Many Musics, Eighth Series *part 4 of 8*

[cenacle]

Continued from:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-eighth-series-*part-3-of-4*/

The Queen & Her Beast


There are forces in this world no man taps,
no man harnesses, no man controls.
Yet mankind, a living thing, roots from these
forces, the plays & persecutions of its history
bides within their grasp, & though invitations
to study their roots, grasp their trunks,
set lightly upon their leaves to read the pages
better, are offered to each & all, few wake
from these, bray wildly for this more satisfying
food, & make for the boundaries.


I watched the young Queen often. Stolen like a treasure,
by agreement, from her kin's palace in the sun,
married off to the King to maintain a peaceful war,
she moved quietly within the halls of his anguish
for his dead wife. Unnoticed that she imported
her seers & witchly craftswomen from back home,
& these piddlers in magickal currents that
hardly knew them extant aided her to mesmer
the royal bed, conjure in his eyes, to his touch,
the dead woman's lips & breasts, fingers & hips.


I watched her as she came night after night
to the beach, to hidden spy the chained cows
cry in fear & hunger for their starry fields,
instead lures for powers from the seas,
victims of men's belief that blood's only choice
is spending or spilling.


When I galloped from the waves, I snapped
the links & bid them away. She trembled
too, but did not move. I approached her, huffing
& snarling. Reached in, crumpled her mask,
calmed her down deep. I showed her unfurled
power that night, sang for her scraps of
the first songs, drew her beat & breath
far from that nocturnal beach, its celestial
foolishness above, speckled riddles to mock
those wide-eyed with arrogance.


We crafted a pact, a new truth that would
birth me into her world. She agreed to the lie
that we mated, & an unholy thing emerged,
a shame to be caged, & slaved to new
bloodspill. She even commanded her tinker
build her a sex-box to receive me. In return,
as we twined, I lit her every cavern with knowing,
loosened men's harness upon her heart,
revealed its better stars, its fenceless limits.


******


The One Woods & Its Beast


There is a maw to the heart of the world
& from it I emerge. But you will find it
everywhere there is a far edge, a man,
an idea, a shattering storm. The world
is no more still than any of its creatures,
its music the transformation none will resist.


This morning is peaceful, I stay near
my best-known oaks. I think about where
I've been, where I am now, I am nearing,
I am trembling to quiet. Later there is feeding
all around me, a sharper-tongued wind,
the beautiful violence of mating. Far edges.


Close my eyes & I am the near-blind man,
my remaining sight still fluttering with
lilac & lily, moving with their scented light,
scratching up a spark by glint & petal,
behold my colored silhouettes shaped like a God-thing.


Open my eyes & I am the scrawny prick-hard
singer, finding my music beneath the night's
sweeping skirts, insisting the oldest idols
totter forward & people my lyrics,
grind bloodless hips new with the next hour's
unspent semen, its high crackling juice.


Close again & now the tall professor, behold
my sepia-washed pictures, their hard press
at your jaw & shoulders to justify now
your own sanity, resist this years-long gameâ€"


Again & now the dark man kneeling
with my horn & shredding timeâ€"


The tides, the quakes, the rosebuds in
her cheeks signaling blushing new love
or how her sickness consumesâ€"


I am quiet this morning near my oaks,
near the beating, breathing maw & yetâ€"


I would warn you from the far edges inly
& others bitter far, but hope you do not listen,
grow your berries over the cliff, move your herd
before the snows intercede, drink that potion
& watch your fingers make the world glowâ€"


I would warn you find the far edges or
bray through your bars alway, grasp them
harder, love them betterâ€"little wonder what
happens to those who cry outâ€"& climb throughâ€"


I would say nothing & let you be as I am
merely servant to the world, my task not
to preach but to rankle, stir the world's power
elsewise, give history an uncertain path,
so no way to grasp what's occurring,
& no way to know how it ends.


******


World's Wish & Its Beast


There've been times, moments, places
I've relaxed, & begun to believe. Winter lights
on a long boulevard, a hidden shade of
cool salmon over low hills. Even battlefields,
yes, on moonless nights. Close to the dying,
or dying myself again.


In memories I find it & would show it all
around if I could. We danced that courtyard
through the night before you left, & you
showed me your whys, what rotting,
what still pink. Or the flex of an old king's
fist, whatever kind of beast, the ways
power leaves, gently till abrupt. We runts
remain of the One Woods & men call us
great, urge several link arms around
one of our trunks for a picture.


Or a thing not a memory, because it didn't
quite occur. The excitement of moving bodies
swathed in sweat & smoke. The drums now,
the words later, the way live eyes
sniff & listen. Among them I chase you
that night, I cohere, I wish to know.


Your eyes crackle with fear of want,
not mine but your own. You touch
my beard as though a pet. I tangle
your hair with my fingers, still wish to know.
Someone moves in the pile of corpses, sighs,
just a little, I hush him as though a night bird,
the wind.


There is what few kings age to understand.
The world is garden, or garbage, or cemetery,
by how you stride your days, how you command
me, your Beast, when a pretty, or a foe,
or something small you fear & would prefer crushed,
how we together bound in the wide wild field
of dreams as you lay there breathing,
& beating, & a thrash, & then still.


I remember the night, it was three, or a hundred.
You were one, or several, as was I.
We'd fought for kings we'd never meet, never touch,
& never know. We'd danced & I showed you
that boulevard, those trees, your smile, long & it lingered.
As we lived, so we died, there were memories,
more forgotten. It was a time for believing,
my maps, my uniform at first light,
the half-remembered lover in a photograph.
As we together walk down empty streets, still looking on, still looking back,
there is no final thing to know.


******


The Beast & His Partner
We walked the One Woods together in my
many dreams, you singing songs in your strange
own tongue, its clicks & noises, the way pink &
yellow & blue would burst from the trunks & bushes
around us. It is always dusk, when light blurs
& lingers, when a few stars peep out in the sky.


Then I wake. And you are far, as we agreed,
& I am silent again. You leave me signs of song
in scattered clearings, spears of your colors
struck into fallen logs. I read them
as they melt, sigils none other would know.


There is something you would have me do
that I hesitate. You believe I was once a man,
& you my partner. You believe we played too close
to the Eternals in our drive to control,
to shape, to break through their powers
& time itself. Those years for me obscure in shame.


But your songs begin to convince me,
& I wish you near again. The sacrifices
we'll need to crack the maw will come soon.
They will not survive. They will fuel
the transformation. We will together
blow through the heart of the world.


My only doubt is the girl not a girl
who approaches again. I wonder if she
is a different way. I wonder if nobody
has to die. I wonder why I must choose.
I find your songs in more & more clearings.


I stand now where we first met deep
in the Tangled Gate so long ago, but
this is neither waking nor dream. I stand
here to call down the stars from the sky
& find among them a truth to hold & pursue.
I swap out handfuls, looking for the words
of light I need, crush & fold & block
their heat even unto themselves in
my relentless need. When they speak,
to guide my steps hereon, it is not men's
tongue nor your spectral one. Their message
is clear: bind the girl, consume the dancers.
Break the maw & absorb its every
last dripping of power. She awaits.


******


The Beast & the Princess


You first came in lilies & soft morning sunlight.
You first came in the puzzles & formulas men call dreams.
I sniffed you, twice, but did not know if to call you friend.


You saw me & you jerked a bit. And you smiled.
And yet you were careful. And yet careful
had not been in your nature till you saw me.


I sat near you, & tried to look like a man
& tried to speak like a man, but you shook your head
no, no bother, in this Woods there is truth.


We played a game that morning, tap the air
& loose its notes, collect the notes & shape a thing.
Gently blow & lure its colors. Nod, exchange.


Last round you conjured a small white bunny,
pink nose, mesmering eyes, tranquil but
intent expression. I held it, felt its pulse.


You shook your head when I made to clap
hands, giving the creature back to the air,
as was common. Your smile bid me keep.


Did we meet again? Several times? Then fewer?
Then all I had of you was the white bunny,
who would sniff twice & be gone for days.


Soon I only had soft mornings trying to remember
the field where we met & played our game.
Where I did not need to conjure as man to please
your company.


You do not return in dreams this time & 
I've long not shaped like men. I've long not
shaped & played the air for games.


I . . . hope . . . yes, I hope you will understand.
That you will help me with what I need to do.
That you will join us as we clap out the rest.


******


The White Bunny & the Beast


The white bunny returns, sniffs twice,
& settles in my lap, as though I am a man,
as though I am a rare & trusted man.
We still together, we watch, the morning
is full of small movements & light sounds.
Her long ears rest on my arm, as though I have arms.


I begin to remember. I am a fist of men
by a map, I am a volcano burying all.
I am many fish on many decks,
breathing hard, breathing last.
I am paintings in castles & in closets.
The white bunny nudges me return.


We sleep. I dream like a man & yet.
The white bunny looks up at me
& I follow. Faster than any man's legs,
holding a . . . white thread? Through oaks
whose leaves remain despite the winter light,
through places dark & unfinished in the Gate.


Now walking, but no longer a man's form.
A girl's slender carriage, wispy torso,
& the bunny is waiting near a hole in
the earth. Even though I am too large yet
we crawl through. A long long scrabble in the dark.
My thread gives out but I continue to follow.


We come to an ancient structure, burst
through a half-fallen wall, stand within.
Words in my head say: "The Carnival Room
is near." I am afraid, I am not afraid.
Which is truer? My face in many reflections
is hard, soft, hers, his, its, nobody's, all's.


The bunny hops quickly, ears flashing, & I follow
on my girl's light legs through rooms of
detritus & decay, at last to a room where we stop.
She looks up at me, raises her pink nose, & again,
& I enter. I hear cacophony, song. I see doors
mounted on walls, beckoning. A tunnel into
the darkness, where its long wheeled carriage
intends. Two yellow-skinned brothers observing
me, plucking stringless instruments, songs of laughter.
A tiny creature at my feet, black & white,
nattering at me in . . . click-clicks & noise-noises?
I am delighted, I wish to go. I look back but
the white bunny is gone. There is a black thread.


I follow the thread back, feeling the girl
in me recede, feeling larger & more helpless,
burst choking & breathless from the earth.
The return is swift, there is no adventure left.
I follow the black thread back to my seat
& rest with it in my hand, alone. I wake
& don't look down. No thread, black or white.
No bunny. Something wishes to convince me
elsewise. Something would have me
save what I would destroy.


******

[cenacle]

*** Many Musics, VIII, The Queen & Her Beast (xxxvii) - This is somewhat the Queen as presented in some versions of the old myths, but I am pretty interested in working otherwise with her . . .
*** Many Musics, VIII, The One Woods & Its Beast (xxxviii) - Personifying nature as a many-formed Beast, a way to represent the green world . . . it's something that fascinates me . . .
*** Many Musics, VIII, World's Wish & Its Beast (xxxix) - I like this: "As we together walk down empty streets, still looking on, still looking back, there is no final thing to know" . . .
*** Many Musics, VIII, The Beast & His Partner (xl) - A deep part of the narrative is revealed in this poem. . .
*** Many Musics, VIII, The Beast & the Princess (xli) - The Beast & the Princess are strange companions but compelling . . .
*** Many Musics, VIII, The White Bunny & the Beast (xlii) - This poem involves the White Bunny, the Carnival Room, the threads, very narrative heavy . . .

[cenacle]

continued here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-eighth-series-*part-5-of-7*/