisters
while they hunt with their keen eyes.
in these skies, dusted with clouds,
runs the horse of my spirit
and my name, glancing from
one end of the world to the other.
these eagle feathers tug at my hair
in the wind to tell me: fly! fly!
in the yard of my childhood
stand trees that are no longer there,
they made way for a deck and some stairs.
these trees are ghosts of the wood
that supported the planks
high up in the air,
where Mom would be scared
for me, as well she should
have been. I imagined tanks
and other dangerous things:
Sauron after my candy ring,
and my happiness was my thanks
for being the young king
of a forest of trees bent with caring.
After “The Origin of Nunivak Island”, a Nunivak Eskimo Myth
Posted: November 26, 1992 in PoetryTags: Knife, Mother, Sky, Spirit, Wolf, Woman
I
my knife is bone.
I break in half
my knife of bone.
each half I place
into my mouth;
they’re just like fangs
with which I have
become a wolf.
II
to a weeping spirit woman
saddened by the sky,
I make you cut your hand
and then you break your knife.
III
mother wolf.
“Had he no staff? Then with a dream-thread he held
the illusion. Breathing, he held it; the void, the illusion,
and felt for its earth. There was nothing to feel:
‘I shall gather the void’. He felt, but there was nothing.”
-Uitoto Indian Myth from The Red Swan
He had questions, and thoughts
About feeling nothing but the void,
Wishing for earth to stand on;
Dreaming of thread to hold the illusions
Of nothing, of the void.
Weave the earth from dream-thread
And the illusion of the void.
Where there was nothing,
There is now earth.
Gather the void into itself,
Into the crook of your arm,
Into the fold of your dress,
Also made of dream-thread.
All of you, made of earth.
“Now in the underworld, thinking and thinking,
the maker of myths permitted this story to come into being.”
I want to write you
with my soul;
like a piece of bread
soaked in wine;
to stroke each word
like painting a lover,
then stand from the canvas
and murder myself
for ink.
Scarecrow
Posted: November 20, 1992 in PoetryTags: Crow, Death, Flame, Heart, Love, Man, Mind, Scarecrow
I
to look at you as a scarecrow
doesn’t work; you don’t scare me
like that.
my heavy heart just tends to grow
heavier; strength starts to tear me
apart.
II
you are a singular flame
that sears me awake
from a comfortable death
of being a man with no name.
I need you to love me somewhat;
you must speak your mind
thinking through every breath,
knowing exactly where to cut.
III
this is for no one else but you,
but don’t think you’re not the one.
this could mean any number of things.
This is all new.
All of this is new.
I am new, you are new;
to discover, each other
again,
like children at school.
$ympathy
Posted: November 16, 1992 in PoetryTags: Believe, Dreams, Lie, Love, Song, Sympathy, Trust
so nothing happened between us.
is that what you believe?
is it easy to forget me?
is it easy just to leave?
I don’t want your sympathy.
I don’t know if you lie when you tell me
that you really love me.
what do I believe?
I don’t want your sympathy.
don’t stay if you really don’t want to.
you’ve got to tell me,
what should I believe?
do you think this is fair?
is this what I deserve?
you came crying to me,
and I’m the one who gets hurt.
(chorus)
iIm trying to blame myself.
you give me nothing to trust
while all the dreams of your love
crumble into dust.
(chorus)
I am Adopted
Posted: November 14, 1992 in PoetryTags: Blood, Bones, Mother, Mountains, Ocean, Rain, Rock, Stars, Stones, Water, Wood
Adpoted, I adopt my own ideas
About who my real parents really are.
My mother; ocean and spring rain; the dew
On grass stems sparkling, a field of stars:
All water, blood that courses past my eyes.
My father – rocks and wood and muddy bones,
The mountains laid behind and raised before,
All sturdy piles of softly mortared stones.
A Dream of a Ship
Posted: November 9, 1992 in PoetryTags: Believe, Bones, Dream, Eye, Magic, Mother, Night, Ocean, Rock, Ship, Sky, Stars, Tears, Water
I sag into my bonds,
bound to this wooden chair
with water from my eyes
six inches deep on the floor.
I feel all alone on a ship
gently rocking, back and forth,
water rolling, sighing
from bulkhead to bulkhead.
my head is down
and my hair is in my face but
if I was to look up,
my pupils would birth stars;
they would burn their way to the sky.
my hands are tied with
my own intestines, wetly coiled;
every movement
wrenches my stomach
in dizzy circles, hollow
like an airplane ride.
the chair holds me up,
gives me something to be tied to,
roots me to the deck; an anchor.
my mind hurts from
holding these stars,
squeezing my eyes shut and bearing
the sting of gas
leaking through my eyelids.
sails snap in my ears;
I grow a mast for a spine,
grasping handfuls of air
through canvas fingers.
I grow old and feel my hull
rotting as it surges
through these black waters.
I grow very tired from dreaming
of the sound of surf
on rocks, a shore.
tired from creating all this magic
for no one to see.
below, I flash open my eyes
and stand forth from the chair,
wet bracelets hanging
from my pale chafed wrists,
and I climb slowly to the salt air
of the deck of my ship.
I balance on the railings,
ignoring the spray of rain and sea,
and the call of oblivion
in the depths of the ocean,
my mother. finding strength
after strength after strength and
whittling them into kindling,
like so much driftwood.
teetering on the edge of falling
from the railing into myself
forever, I like being here:
I am myself — I have nothing but me
and my starry eyes and
my wonderful rotting ship,
intestines around my hands
and an emptiness in my stomach.
there are no more tears to cry
in the hold of the ship
for the toys I have lost
when I was younger,
refusing to grow up,
to grow old.
nothing can destroy
my beliefs; without them,
I go. I would let all the stars
that I have created
stream to the skies,
shrieking for me,
for what will become of me,
a bag of bones, a sack of skin.
I remember my stars;
they will remember me,
whispering my name
through the nighttime.
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