The Village on Horseback: Prose and Verse, 2003-2008
Page 6
who have gathered in the papal gardens. A peculiar hand gesture
accompanies the statement. This gesture is much imitated
later that day and in the days to follow. Would that I could say
it was just the opening of a hand, or a gathering
of fingertips this way. No, you must observe it for yourself,
or read Cartoccio’s treatise on the matter. Later popes
resigned themselves to its loss as a tool of governance, so difficult
was it to master. But even now the sentence is being repeated.
Piccate, with his braided beard, his sun-scalded brow, is led off in chains.
Unbeknownst to the guards, you and I follow to his estate
on the hills outside Rome. He is put inside the main building,
with all his household and all its attendant creatures.
Hoisted above this building on scaffolding huge caul- drons tip
inevitably sealing the house in four-foot-thick
impenetrable hot wax. This was apparently
common practice. Skeptical thought must be dealt with
entirely or not at all, so says the Manual of Kings
and we who would rule must learn their fluid lessons.
To that end there is preserved, in a vault beneath the Vatican,
the house-entire of Cardinal Piccate, still sealed, hermetically,
poised in its last obdurate skepticism, caught beneath a lens
broad as a careful century.
The view from outside is stunning,
Cartoccio wrote, though it can in no way be compared
to that view achieved from the inaccessible interior.
Bestiary 17
A boundary. Laughter in the spanning rooms
I am forced to attend, one by one.
How attached they are, these unlikely places
one to another, street to gateway,
gateway to stair, stair to corridor
and from there — hidden rooms
and cluttered portals.
They say, I sang a song and you were in it
but you left just as I began. How I believe them.
It is a terribly hot summer
and from beneath this shading tree
there is a song just faintly, prompted
by my heel, each factored place singing out
when I have crossed some bordering veil.
But now I have my hearing,
and a group of men come into view,
walking with the theater, livelihood and jest.
Theirs was the tune I heard. Never to belong
to me, save in swayed refrain, or in the manner
of a berth laid by, as it was spoken to me
by the grand ship incidence, that said,
This is the tunnel through which the water flows
and I will bear you as water is borne: in a bucket, in a pan,
or loose throughout the drowning sea.
2 — Later Manual
Missive From a Room in Pau
A slightly pale tinge to the day,
as if even now it were being remembered.
Asking Advice of the Scissors, in their Small Drawer
By way of introduction, I use a soft white handkerchief
to polish the lens of my spyglass.
Afterwards we spy on your enemies.
Shall we attack them one by one
in the supposed safety of their beds?
Missive In a Room in Pau
A child on an invisible donkey demands your attention,
but you go right past him during an autumn day
one hundred years from now.
I appear at times
I appear at times to children when they go alone too long,
saying — sister, brother, how has it been with you? Dim forests,
balked women, these have sown signposts, not children
upon the broad aisles. For it is in belief that our progress
has long been halted. Tell me, what momentum stirs us
but truth and avoidance. Oh, long night’s approach
upon a warning. Long day, day all through afternoon
and the men who watch beneath the wooden shelters! I say
go to them, speak there, speak your fill. But then — how little
there is to say. I demand of you, the things you thought last night.
Tell us, you must tell us. You must tell us and grow old.
Missive In a Room in Pau
I saw you on that windy day when you were
as yet of no account, roaming the streets in a borrowed coat,
practicing the deft touch, the brief smile, and the slight collision
that are THE PICKPOCKET’s FEW FRIENDS.
Missive From a Room in Pau
The town was so small you could only glance at it out
the window of a moving train.
Here is some information about turtles:
The Corinthian Ambulant Turtle is named for its tripartite crown, a growth of horn to which scientists are troubled to ascribe utility. The Corinthian is the largest of the box turtles, being an incredible five feet in length, from tip of rear claw to sharp forebeak. It is noted for its dissimilarity to much of placid turtlekind. In nature it is perhaps closest to the brutal snapping turtles of North America, which are quite capable of snapping a small branch in two, particularly if that branch is being poked at them by an unctuous child. The Corinthian subsists upon a diet of Vruvkii nuts from the Vruvkii tree. These grow on the slopes of the Limbok Mountains east of the Urals. It is difficult to say whether it is the fault of the Vruvkii tree or the Corinthian Ambulant that neither have spread across foreign geographies. Certainly should one do so, the other would follow. The tree cannot spread, for its seed is carried within the nigh impenetrable Vruvkii nuts. And the turtle cannot spread, for on what would it subsist, were it to pass beyond its precious orchards of Vruvkii? In scientific tests, Russian researchers have managed to break the nuts, but it required the persistent use of a steam drill. Only the irresistible jaws of the Corinthian Ambulant Turtle can break the nut clean as by a whim and, digesting the tender nut, release the Vruvkii seed into the soil along with its own fecal matter. In terms of literary and historical significance, the Corinthian Ambulant has known both. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is menaced by one of these beasts while out picnicking as a child. And none other than the famous Rasputin was known to keep one at his side at all times. That turtle, nicknamed Levkar Klevar, meaning, Head Lost in the Clouds, can be seen in pictures from the period. Canning’s Momentary History of the Occident’s Orient includes a passage devoted purely to this marvelous beast:
It was with trepidation, then, that I stretched out my gloved hand to pet the thing. For had it not that same day snapped the Countess M.’s arm off at the elbow? The priest assured me there would be no repetition of such untowardity. I can report that its crown is quite hard. Were I not gloved I might have scratched the skin of my fingers on one of the many jagged edges that press forth. Though I cannot agree with Rasputin that it, rather than the lion, is king of beasts, I can say with some authority, it is certainly a king, though of what, I know not.
Inventions
Some having posited a lion, others must posit the lion having victims.
These victims in turn must posit things, things that are lost within the lion’s grim and enfolding city, that belly-land of growth and indolence.
100th verse
For though I think that what we are
we are not long or sour: grosvenor,
selah, or a game of chance; it is
soon said: lay me at your feet as if
to bid the world with its own name.
What name could that be? Who,
tearer of the dog sinew that contracts
vowels, could force a stated name
as mantle to the world? Enforce a name?
It would be easier to bear a prophet
from between pale legs. There are not
many prophets, nor many right names.
And in the air a sky is forming.
A Scolding
And so you see, my little jars of marmalade, there’s trouble enough in the district,
and trouble enough in your heads without you going rambling about the shantytown,
nickels clattering, on your way to gamble with that pie- bald rascal, old Head-of-a-Mule!
Verse
Do I subscribe to that living which may be had
from faith in events? One may
persuade the ground to house vegetables,
pages to house unforgivable solutions. Really,
there are none, only names and this listening.
Hours conclude what birth begins,
not death but sympathy. Men agree
on seven things only, and six will go
undiscovered. We know vaguely
what the earth is, ourselves shapeless in a fog.
The secret signal of the greatest landed
invasion was a verse by Verlaine. Now
I sit, wondering what movements
of men may take my words to herald
deeds to which they’re sent.
One may sit alone, housing hours in a cupboard
with which only this may be done,
to suppose that one may smile, and in smiling
find a damning fact — things may seem true.
Then, the sound of a key in the door—
people enter the room,
your name unspoken in the air about
their heads. What can you say
to such people? Not you, not you—
only life can force them away.
The Distressing Effect of Rumors
I reached into the jar, and sought out their little heads with the palm of my hand.
I could hear them talking and scuffling about.
One said:
Because of the present circumstances, we will soon be forced to sell our children.
To that another replied:
But what of we who have no children?
Missive In a Room in Pau
— What can you do to be of use? asked the Inspector.
— I can make a noise like a bee and I can run fast around corners, said Jana politely.
Balloon Diary, week of the pastoral revolt:
Miles of hedge, farms, fields. Beneath my hand, the tiller is like the soft neck of a soft necked girl when girls come to you for the first time, not knowing who or what they are. You tell them, and they rise like the pasture lands as we float and flourish. I feel sometimes that I am like a god-cloud, harboring useless intents that cannot possibly apply to the things upon the ground. Yet sometimes we descend, Balloon and I, to sample the wares in a market, or touch the aged faces of the orphanages on southward tending prairies. As we passed in evening above an esplanade on which satin girls cavorted, touching hands and lips to satin boys, a man came whistling along and hid in a barrel, hid his body first and then his face. Oh my I said, I wonder. . and wondering, I paused the balloon as you, my friend, might pause your finger above an item in the evening paper. Another came soon along the narrow cliff-walk, a bright-eyed lad in a fresh suit, with a tiny bottle of medicine balanced upon his outstretched hand. It was the serum meant to cure his village, afflicted to the east. This fact came later, in the guise of further suffering, when it seemed that all the suffering had been meted out. Or perhaps I lie! Perhaps it never came at all! In any case — a fine looking lad with a glass bottle, a fine looking barrel wherein waits the curiosity of the modern age. Yes, the barrel burst as past the waistcoat walked. The serum was snatched and no explanation given, but for a sliding from shadow to shadow like imagined monkeys that are not real monkeys, but seem so for a moment. The lad grasped at the barrel shards as if some intelligence might be had from them. In the bottom of the barrel he found a deck of cards, all the cards blank, save the seven of clubs. To it he gave a name: Pistol that I Forfeit. And vowing to forget his plague-ridden village, he traveled into the distant lands of Avecture and Intiman where he made a name for himself as a slayer of false doctors.
Of course, I followed the interloper in my balloon for leagues. He was a loper, a real long-walker of the old variety. But faced with a balloonist, well the outcome is obvious; he could not escape. With my long hooked pole I caught him up.
And if the pollywog doesn’t keep her date with the pastrychef, then the silly little waxwork owl won’t hoot and wake the milk-maid and I promise, I really promise, we’ll be visited by hellions in the simpering night.
The Well
A small boy lived with his grandfather in a little house on a large property. On the far back hill of the farthest corner was an old cemetery. The gravestones had been brushed by the wind and rain until they were small white markers without word or direction. The boy loved to go there, for the grass was deep and soft. And in between the gravestones it was always very quiet. And there was a well. The grandfather said it was the deepest well in the world.
When they dropped stones down, there never was a sound, no matter how long they waited. And in a place like that, you can wait a long time. Not even the sun could reach the bottom, not even at noon on a clear day.
The boy began to spend all of his time there, looking down the well. His grandfather began to worry about him. He told the boy that he was no longer allowed to go there. And one day his grandfather locked the cemetery gate with a long iron key.
For a week, the boy stayed away. But it seemed to him that the rest of the property, his grandfather’s house, even the world of the town, was gray and shrunken. He wanted only to lie in the quiet of the cemetery and gaze down the well.
Days passed in the drudgery of dust caught in household sunlight. Finally it was too much for him. He stole into his grandfather’s room and found the long iron key on a hook high up on the wall. He pushed a chair underneath. Climbing onto the chair, he took the key.
Away he went through the tall grass to the high hill and the cemetery gate. He slid the key into the lock; the gate swung open. Beyond it, the path was a clean rut through the green. In the field and by the road the world’s bustling had been loud in his ears. Now in the shade of the cemetery the boy felt soothed. He lay down on a bed of moss and fell into a deep sleep.
In his sleep he dreamed of climbing into the well and dropping through the loose air to land softly on the bottom. A man was there. He seemed familiar. Beside him was a woman. They took the boy in their arms and their warmth was a long warmth. There was a staircase leading downwards. Its stone steps were smooth marble. He took their hands and descended the stair.
He woke. It was afternoon and quiet. The sun was cradling his mossy bed with a hazy slow light. He went to the well and looked down it. Old smells seemed to rise and greet his nose. He remembered the faces; he remembered what was at the bottom of the well. He felt then that he had come round to the beginning of a world that was gone.
Away across the landscape, the boy’s grandfather ran on skinny legs, waving his arms. But the boy did not hear him. The boy was standing on the side of the well. The grandfather yelled and redoubled his pace, struggling to run through the bracken. But it was no good. Into the well the boy went. Into the well he went for good. And he fell for a very long time.
Missive from a Room in Pau
And now we have come to that last country of THURSDAYS and JULY.
Autoptic: 1
At five, I relented and began to speak.
For much of my life I forgot
that this might even be regretted.
Autoptic: 2
I began with the anger of friends
and gathered it beneath my coat.