Of Harvest Or Pestilence

All Hallows

Even now the landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
sleep in their blue yoke,
the fields having been
picked clean, the sheaves
bound evenly and piled at the roadside
among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

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Photographer unknown
Poem by Louise Gluck

An Endless Day (Wasn't Supposed To Be)

Photo: Théodore Blanc et Antoine Demilly - Carafes, 1933
Song by Moddi (click picture)


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Tiny Poem

To love the root that binds,
its embrace
like a garrote.

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Photographer unknown
Written 1/2014

Foggy 4 a.m.

Photo by me - taken from our bedroom window
Song by Atrium Carceri (click picture)

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Latest Poem

Untitled

She, the hair-trigger
smoted and pregnant
with retort.

No matter the time
the dark lumbers behind her, 
loyal & lovelorn.

Bed mates, companions,
"One cannot see without the other,
nor would they desire to."

How the night, sticky in its pain,
holds them to its chest.


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Written over the past week.

Fermata

Photographer unknown
Song by Akira Yamaoka (click picture)

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Anna

Nothing moved except a green fern pushing its way out of a jar.
In our house, truths were told in the kitchen,
always in the hum of the fridge and in half darkness:
early evening, with what was left of light gathered on rims of things,
or in the pale vibrato light before sunrise
after we'd left our warm bed
and made our way to the kitchen table.

That summer we sat on the porch as if waiting,
as if we knew it was ending.
We waved to Anna, sixteen, in the white shorts and sneakers,
already halfway down the street and not looking back.
She flew like a moth into those soft evenings,
restless in the strange mixture
of twilight and the light of streetlamps.

One night we drove to the lakeshore,
past the powerful debris at the harbour,
rows of bins and trucks, train tracks, factories.
Past places we never saw inside of.
We watched the water until midnight
and never knew Anna was with us,
calling out in the fish-burnt air,
calling from the shiny embrace that closed around her as it opened.
No one heard.
Boat lights on the surface like the rim of light beneath a door.

She floated; rigid as driftwood to the brim of the lake.
Two miles from here we sat, in the night's slow annulment of colour,
gulls like winter breaths close to the water.

Endings concur: a crossroad.
Grief strikes where love struck first.
Our last morning together we sat with Anna's family in dark rooms.
We watched her mother put a sweater in the coffin.
These are endings that bind,
love still alive, squirming in the rind of the heart.

A voice we don't recognize calls up from ourselves.
We move in closer, trying to make out the words.
That begins love, or ends it - we start to make out the words.
We give to save ourselves. We forgive to save ourselves.

We recognize death and love when we can start calling them names.
Each other's.
The name of a young girl turned ugly by our deafness.

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Poem by Anne Michaels

Do What I Tell You

The Lesser Key of Solomon contains detailed descriptions of spirits and the conjurations needed to evoke and oblige them to do the will of the conjurer (referred to as the "exorcist"). It details the protective signs and rituals to be performed, the actions necessary to prevent the spirits from gaining control, the preparations prior to the invocations, and instructions on how to make the necessary instruments for the execution of these rituals.

More information

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Where It All Started

The first time I heard this song I was 14 years old. It was playing on a friend's most amazing sound system and, I swear to God, the room tilted sideways and the world shifted. I'd been introduced to, and fallen in love with, ambient music.

It's been a love affair ever since.

Song by Tangerine Dream (click picture and just listen...ignore the awful video)

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Latest Poem

Uninvited

You arrived unannounced
bearing blackberries as gifts
round and bursting in their skin.

And though you didn't stay long,
you left them behind
on the white table linens
seeping their wild blood.

The stain is there still
growing darker
as time passes.

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Written 1/2014