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| ISBN-13: | 9781550965841 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Exile Editions |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 80 |
| File size: | 816 KB |
About the Author
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Vanishing Act
By Giles Blunt
Exile Editions Ltd
Copyright © 2016 Giles BluntAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-55096-584-1
CHAPTER 1
WHO I WASN'T
Lazarus
I
One lifetime was enough; I bore my days
As well as any fool, chewed my portion
Of decay, nourishing a quiet scream.
Look at Lazarus, they sighed, what a man,
In bald old Bethany not one sinner
So equable, serene, so meek of eye.
It's true I was mindful of my blessings:
There was a bright day in Jerusalem,
The gold light falling, a fine gust lifting,
I perched like a buzzard on the wall
Gazing at the marketplace, the beggars,
The blind, their harmonious diseases
— O Israel, perhaps I did not love
But I felt emptied that day of hatred
Such gold the sun scattered at their black feet!
Remember your epiphanies, oh yes:
In half-light of a summer dusk as leaves
Hung down fatigued, hour and sky were folding
On the hill just west of town, a quiet fire.
I sat on the swing I made as a child
So crooked and uncomfortable it creaked
Beneath my weight. And lobbing to and fro,
Suspended, kicking gently back and forth,
A normal man with rope and bits of wood
In pointless motion inches from the earth,
I realized the miracle of flight.
I watched the sad-eyed children walking home
I heard their little skeletons click by
Pointing at me in the failing light
A skinny human hanging from his tree.
In truth, they make me sick, the villagers
So sick I nearly packed it in again
But there's no rush — one deathbed was enough.
I've lost my old concern about perfection
Perfection is death, perfect men are dead
And in this climate gods do not last long.
I think I knew one, we killed him quickly
Earth must be the Bethany of heaven.
Three dying men were slung up on the hill,
A belt of stars around the afternoon.
Their broken bodies twinkled, slick with rain.
Earth must be the Golgotha of heaven.
II
A need for closing everybody's eyes
I always had a need to disappear
Not surprising Lazarus died so young
And coming back all those damned emotions
Coming back to him to her to me we
Huddled naked in the room the dim light
All the lovers cursing one another
I was one I tried to cry and could not
Among such quantities of flesh and hair
The dim light just sufficient to perceive
The eyes the teeth and nothing to describe
The blank walls and the bodies of the three
I was one wanting to cry and not being able
And she wanting to touch and not being able
And he not caring to be touched at all
The atmosphere so chill it made him shy
So loud the curses and the cracking sound
When all the pretty bridges split apart
The delicate constructions of our youth
All splintered up nothing left but curses
Wanting to speak and not being able
Gazing at the bits of bridge the ruin
None of us could resurrect none able
Not a syllable yet all mouths open
Coming back a lot of noise coming back
The summing up and then the coming back
The sleeping yes the quiet and the death
I could have used before the summing up
What could I say I tried to love mankind
But could not do it tried to love the wife
But lacked the strength or will pretended
Far too long to continue to pretend
Mistook relief for something else again
I have slept with thirty women I said
I had three friends and never liked children
I often drank beyond obliteration
Paralysis helped me love my neighbour
Moses did I ever love my neighbour
All the strangers kissing in the gloom
The dim light just sufficient one could kiss
Whatever was at hand to plug the holes
I swear I kissed a thousand strangers
To keep the inside in the outside out
It's a common story not all that bad
Nothing you could drop a man in hell for.
After the Photograph
What you have chosen I have chosen
To abandon. Your steps in the distance
Mine in the present, will be soundless
Unceasing, in London and forever
Dying and alive. That final day.
Beyond the veil of rain
A seagull circled upward out of sight
Climbing into sound approaching voice
The rain, the lake
The outline of a hill
Encountered
And arranged themselves
According to that voice.
Such magic was the magic
You were born for
But you demanded darkness
You said I'm hungry for the night
Still
That seagull rides forever out of sight
That blotch of soaking pine remains the hill.
On what domain, what range
For and according to what?
It never mattered, never will
Your eyes are red and fixed upon
The jagged end of life, which lends us
Every good and perfect gift.
This clinging sorrow cloaks a disowned beauty
Yet the cloak becomes in this way beautiful
I remember how you looked that night
Foreign and more foreign, yes
And close my eyes to listen for
Your soundless, your unceasing steps.
December, Queen Street
The lovers in their hoods
Had kiss upon kiss
So many kisses
Yet no two the same
A drunk man drooled
Until the streetcar came
And snowflakes twirled
No two the same
Bits of a universe
Whiter than this
Night in the Gatineaux
Lights on a long bridge undulate and flicker
Dipping just so, yellow pinpricks beckoning
One who swims out, looks to the bridge and stretches
Aching to rest there
Black and dead winds hover at the riverbank
Silence the water and the weaving branches.
Yet that swimmer crawls in his windmill motion
Caught in a nightmare
Patiently one waits, elbows on the bridge rail,
Idly sings an ancient song of widowhood.
Night is her black shawl, wreathes of night the only
Flowers you give her
Clusters of stars are pinned to the Gatineaux
(One will ignore them; one marks how they gather)
Thus dividing, ever, one on the bridge from
One in the river
Question: what girl, night, or song in a female
Throat shall hang you up in that collection?
See the shoreline vanish, even as water
Drips from your finger
The Obscure Lover
Very well, she stamps her foot.
How am I to guess
Attacked with such dumb rage
What fears pour down from either fist
I know
By the scars on each thin wrist
That love is glass between our lips
And therefore I remain
A storm distilled upon a windowpane.
Tears again.
Old flames flutter on her brow
And rising up like smoke
A crowd of men
Obscure the lover calling from the bed
Rage, wrist, fist and flame are blurred
Across the image of her choice
Who hangs a silence over every word
And knots a ribbon round her voice.
She turns a touch into a fight
She turns away
But I have seen those shoulders when
The yellow light
Clung like sweat to her fine skin
She stretched by the window
Loose-limbed and warm
Her reflection wrapped around the August night.
Very well, turn away,
And I will be silent now as then.
Three-by-Five
Boys call
Along the shore
For you. They do not hear
Your silk voice rising from the lake,
My name.
She said:
I am a verb
Love is a syllable
Say but the word and my spirit
Is healed.
Cars crawled
Six floors below
Through slush. Nearly an hour
She stood with her brush in her hand
Watching.
The Renunciation
"As if there were any difference between perishing
and being another thing!" — ERASMUS
I
Light from a streetlamp quivers in your tears
You are afraid, you say, to recognize
The facts. The snowflakes fall, the night creeps by
And still you lean lamenting all the love
You must forsake. Take a look around.
You thought some wary angel treads a path
Before your feet, distinguishing the right,
The wrong, the best, the worst, from all the sweet
Temptations luring you. No doubt
Dilemmas break like glass before his wings,
His hair a golden tent in bitter fields,
Celestial philosophies his gift,
Angelic fingers, ministering hands
Caress you when your heart leaps into flame.
You thought this was religion beckoning
With oh such knowing eyes, such ancient robes,
A breathless flock falls on its knees before
The wizard turning wisdom into wine.
They'd hear a sin or two without reproach
Forgiving all you dare to let them know
Confessions turn to sermons at your touch —
In autumn, consolations from the leaves,
A crocus and a crucifix in spring
In summer, allegories of the lake
And swaddling flesh in winter anecdotes
Would be your blinding gift.
Anoint yourself.
II
The streets fan out like spokes from where I stand
Remembering the window where your face
Your face expressionless, not quite serene
Without the chance of words, without a voice
Hovered for a moment then receded
To leave the empty glass, my empty face.
–Surrender every future to your past
Betray your sleeping heart and let it sleep.
They tell me I am young, the future's mine
Come peace or war but no, I disagree.
For some, there is no war but only winter.
I do renounce that hopeful face that grins
From nineteen fifty-five; I do renounce
That string of ghosts and hang them out to die
Not me — no, no, not me — they never were.
These days I keep the planet to myself
When words like dreams and feathers fall away.
Now if it die, the earth or what remains
Shall spin its ruined wisdom round to some
Disinterested king. Some idle Zeus,
Remembering a vaguely bluer world sweeps up
The dust of his disintegrated angels
The sullen children gathered there await
His soft command, his benedictive smile
Incorporating rock among the jewels
This widowed world in benedictive grace.
THREE BY LAUREN
Darling
Darling, when you come
Inside me, then you go away
It's okay, it's okay
I've no idea what you're after
Take whatever you need
I won't bleed, I won't bleed
You are smoke and lightning
I am ashes, skin, and hair
I don't care, I don't care
Forget my name, it's written where
So many dead girls signed
I don't mind, I don't mind
Sink your teeth into my throat
Come in my face, come in my hand
I understand, I understand
But darling, when you come
Inside me, I can see my breath
Love is colder than death
Love is colder than death
— LW
Thin Ice
You loved me on skates
My taste for sharp objects
Pirouettes, figure eights
I knew you liked watching
You knew my feet bled
Only once I fell
My smile never slipped
The crowd never guessed
I have a hot red wound
A hot glass heart
For girls
Well and truly doomed
Love is the transparent art
For certain girls
Thin ice is best
I was your daughter
You taught me how to bleed
If summer comes
I'll skate on water
But for now you can read
My crimson
Hieroglyphics
I'll skate away
Let me break
Let me make
Something ragged, something raw
Something difficult to take
I swear by the blades
Beneath my feet
Part of me
Wants to kill me
That's the part
I want to meet.
— LW
Leg-hold Trap
Hold is a kind word for it
As if he said caress
When what he meant was
I'm going to break your leg
Into a red unholy mess
No need to shriek
No need to beg
He's only holding your leg
This isn't hell you're in
He doesn't hate you, after all
He only wants your skin
You have a choice
You have teeth
You know exactly what to do
Just chew your way
Through bone and sinew
Tendons, veins, and nerves
No one's forcing you to stay
Run away
Run away
— LW
VANISHING ACT
The Car
IT WAS DAWN when a long beach hove into view. I nosed the car into an access road curving down toward the sea.
The car had been travelling at high speed when I came to behind the wheel. That would have been near midnight; I had been unconscious for some time. Lit by a red moon rocks hills and forest had bounded out from obscurity toward the car tumbling into sure oblivion behind.
An army of young mothers lay stretched along the beach their bellies empty of infants. The babies it seemed had departed and fathers sat in groups muttering to each other.
A wooden dock and on the dock a child — the only child in this particular bay of creation. He wielded a hammer and was using it to nail a sunfish to the dock.
Fool
The fool was waiting for the light to change
He staggered at the curb half crippled
by the fortune on his back a frail sack
of needs and souvenirs. Blond hair
flicked across his face memories beyond
recall propelled him here and there:
A chase through rain and thunder
cunt borne down on the wet savannah
eyes in the cave the cave itself
the blood the birth the god the flood
had brought him to this pass
The far sun rose
on mountain peaks where mathematicians lift
and swing their symbols glittering with snow
In pairs they calculate the beauty
of a fool about to die
the lowest common hunger
meekest common cry
And there he stood
a young man three parts wishes one part dreams
and yearned for women women linked
their arms around him in a chain
The Virgin Mother and the Whore
came down on summer nights
and lured him to a ruin
where he wept.
But those hooded mathematicians!
That book with its crust of snow!
Pick a Card
I STOPPED AT THE HIGHWAY trying to decide whether to turn back or move on. Either way the car exuded confidence, which was no help at all.
A glance in the rear-view mirror. The sea like glass. Sail of a departing ship. I turned to look. Nothing but flat grey sea. A creative vehicle, this car.
I shoved it in gear and headed for home
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Vanishing Act by Giles Blunt. Copyright © 2016 Giles Blunt. Excerpted by permission of Exile Editions Ltd.
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