Light Fragile
Light is fragile now in this place
flickers pale beneath the moon’s
blue-bright face
till unabashed the Sorcerer King stands
over a grave in daylight,
his hands occluding all the stars
with a weird-wired electric light
With crags upon his brow
and power in his face
he makes the night a day
with a delicate, feline grace
The smell overpowers
and everything is clear
arisen of rotten flesh consumptive
of history’s dear-won years
Light in his eyes now
raising fingers he creates
worlds and a world therein
and within a mirror and a shade:
the Thunderbird descends
seeking the black-clad Maid
It eats the bull-corpse’s fetid smell
and returns to the Sorceror’s hands
as if it had not first flown from them
it returns there like unto a den
He throws the bird aloft
with a flick, a sable toss
It eats the light
and flies inside, up arms and bones
To heart it bends its flight
until it echoes, breathing from dyadic mouth
The Sorcerer’s voice its channel on this
wronged night:
Orison, hail! The Buffalo Bones shake the root of the world.
I plant, so I sew. I sew, so I whirl.
I am the bird inside: the under-surge
I am the soul’s revision: the erstwhile first
a crowding, a dirge, a winged urge!
I watched the beasts fall, one by one,
until none remained at all
till the crooked spirit conquered
and the towers grew too tall
And you, I watch you Queens and Kings devoured
by myths
of so much power
by legends
of strange deeds and hours
by the wind-blown rifts
birthed from your weakness
to the West you give an eternal gift
A hard, hard wind shall blow this day
Yes, a hard, hard wind shall blow this very hour
So sung, he collapses to the ground
where he lays his hands upon the Earth and digs
looking for the black-clad child
the Emperor’s Diamond Maid
who is not to be found
He digs until the light at last sinks in deep
and above him again the darkness seeps
below: light impregnates all the hollow
On his lightless earth now again it is night
And the reverse has become the right
He sings this to the Prayerful Eye
He sings this with a windy might:
Oh piebald eye. Oh lidded eye. You’re mine.
Within you I spy, scrye the hour, the morrow
and it is mine, as I am the North
as I am the first to have spoken
as I am the first on this Earth
as I am the Blue Prince’s chosen first
He stands then to dance
and all but he stand still
sit we with hands unbent
and crowns unbowed
round the council fire
and the buffalo corpse
The dance rears clockwise
round then back
back back hands
raised to the sky,
blood upon his brow
fire in his eyes
and all his technology behind him
The world vanishes
from we Unborn, we drunk
we lecherous, we children
and appearing upon the flames:
the Sorcerer himself,
enshrined with dignity
his eyes ablaze, catlike,
with quiet rapacity
and dull hunger
he dances for the unfound Maid
We see not the girl
just his dancing twirl
and his ringing words like bright fireflies
scramble from his split-tongue mouth
both bird’s and man’s
swamped within the new night sky
melt into midair as they fly
See, Orison, I
I am mine I am thine
Thou too art mine and so thou art thine
in me and mine, so
bow to me
bow to me
bow to me
and mine
bow to me
bow to me
hey bow to me
and mine
The earth so turned
an eternity has here dwelt
in an instant of dance
and chant
We wait with dew-drop breath
and dare not disturb the air
A great knife appears
from nothing there
and hangs above the flame
Again tis pitch night
Again the same
Again the moon is a blue-bright queen
and all is silent
the air taut with the courtly demand
to bow to he and his
The fire bends
but does not bow
The fire burns
but does not slow
We stand
We move
We shake
A log is placed upon the flames
and the Sorcerer turns
backs away and waits
his eyes upon the blade
Two Princes, Four Kings
Two princes alight at point and thereupon take stand
Each speaks surely, their right self-evident to them:
I blue, thou gold; I too the right hand
Thou false I show; I the good best man
This discord breathes up within a dead beast’s eye, too
a willow tree; a sigh; the firstborn Emperor’s final cry:
Thou rust, I gold; thou too my beloved daughter’s sons
I sun, thou blood; thou each too hungry, one and one
Thou each a beaten drum that claws and bites the air
thou thrum! and thrum!
Drum home the willow’s frown
The birchbark and the sow
The wintersnow and the plow
Drum back the dead bull down
Drum back the rightful heir
The Emperor’s daughter comes from
the whitest snow and town
Drum back the dead bull down
in blood like fruit and fruit like mud
Drum back the dead bull down
To this pulse all four World Kings do alight
windblown, they arrive at this point of contentious fire
Too the wild devils and the false civilized liars arise
dressed in their brightest attire
They laugh; they sing; they drift in and land
to chew, to spit, and to decry
each to define the others’ lies
and to scream their holy bile
Here at the gory eye’s Orison, this place in lust does dwell
that desire to first place sounds:
four weeks; twelve months; all beneath the moons are dazed,
with ice-fire and the snowblind:
here they set the stage
We also alight, come to ourselves as unknowing Queens and Kings
Born here we return as twigs to lashings
do our dance across oceans
as our elders did in foregone, laughing days
and we do not recall, yet we remember
plagues and stones, ancient bones, that long hard month:
December
When one point draws two down, a blade and arrowbone
Four winds and World Kings have made this Orison fire their home
They speak! They speak! They say and groan!
An eye can be a prayer and
I am civilized; thou are beastly so
Thou are beastly eyed and lustful, lost
I shall come to know you thus
And from this we shall turn to blows
We watch, each unborn Queens and Kings,
blown here upon the wind
and in the ancient manner,
knowing not what it is we do and say,
we chant toward the prayerful pyre
We thrum toward the eye and bone:
Drum back the dead bull down
and thus we turn to blows
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