4 Chthonic Praise-Chants & One Lament (in Mudlark)

 

 

Mudlark

has published 4 Praise-Chants (& One Lament),

from a new manuscript called

Tidal Flats,

for New Year’s Day 2021!

 

 

You can access the poems here.

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A few words about how the praise-chants came about: 

These poems are from a section of the Tidal Flats manuscript called Twenty Chthonic Praise-Chants & One Lament (after Neruda’s first book: Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair).

 

I wrote the bulk of these praise-chants in the fall of 2019, when overwhelming fear and sorrow were constantly moving through me from news about the current mass extinction taking place across the planet.

At the same time, I realized that deep grief is a form of praise for those things we have deeply loved (See Martín Prechtel’s The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief & Praise. With this in mind, the “chants” developed out of my desire to record my own personal ecstasy in the presence of so many things (seemingly) outside the human realm. 

 

 

That ecstasy includes the realm of death—the underworld, the depth of the earth itself, the chthonic, grief and praise—how they burst onto the senses together.

These are dark love poems to the natural world. You can find the ones recently published in Mudlark here.  

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Other praise-chants have previously been published by Cholla Needles, or will appear in upcoming issues of The Banyan Review and The Bitter Oleander.

 

Here’s one that previously appeared in Cholla Needles 48:

 

Honeybee Creator of the Sun Chthonic Praise-Chant

 

Bees in catmint hollows of lamb’s ears pour from the sun’s heart

First there was the hive and then wings pumping the sun into being

The leaf shattered sun-veins slick with sacrificial viscous hemolymph

So many thorax muscles beating wings 230 times per second

                                                                                    incomprehensible

 

Bees in the eyes nose face map the terrain in the brain

Ommatidia light detector that connects word to light connects fear to

            calm connects sight to insight

Ocelli-motion vibration detector of desert paintbrush

Firedark interior to embrace the fire-dark figures lurking inside the mind

My bee necklace folded into Broca’s Area

 

Bee creator of the sun bee alumni of the goldmother at the center

            of the hive

Fine-hair of the pollen-basket that cradles this world’s sex-dust

Tube-Proboscis taproot slips down plumb line to the center of the sun

Tarsal claws cling to hairy stems smooth stems to the narcotic language

            of Jimson Weed  to the Narcoleptic Black Cosmos to the haloed

            extravagance of Mexican Gold Poppies

Bee claws root in the petal’s slide leaving no trace and still able to bear

            the brutal torque of the earth’s turns

 

Dawn dawn and savory bee sound in waves rides the breeze

Antennae cleaners keeps bee-radio free of static

Radio to mars to planets that circle around the Orange Globe Mallow

            petals drooped open

Synesthesia-radio smelling the song of mites dying of old age inside

            a Datura trumpet hearing the mallow’s orange mouth speak

            to the moon

 

Bees the fire sewn into the lining of Pascal’s jacket

Bees the map of the field map of the brain

Bees longing for the sun for their mother

Bees the practicality of compound desire

 

Bee-shit animal smell of the hive of the belly of a creature asleep on

            the earth next to a stone shaped just like that animal

 

Twins in the sun

 

 

Happy New Year!

 

Four Chthonic Praise-Chants and One Lament

 

 

Winter Solstice 2020: The Space Between

 

Happy Solstice, one and all. 

 

The longest night is upon us. 

There have been several snowfalls this year in Santa Fe. The last time the snow fell (four days ago), I was able to spend some time watching the flakes fall through a nearby streetlight.

 

 

It's always mesmerizing: 

And I discovered worlds in the spaces between the falling flakes - fell into memories of other snows, found interesting visions of alternate lives...

 

Here's this year's Winter Solstice Poem.

It's a work in progress. 

 

Winter Solstice: The Space Between

1. Snow in the Streetlight

 

Crystals fall through

orange light. They speak

 

as they fall: This is how

travelers pass between

worlds…this is how time

collapses into itself…

this is how the world is

made and remade…I rise

to meet the falling…this

is how old and new

revolve around empty

space…

 

2. Nebraskan Plains

Snow-dust drifts

across falling snow.

Cold in the car, cold

for a thousand miles,

 

no light beyond the red

shoulder-reflectors.

A face in the rearview

mirror: my future self,

writing this now, calm

witness to my terror,

excitement, my confused

snow-trance.

3. Nederland, Colorado

 

Christmas lights reflected in

porch ice. A few flakes spin

out of a clear twilight sky,

circle the first stars. Where did

they come from? A grey cat

approaches, prancing, goofy,

trying to walk on snow without

touching it, my future self,

writing this now, performing

an awkward dance, embodying

the pattern of hide-and-seek

flakes – something from nothing.

4. Crossing the Frozen Raccoon River

I tracked deer prints

through deep snow, to

the river’s edge, looked

across and thought what

the hell. Nothing to lose?

On the other side, a crow

clutched a bare cottonwood

branch, my future self,

writing this now, eyes on

me as I stepped onto the

ice, and followed the deer

into another world.

5. Hitchhiking: Indiana/Illinois Border

Kicked off a ramp on Route 80,

I found a phone booth to hide

from the falling snow. Snow

caked the glass. I was closed in,

entombed, everything inside and

out, a deep blue. My hands shook,

sifting through change. I called

home. Wrong number. The voice

 

that answered, my future self,

writing this now, offered a distant

memory of loneliness to replace

the loneliness itself.

                              

6. Livorno, Italy

Snow falls into the sea,

floats toward the dunes.

I open my mouth, catch

flakes on my tongue.

Further down the beach,

a lone figure with a thread-

bare coat, his back to the sea,

watches; my future self,

writing this now, guardian

and trickster, making sure

I stay long enough to let

the beauty break me.

 7. Snow in the Streetlight

Inside the space between

falling crystals I fall asleep

in a pile of warm bodies,

listen to the soft, humid sighs

of other hares; I nestle against

a brother crow, black feathers

sharp, cold, comforting; I

become a lynx, at the still edge

of a snowfall, snow-clouds

broken apart, a few stars in

the open space, waiting for

movement in the dark.

 

The Ghosts of Winter Solstice Poems Past 

2011: Solstice (& 3 poems by Erling Friis-Baastad, John Haines & Basho)

2014: December (1 Poem)

2015: Saturnalia, Solstice, Christmas (& 3 Poems)

2016: Midway Through Life's Journey: Winter Solstice 2016

2017: Winter Solstice 2017: The Under Realm

2018: Hope, Courage, Mercy

2019: Winter Solstice: Labyrinths