Wallace Stevens
She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.
The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.

It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

*
The Siren
Prologue

The mermaids moved along the shore in pale silence. It was early evening and their bodies shone white in the dimness. They were unclothed and their long hair hung around their faces in all colors: black, shades of brown and red, and gold. Their legs wobbled as they walked over the sand, hand-in-hand.

One mermaid's eyes met her sister's and she smiled a secret smile. "Our other sister lives there," she whispered, gesturing to a small clapboard house on the hillside, surrounded by high weeds and rocks. Lights shone from within.

"I know," the black-haired one responded, "but the question is, how will we reach her? She has ignored our call for weeks."

The brown-haired mermaid's brows furrowed. "Her will is strong, but she cannot resist us forever. All of us must return to the sea whether or not we wish it. It is a part of our nature and it is stronger than death. Our lost ones will return to us."

The black-haired girl nodded, reassured. Her green eyes scanned the house anxiously. She hated to be parted from her loved ones. Nothing could separate them really, not love, not death. Though there were hundreds of them they were all one.

"Come," the brown-haired mermaid whispered. "Our time grows short here. We must return to the sea." They turned and walked together back to the water. Their other sisters were pale shadows on the shore, bowing as the waves washed over their thin, unsteady legs and drew them back into the water's embrace.

Labels: excerpt

A re-telling of Snow White, submitted to Gothic Writers, Inc. poetry contest

I dreamed of darkness and dreamed of you
in my snow-bound sleep
Awakened with a kiss my eyes flew wide,
my lips red as blood warmed by your touch.

You stole me away to a place
where the wind in the trees
moaned like the restless dead,
where spiders plotted my death in the dooryard
Where loved bloomed wildly,
a rose with plucking thorns

You surrounded me with the shadow of your love
till all I could see was darkness, and I dreamed.

Labels: excerpt

"You must let me go," she said. She pulled the cloak more tightly around her shoulders and shivered, looking at him longingly. The man she loved had lost his mind.

"I cannot do that," he growled through the glass, his features contorted. She knew he felt as cold and dreadful as she did. They both believed that Hildegarde was dead. Anton was certain that Madeleine would be next, and she knew his suspicions were justified.

She touched the glass as though to reach the features of his face. His face was more beast-like than ever to her now. It was harsh and angry. He would be easy to push over the edge. He was on the edge of sanity now.

"Then come to me. Don't leave me here alone. Please." She shivered.

"If my presence in the main house is missed for long then the murderer may grow suspicious. Your presence here must not be detected."

"If you leave me I will scream."

His eyebrows shot upward. "Don't do that. If you scream I will gag and bind you before I go."

She bit her lower lip with frustration. Anton had lost his mind. She was sure he would never want to inflict pain and cruelty on her, but he was doing that. "Tell me when you will return," she said.

"I will return at night. It will be safer for us to be together under the cover of darkness."

She felt relief at his words and stepped away from the window. He secured the lock, leaving her in her glass-enclosed prison. Frost covered the panes, partially obscuring her vision of the balcony and the courtyard below.

She felt despair as she stood in the center of the room, feeling utterly alone. She looked at the glass panes, wondered if she dared shatter them. Her beloved Anton had lost his mind and she must help him. He was in danger as long as he was in the castle.

Labels: excerpt, Winter Light

In a high, dilapidated tower she waited, as old as time. Her long pale hair was spread around her on the pillow, glimmering like dark gold in the moonlight. She wore an old gown which was tattered and stained with age, though the hands which lay on the bed, encircled in tattered ruffles, were pale and slender, clearly the hands of a young woman.

He stared at her with a sense of obsession, his green eyes narrowed. I will have you, beauty, he thought. You are mine in life or in death.

Labels: excerpt

Procol Harum

We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, 'There is no reason
and the truth is plain to see.'
But I wandered through my playing cards
and would not let her be
one of sixteen vestal virgins
who were leaving for the coast
and although my eyes were open
they might have just as well've been closed

She said, 'I'm home on shore leave,'
though in truth we were at sea
so I took her by the looking glass
and forced her to agree
saying, 'You must be the mermaid
who took Neptune for a ride.'
But she smiled at me so sadly
that my anger straightway died

If music be the food of love
then laughter is its queen
and likewise if behind is in front
then dirt in truth is clean
My mouth by then like cardboard
seemed to slip straight through my head
So we crash-dived straightway quickly
and attacked the ocean bed

Labels: quote

It took a second glance to see that the queen's tastes in art were debauched. In the scenes naked nymphs were straddled by eager Pans, and powerful centaurs made love to helpless maidens, horseflesh against the bodies of the women. The queen was known for her sexual appetite, and everything about her attested to it, including her attire, which clung to her body and accentuated her full breasts and hips.

She moved to him with the swift grace of a cat, her black silk skirts smoothing silently over her legs. She lifted his dagger to his throat and raised her black brows as she spoke. "If you do not do as I say, then I will take your brothers and sisters from your home. I will kill them, roast them, and serve them for my court's pleasure for dinner. I will weave your sisters' beautiful hair into a shawl and set your brothers' teeth in gold in my crown. They will glow like pearls in my hair." She smiled evenly, displaying long, even white teeth like those of a panther.

*
He stopped and dismounted abruptly, then went to her and pulled her from the horse. Jennie gave a startled cry at the angry look on his face. "That was foolish of you," he chided. "You could have been hurt. Were you trying to escape me?"

She stared at him, wide-eyed, then began to laugh. "Escape you? Yes! I want to escape you and my damnable stepmother and everything about this land. I want to disappear into the woods and never return. I want to live with the sprites and dryads and sing and dance merrily all the days of my life."

He released her abruptly. "You are mad," he growled.

Labels: excerpt

Wallace Stevens

1
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound.
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

2
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.

3
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

4
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

5
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

6
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

7
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

8
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Labels: quote

Up very early because the cats were fighting like mad. It's funny, I've rarely been so awake at 6 a.m. And here I am back at the computer.

I'm still trying to get the hang of the blog thing. I guess I haven't learned to really write in a blog yet and that's why I feel so awkward about it.