Sons and Others, Present and Unaccountable

DOLPHIN BOY

1993


All the world’s a whisper,
Where ocean margins cry,
I ride my fevered fishes there
Between the breakers and the sky.

Cities lie beneath the flood,
The sun king sleeps below.
But I croon darkly in your blood,
With brine and brawl and brogue.

A woman waits for you on a shore
No course you chart can reach.
Only storms can take you there
To wreck you on her beach.

I am the Dylan of your fathers,
Galloping the nine-wave brute,
I call you from your harbors
Into the darkness of all truth.


THE SEA

Mary Oliver
from American Primitive

Stroke by
stroke my
body remembers that life and cries for
the lost parts of itself —

fins, gills
opening like flowers into
the flesh — my legs
want to lock and become

one muscle, I swear I know
just what the blue-gray scales
shingling
the rest of me would

feel like!
paradise! Sprawled
in that motherlap,
in that dreamhouse

of salt and exercise,
what a spillage
of nostalgia pleads
from the very bones! how

they long to give up the long trek
inland, the brittle
beauty of understanding,
and dive,

and simply
become again a flaming body
of blind feeling
sleeking along

in the roughage of the sea’s body,
vanished
like victory inside
that insucking genesis,

roaring flamboyance, that
perfect
beginning and
conclusion of our own.


***

In Campbell’s Popular Tales of the Western Highlands, there are many anecdotes of hill-dwelling fairies, rather more prosaically conceived than the Irish O’Sidhe. The tale of the smith’s son is one of them. In this tale the fairies coveted the smith’s only son, a handsome, merry boy, and left a wizened changeling in his place. The father took advice from a wise man, and discovered the imposture by the usual expedient of using eggshells instead of buckets; but though he got rid of the changeling, his own son was not returned to him, and he had to fetch him back from fairyland himself. A dirk, a Bible and a cock were necessary for the rescue, and he entered a fairy knowe at full moon, when it was raised upon pillars. He found his song among a group of mortal prisoners who were working at a forge in one corner, and succeeded in getting him safe away. It is curious that in this story the fairies bestowed skill in metalwork upon their pupil, and yet they were defeated by cold iron, the dirk stuck into the hillside.

— Katherine Briggs, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature


SON

March 4, 2006

My son lies in your thrall,
my cold, sea-hearted queen,
stolen from me years ago
when I thought I failed to find you
through all the doors I wished
you might be found in.
You smiled at my fruitless
searches as you swelled the
moon and delved my next
forever hidden from my view.
Your absence and his ghostly
presence mothered in me
a changeling’s art for broken latitudes,
fixing me here at a once-welcome,
now bone-lucent shore,
repleting every wave
in a pauper’s paper choir.
I’m stuck in dry day quavering
while in the soak he swims
emboldened in blue dazzlement,
riding every swell I cannot harbor.
He is Dylan to my Taleissin,
brine-brained Pip to my Ahab,
Ariel to my Prosper,
the Puck of drowned Titania
drifting down through me.
Instead of him this wizened
author writes in juvenalia,
an incessant mortal drone
which intones only those
surfaces of depths he’s grown
full into, boy of first dazzle
no more. I sit here scanning
eternal fists of blue and wonder
just where he went to all those
years ago, when he dove headfirst
into the surf in which you welcomed
me and left me in, forever.
He is our child, the son of the wildest
curve and smash of all,
riding and diving and singing
in the incessant absence
I here weave, inside a heart
far deeper than I’ll ever know,
much less live in, though I’m
always there, walking and
talking with my silvered son,
his smile in that moonlight
all that lingers in what disappears.


FREEZE FRAME

from “A Breviary of Guitars,
2000

What was so arid
in a hammerlock
of high pressure
and a triumphant
angel sun now
just foams &
spouts in storm
after storm:
Every day now
I drive in to
work & see
bump marble
rumps mooning
the heavens:
By lunch they’re
massed ever
empurpled with
fevers hurling
ejaculate snaps
& flooding the
streets: Like new
lovers who cannot
exhaust their
bottomless cistern
of desire hurling
their bodies
at each other
frantic to find
what screams for
release: Storms
again midafternoon
as the day’s
wearies settle
amid problem
accounts & new
AS400 system
woes & programming
patches & the
itch & flick of
a desire which
has no body
it can vanquish
in: But man
it rains hard
a ballsoaking
cuntslobbering
titheave
ballstothewalls
of a storm
in which the
green world
shouts glittery
arias of joy:
The last time
such storm
rose in me
with Donna
was a wan
fair Sunday in
November ‘85
when we drove
to New Smyrna
Beach with her
son Nicky packing
lunch & a bottle
of sherry: Parked
along a deserted
stretch & set
a blanket on
the sand & lounged
there a couple
of hours enjoying
80 degree temps
& the sun
mellow and
sweet & the
surf softly
slapping and
slushing, love
not yet ebbed
& loss early
in its flow: Donna
just beautiful
in a black one
piece bathing
suit that carved
her curves with
authority &
grace & surrender
& her skin a
shock of white
as when she
first peeled
down her panties
for me then
turned her
ass toward my
bright hungry ache:
We sipped our
sherry watching
Nicky play
with a truck
in the sand &
Mr. Mister’s
“Run to Her”
on my boombox
half lost to
the sound of that
swoony merciless
surf: Blue pale
sky, blue green
waters stretching
for miles &
Donna’s eyes
sad and distant,
looking past me:
She got up and
walked down to
to the water’s
edge for a while
soaking up
all that feral
eternity that
makes babies
love & graves
her back to me
as one passing
through a door
into silence:
And then turned
to smile at
me radiant with
all I’ve ever
desired rising
in my heart
like Venus on
the half shell
amid the foam
of my balls &
then looking for
one second like
another woman
on another beach
in another love
which ended
in another surf
& I felt then
the horrid ironic
fatefulness
of the Ocean,
a wave which
parts the thighs
of a love which
births departure:
But Donna
just smiled
bittersweetly and
then as if she
had come to
a decision walked
back and gathered
up Nicky and
put him in
her car telling
him to sleep:
For a few minutes
the boy’s face
(resembling Donna
in the eyes
but the rest
a cipher of
some other man’s
love) crying in
the window but
Donna was
unmoved &
the head slowly
disappeared
like a setting
sun into silence:
Donna then looked
over at me
& smiled the way
she did that night
up at Fern Park
Station & then
lowered her
body on mine
to kiss me full
and dreamy
as the sea her
body breathing
full against mine
like a surf &
her bones against
my bones as
close as bones
go: Kissed slowly
down my chest
in a wave &
gripped my trunks
with both hands
& then pulled
them down far
enough to take
my startled cock
in her mouth
& slowly, sweetly,
gently, deeply
suck that slender
isthmus of flesh
that separates
I and Thou:
Loving there
what’s impossible
to find and
perilous to forget:
I watched her
for a while glide
up and down
my cock with
slow sure strokes
her mouth a
firm clench on
my slick hardening
length, veins there
pumping out like
clouds rising
over the sea
& her eyes closed
maybe prayerfully
or brokenly or
already somewhere
else - who knows:
Her long dark
blonde hair falling
around her pistoning
mouth like
a waterfall & each
downward stroke
washing me in
that gorgeous sure
river or wave
I always felt
in the sex that
joined Donna
to me: Then I
closed my eyes
& lay back
surrendering to
the pleasure
slowly building
in me, so sweet
& watery, not
urgent in the
way of new lovers
or knowledgeable
or secure like
old lovers: Rather
we were as
one receiving
a last kiss from
waters now receding:
Oh drifting boat
on sunny waters
on God’s now
gorgeous earth,
a breeze softly
raking the
glittery soft surf
& Donna’s hand
now cupping my
balls squeezing
& gently milking
the dangerous
seed rising up
there as she
settles her mouth
all the way
down to my
pubic bone &
I’m coming, coming,
rising up in
a wave of white
screaming joy
and she doesn’t
let go but takes
all of me in,
drinks my salty
sticky seed &
it feels so
strange so
utterly fucking
sweet as if
my balls were
dissolving & the
rest of me to
in this tingling
toe twitching
exhalation
emptying
erasing &
killing my
every conflicted
motion: O stay
there for just
a little while,
Breviary - linger
in the lavish
mouth which swallows
me whole: a
mother’s mouth
giving suck &
a receiving back
the milk she
gave me: The
ocean stretching
like a blue gray
angel’s blessing
& “Broken Wings”
on the blaster
true just for those
seconds and
so eternally true:
All the futile
stupid arrogant
wrongheaded
cruel self
destructive
things I wreaked
with that white
boy’s penis
absolved in
that melting
molten spasm:
These million
words flocking
in the wild sperm
cells flocking
to no home
down her throat
just like the
sea welcomes
no home I
have ever built:
One of my
hands inside
her bathing suit
clutching a
breast squeezing
up a nipple
desperate never
to let go:
This gloriously
beautiful ocean
of an angel
of a woman
nursing my
dolphin on the
wave it still
rides: O crest
& dissolve and
there’s no
way to remain
right there, no
way to prevent
the day’s return
into slow focus,
Donna letting
go with her
mouth kissing
the tip of my
glistening cock
& pulling my
shorts back
up with a sigh
patting my cock
and nuts one
one one one
one one one
one one one
final time: Wipes
her mouth with
her hand her
eyes slowly
refocusing taking
aim again beyond
me: I lift
up on an elbow
& try to push
her down to
kiss, return the
favor by lapping
away at her
sweet milky
thighs but she
shakes her head
sad and firm
& takes a drink
of wine instead
& looks farther
out to a sea
already gone:
O lift up from
that beach O
falcon o sad
sea eagle up
up over to
the edge of that
one infinite
spasm that
crashed up out
of me and through
me at the
same time like
the wave of
the woman of
the sea anointing
& cursing
me like that
baptismal wave
that crested
over me at 14:
Rise up over
the ocean’s
suck & haul
o angel of
my eternally
misbegotten love:
Up over the
rim of the green
ocean and up
up through the
blue heavens:
Up over the
hurl of this
ancient song:
Can you take
me higher o
peregrine
falcon up
where only
blind men see:
Up over the
edge of
my ruination
at your altar
o dolphin muse:
Join me with
my aborted
children, my
daughters of
Neptune: Can
you fly me up
over all to this
warm place
where my seed
lays waiting for
your welcoming
egg in the
belly of all
dead loves: Donna’s
son begins
crying in the
car & she
goes to retrieve
him & we start
packing up
to go: “Run
to Her” on the
blaster already
ironic and Donna
asks me
irritably hey
isn’t there anything
else you can
play? Something
that rocks?



PRESENCE

March 4, 2006

Ah but do not think
there is no presence here —
it overbrims, spring’s
tide approaching full
with sun and breeze
and quaffs of bloom
too sweet for human
lips, almost. How much
I love my wife these days,
almost desperately,
listening to her bitch about
her hair as she tried to
set it for a day out
after five days of sewing
fabrics here alone, fabrics
which may never sell.
I saw how beautiful she
was in that first cool light
upstairs, all of her
attention on the mirror
which will not yield for
her any more than her
business, her hands
busy behind her head
the way she labors in
this house. Such fierceness
is holy; it shows in way
she loves to stroke Red
on the back porch giving
that fool cat more love
than it can ever understand.
In such wild touch I see
receipt and struggle, an
odd precipice of the laboring
flesh which also succors
its freshenings in a marriage
and life we love.
It’s 4 p.m. and I sit up on
the upper deck during my
half day of downtime which
restores me for another hard
week of work — an hour’s
nap, reading sea stories,
giving Violet a brushing,
sitting here as the afternoon
sings quiet and lush the
halcyons of blossom and
pale green, rioting azaleas
flooding pink lusciousness
next to the garage, the
yard strewn with oak-leaves,
a dazed bush freshly replanted
wilting at our yard’s border,
a swarm of bees passing
overhead — These are
the vernals of what absence
became when I dug roots
into something difficult
and real and so slowly
counted out the sums
of contentment, day
after day after day,
married to an echo and its
flower, the surf never
seen and its present wild
power in an aging man’s
gratitude. A woman woke
me to this spring so
many lives ago; a woman
works next to me in this
one; something ferried from
one to the other,
not through their surfaces
and depths but through mine,
as I learned to love them truly
learning to truly love the world.

***

A vivid and detailed account of ((the idenity of fairies with fallen angels)) is given by Alexander Carmichael in Carmina Gadelica and repeated in The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries {Evan Wentz, 1911}. According to this some of the angels seduced by Satan were not prominent in his councils, but might rather be counted his dupes. When Michael hurled the hosts of Satan out of Heaven they were followed by an almost endless stream of these compraratively innocent victims of his unholy eloquence. The Shining Host of Heaven was thinning rapidly, and the Son, seeing the danger, cried out: “Father, Father, the City is being emptied!” God raised his hand; the gates of Heaven closed, the seduced angels stopped bewildered and recollected thmeselves, and those who were already descending stopped in their tracks, som in the sky, some in the sea, some on mountains and in woods, some further on their way towards Hell, in bowels of the earth, and the foremost angels, wholly committed to evil, in the burning lake. This origin makes the final position of the Sidhe at the Day of Judgment a very perilous one.

— “Theories of Fairy Origins,”
http://waeshael.home.att.net/origins.html


ILLUSION

March 6, 2006

The persistence of this
illusion is astonishing.
— Alcoholics Anonymous

Let’s say there is heaven and
there is its bad other,
a terrible heaven always
in bloom and lucent and wrong.
Let’s say that many angels
poured from the first heaven
down toward the second on
tongues of false fire,
that old Devil brogue
which promises
clout and swoon and
sweet nightnight faery
dreams of drifting
oblivion. So many dove
from heaven on the
boozy waterfall of
the Evil One’s song,
folding their wings,
falling and falling
from gilt porches
all the way down
to the black
goop of doom. The Son
sensed the danger
and cried “Father! Father!
The City is soon emptied!”
causing God to rouse
from His slumber and
lift a white hand. Immediately
the gates of Heaven
clanged shut; the remaining
angels roused as if
from a dream and turned
their faces back Heaven’s
way. But those outside
Heaven’s gate found themselves
locked in the station of their
fall, some in the clouds,
some in the seas, some
in the mountains, others
in dark forests. Some were
stuck in day jobs and others
worked nights, some hunkered
in topless bars in the
hearts of anonymous cities
and still others lingered down
lonely country roads twisting
forever out of sight.
They’re everywhere amid us,
torn phosphors of fool’s gold,
gleaming like jewels just
out of reach, hanging between
breasts too ripe, too sweet,
too heavy for mortal lips
to suckle, though some of us,
also hearing that eerie
reel from bum heaven, try to
til we die trying. There are
as many different dolors
of these angels as there
are whiskies and gins,
dozens of vodkas and ryes
glowing in rooks like
bottles on shelves, the
lie of their presence turning
away, always away, just
when we jilt something
essential to join them
on the sward — a job, a wife,
bank accounts, our self
respect, conscience, sanity —
all hocked for a dance
with angels falling fast
through our hands like
sands through a glass, draining
our life as we descend
further down, finding
other angels at each
next sub-level, enthralled
with the next rung down
the dream — love, perfect love,
too-perfect love, the next
love, any damn love,
any refraction of love’s
long lost ardor, any seem
or semblage of ardor
at all — till finally moonlight
itself is sufficient, lamping
the final departure of sense
into abysms and bottle clubs,
making asses of us
all as we black out amid
sirens and succubi,
murderesses all — We who
have chased those falling
angels become their
slip-motion even though
they’re forever stopped in
their tracks, chasing that
terrible heaven til it has
us at last, our brains brined
in the sea of last fire,
burning, frozen, lost in the din
of the sorriest angels of all,
the ones who led the way in.