::Spezzato::

Talisman

Forget yourself � really
walk with your feet
on the goddamned dirt.
Tangle moss in the crowns
of your teeth; lick dung
like gumdrops and draw
draughts off the lips of
the dusty wind. Taste that
smoke. Walk with broken
feathers in each hand, sylph.
Stretch out your arms and live
just off the grit of your shadow.

]]> [final draft of an old poem]

In a Belfast Arcade

I saw a black boy
in deerskin and headdress.
He wore moccasins on his feet,
beads about his brow.

Young and working
for the wild west, he was
hired for his dark skin,
in another's for a while.

This was his break.
Spurred by the moment,
he trod among Saturday strollers.
Shoppers stared at the Indian boy.

How they became him,
his skins, fringes and feathers
like foreign letters for the sacred
or absurd. Magic was bound

to him, however cheaply.
He had no time to lose. He strode
through, easily now, then danced
a conjurer's dance away, smiling.

rendezvous

every time we run
into each other, it turns
out you're beautiful

hi, pretty lady,
you say, and I'm too awestruck
to interrogate

for irony, since
you were beautiful straddling
my upside-down bike

that day, smudged by grease
as you built the blue-gleam frame
I could ride and ride

or the stormy night
we came in rain-wet by chance
to the same hotel

but especially
the day we met and I did
not see you at all

Up & Down

In the end, I've learned to write
like a waterbird breaking
off water into flight, after hours cowering
at the tread of invisible beasts,
amidst decoys, false-calls. Nothing more
to be done, I burst from the reeds, finally flew
straight into the buckshot and was taken
powerfully, gathered lovingly, rendered down.

Neon Green

[first draft]

my old teacher told me

I was young once, hitched
all the way to New York City
as a boy from West Virginia

heart leaning lump-like
rough white clay toward truth
he felt uncolored, unexplored

my old teacher told me

I travelled east with a guitar
to New York City's zen center
and on the steps I met a monk

and a green lotus-posed statue
of the buddha burning green green
so neon searing that he asked, Why?

It turned green when the bomb hit
Nagasaki, and has been so ever since
said he, then laughed and laughed

and I've never learned another lesson since.

Non-Artsy Entry

Do you read this anymore? I've been kept away myself lately: by grad school, visits and illnesses, living overseas and travelling a lot. I'm writing one sort of book, and then I'll be writing another.

How are you?

I know comments are still broken. My webmaster forgot to tell me how to log in. I really only asked once. Email mo.evans over at gmail in the meantime, if you'd like to say hello, or send post to Castle Chester / 34 Marine Pde. / Whitehead, co. Antrim, UK / BT389QN. I tend to write letters.

I've penned plenty of poems while in Ireland, and I'll eventually get around to sorting and posting them. Until then, expect intermittent scribblings, just like the good old days.

Thanks, stranger!

μικρόςσκοπεῖν

This summer I dreamed
and spoke to you in dreams
not really there, leaning towards
the sleeping real you as a seedling
towards a dream sun, that is, the only
one we know of; the spectre of our own
begetting and begot, all we forgot somewhere
in the space between telescope and slide, the one
that holds the cells that write your fate, the light in your
eyes. Too late, I met you. We spoke few words close together
and stitched this lifetime through a dark facade of waiting to see.

Unsent Letters

pour la photographe

[Lunaria]

Do you have your glasses on; do they touch your face and leave
a faint mark, self-portrait as tender as toothbites on the wrist
of someone with whom you only intended to say goodbye?
Does the light glancing off them move towards or away?

[Dracaena]

With the insistence of palm fronds,
I am a smooth, flat, pliant thing, wound up
to such an extent of tension, to such a hard point
that my mind is neither giving nor receiving, neither
space nor substance. My mind is a mould for a tool.

[Palmata]

Some of this dulse bears calciferous patterns, like stone honeycombs; others, neon green nipples, indiscernibly floral or faunal. I lose myself consuming long tatters; I knit them through my teeth and down the gullet, warts and all, wondering how such things let me live off them, as you do � simple, necessary, and redemptive even of the general ambivalence of life.

[Thuja]

The air of forests in the north
is always cold as heavy cloth

laid over the clay of one's own
heart in the cautious studio of time,

to gauge the capacity of the animal
you will become once kilned into

hard imperviousness, then forced
to utter human words that crack

the mask of all your wilderness
into pocketable pieces of lore.

righteousness

in sleep your hand is
warm and heavy, soft across
my breast; just a dream

in wakefulness, when
your hand's a bullet, it could
punch right through my chest

Mirror haiku: two true but opposite images illuminate one subject.

First Words

My mother spoke to me
early; I was swaddled in words.
�Will I? Am I? Do you think�
she said, until I understood these
were questions I was being asked.
I took my mother in soft mouthfuls
emitted to me alone in a room.
I heard my own name and kicked
free of myself like a knitted boot.
My mother spoke to me all the time.
She wept and cast me to the ground
like dice, until fate changed one day
and I not only listened, but heard.
It was summer on the prairies.
Locusts sang, until in their winter
silence, I could ﬁnally speak back.
My mother spoke to me, but it was
long before I understood that
although she was saying �daughter�,
what she meant was �sister�, and
the only one listening was me.

Pre-occupation

In sight of paradise, but out of reach of gods,
we don�t blame the girls, or try to tame their
unkilled wanting, their gazing outwards,

nor stop them when they go to the highway
beneath veils of snow and passage, capes
of thick black hair across their shoulders.

It�s said they never wash their light-thieving hair �
otter-gleam, androgyne, cedar smoke � but instead
pour oil over each other�s scalps, work in ribbons

of warm liquid: oolichan, Oregon grape and larch.
Drawn down by comb and hand, soft ﬁngers of family
migrate bone beneath head skin, shine each strand.

What oils, what answers? Salal, hemlock or spruce?
Their eyes skirt questions and are heavy with unknown
resolution; they�re set upon the highway, while I look

to them, gathering something sweet from the frostbitten
wild. How I long to bury my mouth against their napes
and apologise for the guillotine of our very presence.

Salton

Beneath the big, just-lit sky, the desert. Miles and miles, prickles and stones.
The sun already a hot shock across our cheekbones. It was a dry quiet,
so profound we made love in the open, clothed only by dove call. Near noon
we were packing the tent when he appeared: soft, full, dust-nuzzled gut;
chest like a dried mango. Sunburnt, once-wine, now-coral shorts. Everywhere
scaling skin and tousles of grey sweaty hair. Red face at once swollen and dry,
pebbly white teeth and eyes� his eyes�

�Got two bucks?��I didn�t understand this, there.

His eyes: two blue pools in the desert, sad and clear.

Alice

to rise with the sun
her sleep-hot feet
must hit the ﬂoor
kicking for slippers

her sleep-hot feet
dry as old oranges
kicking for slippers
full of cold stiffness

dry as old oranges
after all these years
full of cold stiffness
as she lights a smoke

after all these years
still thinking of Mac
as she lights a smoke
awake on her tongue

still thinking of Mac
in clouds of her breath
awake on her tongue
outside the screen door

in clouds of her breath
she feeds winter birds
outside the screen door
catches seed in her hand

she feeds winter birds
remembering hunger
catches seed in her hand
to crack with her teeth

remembering hunger
their singing cuts winter
to crack with her teeth
to rise with the sun

]]> NB: a (non-rhymed) pantoum for my great grandmother, who lived in Dauphin, Manitoba.

Spicy Pear Chutney

Golden, thick and intense. Makes about six 250ml jars.

In a heavy pot over medium heat, saut� until golden:

5 Tbs olive oil
1 onion (finely diced)
1 thumb of ginger root (grated)
4 large cloves garlic (minced)
Tbs garam masala (or mixed pie spice)
tsp freshly ground black pepper
tsp chili flakes (or 1/4 tsp cayenne)
1 large bay leaf
1 sprig rosemary

Lower the heat and stir in:

6 pears (diced)
2 green apples (diced)
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange
cup celery (finely diced)
cup apple cider vinegar
1 tsp salt

At the same time, add 2 cups dried fruits; for example:

.5 cup dried dates (diced)
.5 cup dried apricots (diced)
.5 cup dried cranberries
.5 cup sultana raisins

Simmer partly-covered for 30 minutes, stirring frequently. When all is stewed together, add:

juice of the zested lemon
juice of the zested orange
T Worcestershire sauce

Taste for flavour -- add more spice, vinegar, or a touch of brown sugar if necessary; just cook in for 3 more minutes.

Funnel chutney into metal-top jars. Fill up to the shoulders. Wipe spatters from the rims and close firmly.

Immerse jars in a pot of boiling water for 15 minutes. Remove from the hot water (this is tricky; use tongs), and let jars cool completely before storing.

Fauna

I never even noticed that door
until she walked through it, grace
herself casting earthworm magic
through inscrutable muck.

I'd been stuck for days. My eyes
were caked with mud, mercilessly
rich and fertile, as I twisted lamely
in the root grasp of myrtle.

So that when she appeared,
a cup of warm wine half-ﬁnished
in her hand, the other outstretched
like a kite working the storm

and winning, she passed through
a door I hadn't seen. I was stultiﬁed
and in love. I forgot myself, and her eyes
touched mine as though passing the salt.

So comfortable, so cold. Then she was gone,
and I cannot ﬁnd the door. I recall that she bore
snake bites for bracelets, knives at her knees,
burrs laced in her hair, herself like a key.

]]> NB: Fauna, whose name was taboo, was known by Romans as Bona Dea, was a sort of goddess of empowered female fertility. She was worshipped by lower-class citizens, especially slaves and oppressed women. She is variously the daughter/sister/wife of the god of fertility, Faunus (aka Bacchus). She is understood as a sexual but chaste woman.

Macrobius reports that Faunus tried to force her to have sex with him, and beat her with myrtle twigs when she resisted. He prevailed over her by turning into a serpent and penetrating her in this form. Plutarch explains that Faunus killed her with myrtle rods when he discovered she had been secretly been drinking wine�a pleasure forbidden to women under old Roman law.

By all accounts, Fauna struggles against a male in authority over her, who responds with violence. This injustice symbolized women's oppression to her seceret votaries. No mention of man, myrtle nor wine was permitted in her rites of worship.

Fauna represents the thin line between the wild from the untamed. She brings prophecy through dreams and voices in the wild, and her association with dreams and nightmares again connects to humanity's dark and untamed nature. Read more about Fauna here: http://bit.ly/fauna .