LOUISE BOGAN

PSYCHIATRIST'S SONG

Those
Concerning whom they have never spoken and thought never to
       speak;
That place
Hidden, preserved,
That even the exquisite eye of the soul
Cannot completely see.
But they are there:
Those people, and that house, and that evening, seen
Newly above the dividing window sash -
The young will broken
And all time to endure.

Those hours when murderous wounds are made,
Often in joy.

I hear.
But far away are the mango trees (the mangrove swamps, the
          mandrake root...)
And the thickets of - are they palms?
I watch them as though at the edge of sleep.
I often journey toward them in a boat without oars,
Trusting to rudder and sail.
Coming to the shore, I step out of the boat; I leave it to its anchor;
And I walk fearlessly through ripples of both water and sand.
Then the shells pebbles are beneath my feet.

Then these, too, recede,
And I am on firm dry land, with, closely waiting,
A hill all sifted over with shadw
Wherein the silence waits.

Farewell, phantoms of flesh and of ocean!
Vision of earth
Heal and recieve me.

Have you forgotten what I was?

What now will you see by?

spirit that passeth
into earth, terror,
or peace ad infinitum


*

And the sound of the sea thereafter -

JEANNE D'ARC

SAINT JOAN

‘…May the Lord so keep me...’

1.
Forsaking exile, God
appeared before the child. And a cry arose,
as twilight settled above the hills, panorama
of moon and stars; the epoch before God –

Thus the child was sworn.

Within the summoned flesh,
the gift at last apparent—
though partial—

As is all
fate, all freedom.

2.
So little to be made
of youth, of childhood. In Domrémy
the villagers weep, bearing
wax candles in a coiled procession.

And everywhere the lament
of doves, cries,
the ascending arias of inhuman sorrow –

As far away, above
the sound of the Seine, the surface of the water tainted,
stained with human blood, the child kneels, weeping.

What has she seen?

The first rains of spring
pooled in the clear throats of the lilies, deepening
then bleeding
colour from the wildflowers.

3.
Neither punishment,
nor sacrifice. The trivial flesh
unburdened; as against bare stone
the abstracted
body of a woman –

In the empty courtyard, the Bishop
kneels before the Blessed Virgin,
meaning to pray. Perhaps for forgiveness,
perhaps for pity.

So God shrank
from heaven: an emanation, an walked
as one among men of the earth -

Beyond the courtyard, arpeggios gutter from the dented throats of stone angels.

4.

What child does not worship suffering?

So the child swore:
‘A premonition: I foresaw my death’ –

In the cell’s darkness,
it was as though a soul appeared,
at once transfigured:

Fire will know no such brilliance
before the consummation
of your body.

So the child swore:
‘My body: all that remains of my childhood’.

At the barred door, in whispers,
the armed guards strip themselves of all armour.

5.
What good to cry out?

Late spring: an image
of waste, of disappointment.

‘Lord, who granted my solitude,
the world will have me as it pleases.
Before the pyre, I ask that my body
be transformed to nothing human:
to be neither living nor dead.
By Your grace I would kneel again,
I would kneel again beside you –

How my body
rose in that blaze, leaving no ash scattered in its wake.'

THE STARS DON'T DIMINISH THOUGH THEY BURN AND BURN

What's your name little boy?

My name is Waking Hell.

MANITOU POEM

To enter this world was to step into, not out of, the real world.
 - Selwyn Dewendy, The Sacred Scrolls of Southern Qjibway

So I must stand away from the stone to enter the stone,
to dream the idea of the stone, the stone which is all stones,
_______ the first and final stone,
its source being, its manitou.

As in puberty I dreamed my lifelong protector, who showed me
how to navigate impossible rivers, who made me as the world's
________first person, breathing
fire and poetry.

The strangers who divided the world into good & evil were wrong.
The Great Lynx Misshipeshu who dwells beneath ambivalent water
________is both benevolent
lord, and devil.

And I am become the powerful dreamer who dreams his way through
to reality, to enter and ignite the stone, to illumine
________from withing
its perfect paradox, its name.

NONE OF IT OUTLIVING THE DARK

-O remember
In your narrowing dark hours
That more things move
Than blood in the heart.


Louise Bogan, Night

***

I am far from home and need directions but am afraid to ask. Rain has been falling

hard all night. I think about getting a taxi but remember I have no money.

An old man  sings for money in a doorway, scraps of old clothes tied around his feet in place of shoes.  My jacket is soaked through.

I walk for five minutes with my head down against

the wind before I pass anyone. He is tall and thin

and unsuitably dressed. His face

dark under a football cap and long hair. Without stopping

he turns and asks if I need

any help. I'm lost, I tell him. I'm looking for Smith Street.

He smiles before scanning the road for any sign of traffic

and half closes his eyes. I see the rain run down along

the contours of his throat. You're going in the direction for a start, he says. You wanna

head back that way. I can show you - I'm headed near there...People are

shouting and yelling down the street in another language. Garbage bags lie torn open

in the alley, bloated, blackened carcasses, scattering paper and pieces of old food

on the mottled pavement. He asks me my name. Noah, I say. Half-lying.

He tells me he tries to do at least one good deed a day, and pulls out a sugared donut

from a plastic bag. It's not safe to walk around here on your own, he says. Especially -

but cuts himself short and looks me up and down. I tell him I live in St.Albans -

it means nothing to him. Two middle-aged men under a pink and white umbrella dressed

in blue suits pass us. The taller one stops talking and looks me in the eye until he

vanishes behind us. I've been down 'ere three years, he says, since I come outta jail.

I take a water bottle I've filled with vodka and cordial and offer him some

to drink, uncertain what to feel. What happened, I ask him, and light a cigarette. 

I killed the man who raped me, he says looking straight ahead. We turn a corner.

Cars roll by forcing plumes of  white water from under their tires either

side of the black road. I see now how he limps, his left foot dragging slightly

behind him along the ground. Who was he? I ask. A gubba neighbour, he says,

looking down at me over his shoulder, taking the bottle from my hand. Seven years - It's not true what they say - No one gets out alive.

We cross a bridge over a river so dark it is invisible but for what it reflects. It is fast

and loud because of the rain. Are you Wurundjeri? I ask, for my sake, to show

him I'm not like the others. No, he says. I come from up north, Jagera Country, and shakes

my hand, pulling me into a half-embrace. There's Smith Street. It's late. I offer him

some cigarettes to show my gratitude, taking the crumpled packet carefully out of my pocket.

He smiles. If any cunt tries to start something, he says, turning back, tell 'em you're a mate of mine.

When I look back he's gone. The rain falls suddenly harder, and the gutters spew forth

black water. I stand with the rain and huge silence and feel tired. I know all this would go on,

though once I had believed time would cease. We are bred for slaughter, like the other animals.

Down the street a police car runs a stop sign lights flashing and no siren. 

THE WATER-BEARER

On a hill at Carcemish which is in Mesapotamia, which is
Between-the-Rivers, we dug up the bones and artifacts of ancient strangers,

You and your donkey lugging back buckets of water back and forth
over many thousands of years, while I made notes about absolutely everything,

and wrote long letters home. You watered the mules and camels and nothing was
ever too pretty or tiresome that you couldn't make mad and silly fun of it;

everything admired you. The animals admired you because you had a splendid
disregard for man not even they could achieve, and a dark and secret love

that only they could achieve.  When it was too hot we swam, and then the river
released us and found its way back home.

They called you Darkness although your skin was fair; I gave you a camera
to explore the darkness that lived behind the light;

You said you would take pictures of the whole world. Water-bearer, you gave
everything and asked nothing in return. We dreamed that one day

the ghosts of your ancestors would arise and tell to us wonderful Hittite secrets; but
we had forgotten that your name also meant the darkness of water before

Creation, and that you would one day drown in the dark water of your own lungs.

I loved you, I believe. It was before the horror.

ANIMAL SPIRITS

Is it true, then, that one fears all that one loves?
These spirits are my awful companions; I can't tell
anyone when they move in me. They
are so mighty they are unclean; it is the end
of cleanliness; it is the great crime.

I can only kill them by becoming them. They are all
I have ever loved or wanted; their hooves and paws smell
of honey and trodden flowers.

Those who do not know me sip their bitter coffee
and mutter of war. They do no know
I am wrestling with the spirits and have almost won.
They do no know I am looking out from the camel's eyes,
out from the eye's of the horses.

It is vile to love the; I will not love them. Look -

My brain is sudden and silent as a wildcat. Lord,
teach me to be lean, and wise. Nothing matters,

nothing matters.

TAFAS

We came to the village after the Turks. Everyone was dead,
except a little girl who came out from the shadows
with a fibrous hole gaping where her head and body
joined; she cried Don't hit me, Baba, then hobbled away and fell
down in a little heap. And then, I think, she died. Death's
little silver cock was stuck between
her mother's legs; she sat on the tip of a saw bayonet. And a pregnant
woman was bent over a sheepfold, the hilt
of Hell's sword sticking up from where the fetus was, into the air. And
others were pinned by arms and legs to the ground like insects
mounted by an insane collector. We went after the Turks
and killed them all. The sweet salt

blood of the child ran out and out and on and on
all the way to Damascus. All this happened

as I have said. And the next day was Friday.

SAINT JOAN

. . .

Lord, who granted my solitude,
the world will have me as it pleases. Before the pyre
I ask that my body be transformed to nothing

human: to be neither living nor dead. By your grace
I would kneel again,
I would kneel again beside you -

How my body rose
in that blaze, leaving

no ash scattered in its wake.

Coming Soon

the waves were coming in like arabian stallions gradually lapping into seahorses