I don’t see that moon as a sign of the times. Not when her secret heart tells me I’ve been a good boy.
I don’t feel the faces of other countries on the walls.
Don’t.
Can’t.
I won’t listen to the stairs or the libraries. I’ll not pawn the oath.
I won’t write about cold water. Or learn to tell myself there’s nothing else. Nothing else but walls of blood.
They brought their colors 6 hours ago. Brought their story, and By Thens, and they stand out there, trumpets crying, leaning at me.
I won’t learn the nothing else they carried here.
She’s looking down at her feet and gently smiling—in that crocodile way, says, you can’t stay here in this room. Your pillow is no lover, it won’t keep you safe. If you won’t believe me, Go, ask Alice. Open the tall prayers, negotiate. If you can.
I’d go sit beside her, but that won’t do. Not in this light. Even if she speaks my name. Even if she adds flesh and blood, and all her dreams.
Not in this light.
Not even for her sparks, each a hand that blooms on flesh and blood. They want a place in my brain. I won’t turn that light on. Not for them. She can keep the parade, and all the kisses.
She knows what is true.
And what is not.
I wish she’d tell them to take their sun home. I wish she tell all those busy crows I won’t go. Won’t be a ghost.
Not even if Alice were to ask.
I won’t stare into her grave mouth while it dances, spreading its cruel time, and unlearn what was written in The Imperial Dynasty of America. Won’t revoke my pledge and vanish, so their world of spite and petty temptation and its stone-fist doctrine can remain and flower.
I will not be struck by their flag.
The pack is out there. Been out there half the day. Erecting a Lethal Chamber to assault my window. Posting their handbills and pronouncements. Marking things. I see it. I can hear it. Hear it twist and scar.
Do they believe their straggle of fables can astonish, or conquer, my heart and its limbs? That I am some throbbing hummingbird that must circuit the black architecture their master frightens the world with?
They circulate their war, tarnish cheeks with knots of blood . . . They only seek to bruise, to mark and encrust all light with crude. They roar from abyss-colored throats, seeking, pulling on wires, calling phantoms from the grave.
They can fish, but they won’t eat my soul.
I turn away from the things—each a fierce bull pawing—they wave. Face her.
Her face is a mask. And she’s talking, spreading words not allowed in this house. But I won’t tumble. Not even with all those cold, songbird sparks coming off the hem of her robe. Not even with the whole wide world changing around me.
Her eyes are deep as a mirror. Her smile full of quiet departures. She opens her umbrella—beneath it, the Milky Way is a whirlpool of stars, soft stars. She sways, and changes her tongue. “Change.”
Her smile blurs, releasing cobwebs and corridors.
“Turn.” Soft as the saxophone that afternoon, cold, a trumpet that bends the facets in the breast.
Cold.
And someone—someone—has, has opened the gates . . .
A century in seclusion with the green birds . . . the humors of the lantern as a sedative . . .
I’ve lost my shoes . . .
(Deathprod - Reference Frequencies)
Long-Stemmed Ghost Words
(for the Mistress of the Yellow Chamber)
Weeds . . . a world of doors . . . cracked open shirts . . . tarnished faces of buildings . . . strange drumbeats of love . . . ghosts . . . ghosts of . . . passengers in an empty square (with no trains) without codes . . . mirrors and doors . . . alone . . . strange ghosts . . . dead door buzzers in dead doorways . . .
The phone called disturbed her. With just her coat and bag, walked out of her office to chase darkness again. A few quiet drinks in Ionesco’s first, of course. She hoped she’d find a little stardust in the skeletons and minutes there . . .
Most nights boredom brushed her sleeve. Yet every once and again, on a street invaded by the uncommon or iron silence, or at the top of the stairs, she brushed up against darkness . . .
The second floor reading nook of her favorite bookstore. A group, huddled, hunting fans, each gaunt and darkly beautiful in funeral black on black . . .
He was holding the thin book open. Reading his poetry aloud.
Alanna moved in closer to hear.
From each death The King’s misery narrows.
He breathes
And phrases of Oblivion
Fall from his spreading wings.
Before his eye days collapse
And the blue stories of evening,
Once loved as spring flowers by the light,
Weep no more.
His gin and embers voice falls off. He looks right, down, as if he’s lost some history. Looks like his head is in a noose.
What is that?, she wonders.
Soto voce: “It’s so sad.”
He read another passage.
Lost, yet . . .
not afraid of the soft blackness of the stars . . .
She saw a tide of clouds come. Saw him, kissed by the void, lose a few more tears. He is the son of a rigid lightless sky. Motherly instinct kicked in. Alanna wanted to comfort him. Take him in her arms, his chin on the soft whiteness of her shoulder, and tell him he would be o.k.
Last night she sat in her apartment and listened to the strange beauty of black moth guitars and circling cellos and candle-river pianos sow rapture from thoughtful yearning. Sipped tea . . . and drifted.
Now . . .
Once upon a time at dusk and the interludes of Truth find her . . .
In a hard chair in a dim corner, she sat in the last row. Listened.
Star of my exile,
echo the heartbeat that breaks,
with each rushing wave,
upon the shore
Of Carcosa
A flutter of applause . . . the assent into air, chairs are freed of the weight . . . eyes shifting, watching, accelerating . . .
An exuberant few rush to him with copies of his book of lost days to sign. She sits in her corner. She is good with coffins and gravestones and quiet storms. Many times she has waited before. Waiting again does not change or harm her.
The labyrinth of limbs gone.
—Hello
—Hi
—I saw you
—I was listening
They talk. Chance between them.
They go.
Drinks in a soft blue corner in Mur.
Slow. Both are.
Then
a threshold, a spark—solid,
corks uncorked
. . . pouring out.
—Camus
—spaghetti
—M
—Kwaidan
—The Pillow Book
—beautiful things
—you are
Masks set aside. The madness of yesterday’s carnival, that masquerade of uneasy undercurrents—deluded whispers of dust spilling, removed from lids and bosom.
A new sea. Sparrows of Now, running wild, wings clear of mourning . . .
Closer.
Each chooses Now.
Fingers woven in fingers.
They bind the interest between them with tomorrow.
Eyes without excuses.
—Voluptuous Panic
—The expanded edition.
—Yes. Kakadu
Laughter . . . each gives a little . . .
—Steppenwolf. When I was lost in hungry childhood days of thunder, and graves . . . Young
—You still are
. . . The bottle empty they go, strolling, taking in gentle rewards.
Alanna’s apartment.
White tea.
He watches the teacup touch her lips.
She watches the teacup touch his lips.
> And more talk . . . magic unlatched and humming in the room . . . They do not hear the language of the clock . . .
A raw sun comes into the room. Opens its yellow throat . . . stretches into fire . . .
The poet, smitten, leaves Lady Luck.
She takes to her bed of quilts. Hugs the fluffy whiteness of her extra pillow. Wonders if he can write beautiful things on flesh.
~*~
Waiting.
For the second date.
Ready. And nervous . . .
Her hair.
Her eyes.
Her clothes.
Just so.
Waiting. Anxious.
An interlude of amore becoming visible . . .
She blushes . . .
And he—music, a kiss, is there . . . Leaning in her doorway.
In his good pants and good shoes.
—Hi
—Hi
—Ready
—Yes
. . . driving through the city . . .
Weeds . . . a world of doors . . . tarnished faces of buildings . . . strange drumbeats of love . . . ghosts . . . ghosts of . . . passengers in an empty square, waiting . . . mirrors and doors . . . strange ghosts . . . dead doorways . . .
Laughing.
The top is down. The moon up.
Alanna holds the single, long-stemmed yellow rose he brought for her. Smiles. Laughs with just her eyes.
Miles. Other cars fall away . . . their ship sails to a different port.
. . . secrets begin . . . dead doorways . . .
Journeying. No compass. The streets and roads swallow them as they invade autumn in his automobile.
Shadows race . . . they are the wind breezing in a pleasant country . . . each passed tree, the moon’s softly-lit rose . . . a gate in the knot of wild green . . . a garden spot where the moon’s restive soul is reflected in the still water . . .
She spreads a soft green quilt of unbalanced borders in the tan and yellowing grass.
He lights a candle.
An unopened bottle of wine sits on its side in the thick grass . . .
Without faltering he removes his boots. Her blouse comes off.
. . . Open to his voice. Open to her touch. She collects his soft whispers . . . The energetic web, long-limbed, beautiful with their clothes almost off . . .
Flying . . .
Gestures drawn . . .
He touches the griffin tattoo on her left shoulder. “Yes, treasure you are.” Her finger traces the scorpion-like, red etching engraved over his heart . . .
They are star to star—sparks and bells hunting soft fruit . . . adorned by a trailing razor of beginnings . . .
She fills her blue eyes with his form. Lets him mesmerize her with his meadowlark gaze. Takes him inside. Inmost, passed little and the barbwire clutter of things of ash and death filtered by a glass darkly . . .
The jewel box opens . . .
His lips are roses. Hers, shimmering lanterns of evening stars . . .
Arms a liquid shadow. Thin fingers stretched, singing—weaving . . .
Breath. Quicker . . .
The journey of searing, a hymn from heel to eye . . . The form of joy.
Fingers brush an upturned face . . .
Faster. Deep
. . . and deeper.
Revelation.
Beauty, wings and laughter, captured . . . absorbed.
. . . at peace . . . driving passed open fields . . . the top down . . . the delicate stars above unnoticed . . . Fast and faster . . . Free . . . And wild . . .
. . . Laughing . . . as one . . .
A deer in the road.
The left.
Hard. SUDDEN. Too sudden. Too hard . . .
Savage chaos.contortions. a constellation of glass spattering/a blindfold of diamond shards. cheekbones.shoulders. bent.limb and metal splitopen.UNGH—skin splitopen—torn/raped by a metal rod.blood.PAINroiling. blood=death . . .furious bites,skinshifts . . .PAINa vicious gangpushing, finding an assault of lava flowing in her veins. seconds hiss.sink in a puddle of shadows.
BLOOD.life unfastened-quickly.blood. Gone, extracted.a moment of howling . . .
“need”
. . . bleeding . . . succumbing.to the burn of harm . . .a glimpse left—lost. BLOOD.
Love (inside out) and out of light.
“help”
Alanna wakes in a sterile white room. Nurses in sterile white dresses flit in and out. The world is thick, cloudy. A distant masked pain, a quiet storm waits to thunder in her shattered ankle, in her shattered knee . . . she collapses in the undertow . . .
She awakens on the second day. Remembers fragments . . . Through a veil of fear and tears discovers she has left her left hand somewhere other than in this room with the rest of her.
Pain takes her . . .
A nurse in a sterile white dress doses her . . . the undertow pulls her into the shadow depths . . .
The world is yellow and darkening . . . Black moths lie dead everywhere . . . the great black tree is dead, scarred. In blood . . .
He is grey . . . Dimming . . . His words distant . . . graying . . .
Alanna walks in a somber hollow of autumnal grass. Black birds—Death’s eagles, wings made from old manuscripts, circle in the murmuring air . . . she comes to a garden wall, stops before a masked figure.
In a dull monotone: “The world waits beyond.”
“What world do you speak of?”
“The true world, Camilla.”
“And he, so beloved?”
Cold: “Walks in Carcosa.”
The phantom stranger points. His long skeletal finger, white as the thickest winter, stretched along the path.
She takes her first weary step . . .
~*~
The treatments. The tests, shots and pills and salves and questions. Nurses and doctors, their beaks open, rambling, directing, waiting for reaction.
Recovering . . . They call it.
Dealing with what has run away. Saying, the last thing I can remember,
the last thing I can remember
the last thing I can remember
the last thing I can remember
and again . . . digging for the moments before the storm, forgetting to pause.
Softly: “Starting again?”
Pain scraping against movement. Gathering, immediate complaints.
How?
The constant examination (slowly scanning—measuring agony) (in a hand-held mirror) of a quadrant of her face that arrogant red scars own . . . Seeing half a world. So small now . . . putting a bra over the bruised breast his warm lips touched. Trying to find answers, or windows, or a lust for life . . .
Wearing excuses to numb details confronted. Searching space and mistakes as history quakes for a place to assign blame.
Trying to get steady again. The body feeling better . . . but no less tense.
Lost.
A last silent night in a hard sterile room . . . long groans born in pained bodies she can’t fathom and rushed soft steps down the precisely lit white hall . . .
Discharged. Through the exit. Alone. Alanna emerges from the hospital. The sun is a small lion in the blue above. Birds burst from shaded tree branch to sun-touched branch. A loose dog barks at cars pushing their vivid colors through the crosswalk. She swings a small hook, resting where her left hand had been in the other life.
She wears a veil of soft yellow silk. A simple disguise, it covers the large scorpion-like scars on her right cheek. Over the hollow where days ago a clear blue eye nested she wears a black silk eye patch.
The taxi, yellow and black, deposits her at her apartment . . .
. . . alone . . .
After 10 days dust speaks its truth . . .
His pale bone china teacup still rests across the table from hers. His yellow rose gift lies withered and dead on the table. She picks it up . . . and the petals fall to the floor. Tears rain on them as she gathers the lifeless mementoes.
Wine. Her days a
lone pass . . . the sky grays . . . more wine. Less light. More wine . . . Blackness holds court.
Swept away by despair and fatigue, she stumbles from room to room searching for his face or something of him to hug and hold dear, some element to flood the room with . . . From candle light and incense smoke and remembrance she creates a ghost . . .
Bursting from her mouth: “I am so tired without you.”
. . . clinging to his ghost . . .
She tries to take it to her bed but it is too softly formed to lie in the dead leaves with her . . . a frothing wind, shuttering, she leaps from the bed of dead leaves . . .
Unnerved as it—inept in this light—dissipates . . . Stained by the fullness of her agony in the air, into the night she rushes.
Quick over the ground to his apartment.
A fist-size rock in the green bushes under his apartment window. Raised. Its heft is right. Smashes the window. Rustling through his door. She’s in.
Loud as a drum the size of an elephant, she stumbles in the dark.
Rushing through his book shelves, casts Trakl and Rikle and Baudelaire and a hundred golden journeys and death-slow nevermores to the worn carpet. Razing objects. Leafing through his clothes, touching some to her nose, to her lips. She is a cyclone without a path. All need, no thought to it, she absorbs and casts off . . . Gathering to feed her ache . . .
Looking in envelopes and storming through drawers . . . finds $850 dollars in bills and casts them to the floor with the other unwanted remains.
A photograph of him at a wedding. Slips it from its frame. Leans in, kisses his forehead . . .
She leaves with a threadbare yellow robe and his thin book of poetry. Holds his antique gold timepiece clutched between her breasts . . .
~*~
Night becomes her day.
She reads and rereads every line of suffering he’s poured into his collected translation of the cold autumn silence and the black tears that burn, sealed in soft constellations of madness, in Lost Carcosa . . .
cloud voices in the water
they sing of glamour & finished . . .
Her third night. No end to her desire. No healing in sleep. She brings out needle and ink, tattoos a line of his poetry on her flesh. Recalls the dew of his breath on her skin where his words now breathe.
The King in Yellow Tales: Volume 1 Page 18