Occult

She rose among us where we lay.
She wept, we put our work away.
She chilled our laughter, stilled our play;
And spread a silence there.
And darkness shot across the sky,
And once, and twice, we heard her cry;
And saw her lift white hands on high
And toss her troubled hair.

What shape was this who came to us,
With basilisk eyes so ominous,
With mouth so sweet, so poisonous,
And tortured hands so pale?
We saw her wavering to and fro,
Through dark and wind we saw her go;
Yet what her name was did not know;
And felt our spirits fail.

We tried to turn away; but still
Above we heard her sorrow thrill;
And those that slept, they dreamed of ill
And dreadful things:
Of skies grown red with rending flames
And shuddering hills that cracked their frames;
Of twilights foul with wings;

And skeletons dancing to a tune;
And cries of children stifled soon;
And over all a blood-red moon
A dull and nightmare size.
They woke, and sought to go their ways,
Yet everywhere they met her gaze,
Her fixed and burning eyes.

Who are you now, —we cried to her—
Spirit so strange, so sinister?
We felt dead winds above us stir;
And in the darkness heard
A voice fall, singing, cloying sweet,
Heavily dropping, though that heat,
Heavy as honeyed pulses beat,
Slow word by anguished word.

And through the night strange music went
With voice and cry so darkly blent
We could not fathom what they meant;
Save only that they seemed
To thin the blood along our veins,
Foretelling vile, delirious pains,
And clouds divulging blood-red rains
Upon a hill undreamed.

And this we heard:  "Who dies for me,
He shall possess me secretly,
My terrible beauty he shall see,
And slake my body's flame.
But who denies me cursed shall be,
And slain, and buried loathsomely,
And slimed upon with shame."

And darkness fell.  And like a sea
Of stumbling deaths we followed, we
Who dared not stay behind.
There all night long beneath a cloud
We rose and fell, we struck and bowed,
We were the ploughman and the ploughed,
Our eyes were red and blind.

And some, they said, had touched her side,
Before she fled us there;
And some had taken her to bride;
And some lain down for her and died;
Who had not touched her hair,
Ran to and fro and cursed and cried
And sought her everywhere.

"Her eyes have feasted on the dead,
And small and shapely is her head,
And dark and small her mouth," they said,
"And beautiful to kiss;
Her mouth is sinister and red
As blood in moonlight is."

Then poets forgot their jeweled words
And cut the sky with glittering swords;
And innocent souls turned carrion birds
To perch upon the dead.
Sweet daisy fields were drenched with death,
The air became a charnel breath,
Pale stones were splashed with red.

Green leaves were dappled bright with blood
And fruit trees murdered in the bud;
And when at length the dawn
Came green as twilight from the east,
And all that heaving horror ceased,
Silent was every bird and beast,
And that dark voice was gone.

No word was there, no song, no bell,
No furious tongue that dream to tell;
Only the dead, who rose and fell
Above the wounded men;
And whisperings and wails of pain
Blown slowly from the wounded grain,
Blown slowly from the smoking plain;
And silence fallen again.

Until at dusk, from God knows where,
Beneath dark birds that filled the air,    
Like one who did not hear or care,
Under a blood-red cloud,
An aged ploughman came alone      
And drove his share through flesh and bone,
And turned them under to mould and stone;
All night long he ploughed.

My lady, musing at her mirror, said:
“This is my burial night, for I am dead;
Hope dug the grave and laid my sad heart there,
Sorrow was sexton, heavy-footed Care
The lanthorn-bearer, Love in sober stole
Was priest, while fickle Joy stayed but to toll 
The bell for me; then Memory graved the stone,
And all being done, they left me there alone.

But though the grave is made, the earth close-pressed
About my heart, to-morrow I must rise,
Put on my gay attire, laugh and jest,
Lest one should read the secret in my eyes—
Lest one should know that in this careless host
Of revellers, I linger as a ghost.”

The moon will shine for God
knows how long.
As if it still matters. As if someone

is trying to recall a dream.
Believe the brain is a cage of light
& rage. When it shuts off,

something else switches on.
There’s no better reason than now
to lock the doors, the windows.

Turn off the sprinklers
& porch light. Save the books
for fire. In darkness,

we learn to read
what moves along the horizon,
across the periphery of a gun scope—

the flicker of shadows,
the rustling of trash in the body
of cities long emptied.

Not a soul lives
in this house &
this house & this

house. Go on, stiffen
the heart, quicken
the blood. To live

in a world of flesh
& teeth, you must
learn to kill

what you love,
& love what can die.
 

^{translated by Alejandro Cáceres Joseph}

In the bosom of the sad evening
I called upon your sorrow… Feeling it was
Feeling your heart as well. You were pale
Even your voice, your waxen eyelids,

Lowered… and remained silent… You seemed
To hear death passing by… I who had opened
Your wound bit on it—did you feel me?—
As into the gold of a honeycomb I bit!

I squeezed even more treacherously, sweetly
Your heart mortally wounded,
By the cruel dagger, rare and exquisite,
Of a nameless illness, until making it bleed in sobs!
And the thousand mouths of my damned thirst
I offered to that open fountain in your suffering.
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  

Why was I your vampire of bitterness?
Am I a flower or a breed of an obscure species
That devours sores and gulps tears?

El vampiro

En el regazo de la tarde triste
Yo invoqué tu dolor… Sentirlo era
Sentirte el corazón! Palideciste
Hasta la voz, tus párpados de cera,

Bajaron… y callaste… y pareciste
Oír pasar la Muerte… Yo que abriera
Tu herida mordí en ella —¿me sentiste? —
Como en el oro de un panal mordiera!

Y exprimí más, traidora, dulcemente
Tu corazón herido mortalmente,
Por la cruel daga rara y exquisita
De un mal sin nombre, hasta sangrarlo en llanto!
Y las mil bocas de mi sed maldita
Tendí á esa fuente abierta en tu quebranto.
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  

¿Por qué fui tu vampiro de amargura?…
¿Soy flor ó estirpe de una especie obscura
Que come llagas y que bebe el llanto?

or bear, came from the swamp,
what had once been a lake from a glacier,
then the meandering bed of a river, softer
than any bed a man had ever made.
The river had been dammed,
slowing, filling to prevent a drought
in a place where clay prevents rain
from becoming groundwater.
Instead the water runs away.
The mine had been closed in strike,
and the water seeped in
the ceiling of slate.
In time, they mined again, even under the lake.

A child ran in his house to say
the white ghost was in the yard,
and no one believed him until the neighbors
saw it, too. The stories started this way
on the edge of the orchards,
acres of apples:
summer, seven feet tall,
heavy in white fur and mud,
what our mothers said you could smell
before you saw it, or sometimes only
could smell, never see,
but you would know it was near. How it screamed.
How it didn’t seem to care.

The psychotherapist has a sad dove 
dying in his eye. He looks at the light
like wood holding fire in it
reflected in small caves 
and tells me there is a window where love weeps
over what it cannot know. The dove's

trembling, flickering like a sun alone
in the dark nest of his face, and the psychotherapist 
is saying, there is nothing like losing your Self
for a Demon. We walk in to each other 
as into a museum, and our portraits gleam. This sounds
like he's saying our deaths are old, they
may not even belong to us. In the end, our meeting
is just the fantasy

we've been looking for all along. Yes,
Yes, I say, I've come here to burn for you 
all my illusions. Yes, I say, I can see
you for who you are like I can see
the mother huddling her chicks in the sea cliff
in your inkblot, before she pecks their eyes large 
as blood grapes and eats them 
alive, the storm 

clouds rupturing that purple 
slag of lightning. What I want is to hold you
like a bell holds space 
between the hours. What I want is to get back
one with the other, self 
with dove, desire with the storm

inside that destroys
absence like a murderous blood. What I want
is a therapy like a first love—merciless 
fascination—my eyes looking in 
like the crazed bells of silence
to startle the mortal 
coil. This 
romance of self

you can't escape, and you don't want to.

I dreamt a dream!  What can it mean?
And that I was a maiden Queen
Guarded by an Angel mild:
Witless woe was ne’er beguiled!

And I wept both night and day,
And he wiped my tears away;
And I wept both day and night,
And hid from him my heart’s delight.

So he took his wings, and fled;
Then the morn blushed rosy red.
I dried my tears, and armed my fears
With ten thousand shields and spears.

Soon my Angel came again;
I was armed, he came in vain;
For the time of youth was fled,
And grey hairs were on my head.

Ask me about the time
my brother ran towards the sun
arms outstretched. His shadow chased him
from corner store to church
where he offered himself in pieces.

Ask me about the time
my brother disappeared. At 16,
tossed his heartstrings over telephone wire,
dangling for all the rez dogs to feed on.
Bit by bit. The world took chunks of
my brother’s flesh.

Ask me about the first time
we drowned in history. 8 years old
during communion we ate the body of Christ
with palms wide open, not expecting wine to be
poured into our mouths. The bitterness
buried itself in my tongue and my brother
never quite lost his thirst for blood or vanishing
for more days than a shadow could hold.

Ask me if I’ve ever had to use
bottle caps as breadcrumbs to help
my brother find his way back home.
He never could tell the taste between
a scar and its wounding, an angel or demon.

Ask me if I can still hear his
exhaled prayers: I am still waiting to be found.
To be found, tell me why there is nothing
more holy than becoming a ghost.

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listen'd, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

some hear the song
& ask me of my children:
what’s it like to be the mother of sirens?
            they curl their lips
            & snarl around the syllables

they mean to say,
what is it like to raise sluts
who draw men off their sacred path?

what’s like to be the minor character
in every story?

it is not my job to protect weak-willed men
who long to be seduced
but curse the ones who’ve master the art

Sirens are the call of emergency
Call to darkness.
the warning in any myth.

Sirens may save your life
or end it
you will not know which
until the morning comes

they want to know what It’s like
to have birthed such dangerous creatures

did it ever occur to you
that my children
flee their home
convene in isolation,
shield themselves with bladed rocks
because you are the dangerous ones?

                                    Life

I saw the candle brightly burning in the room! 
The fringed curtains gracefully draped back, 
The windows, crystal clear! 
Upon the generous hearth
Quick Wit and bubbling Laughter
    Flashed and danced
    Sparkled and pranced,
And music to the glowing scene lent cheer.
It was a gracious sight, 
So full of life, of love, of light! 

                                    Death 

Then suddenly I saw a cloud of gloom
Take form within the room:
A blue-grey mist obscured the window-panes
And silent fell the rout!
Then from the shadows came the Dreaded Shape,—
The candle flickered out!

Ah, talk to me of something else, I pray;
I’m weary of the dreams that bring nor sleep,
Nor rest, nor love, nor something from the deep,
Where buried are the gods of yesterday;
Ah, talk to me of Death that takes away
My little sorrows, as they hide and peep,
My little joys, as they disport and leap,
My little vanities, my budless May.

The burden of my virtues and my sins,
The burden of authority that grins
at every effort, ah, the burden kills;
I know that Death a Sister hath, but where,
Where can I find thee, Love, when shall I share
The sweetness of the silence of the hills?

The storm left a wound seeping,
a boulevard yawning, some
memories fractured, a
kiss exploded, she left
no stone resting, a bone
army floating, rats sated,
she left the horizon sliced
and ornery, she left in a hurry,
in a huff, in all her glory,
she took with her a kingdom
of sax and dream books,
a hundred scattered chants,
some earth burned in her
name, and she took flight,
all pissed and raucous, like
a world-hipped woman
makin’ room.

O brothers mine, take care! Take care!
The great white witch rides out to-night.
Trust not your prowess nor your strength,
Your only safety lies in flight;
For in her glance there is a snare,
And in her smile there is a blight.

The great white witch you have not seen?
Then, younger brothers mine, forsooth,
Like nursery children you have looked
For ancient hag and snaggle-tooth;
But no, not so; the witch appears
In all the glowing charms of youth.

Her lips are like carnations, red,
Her face like new-born lilies, fair,
Her eyes like ocean waters, blue,
She moves with subtle grace and air,
And all about her head there floats
The golden glory of her hair.

But though she always thus appears
In form of youth and mood of mirth,
Unnumbered centuries are hers,
The infant planets saw her birth;
The child of throbbing Life is she,
Twin sister to the greedy earth.

And back behind those smiling lips,
And down within those laughing eyes,
And underneath the soft caress
Of hand and voice and purring sighs,
The shadow of the panther lurks,
The spirit of the vampire lies.

For I have seen the great white witch,
And she has led me to her lair,
And I have kissed her red, red lips
And cruel face so white and fair;
Around me she has twined her arms,
And bound me with her yellow hair.

I felt those red lips burn and sear
My body like a living coal;
Obeyed the power of those eyes
As the needle trembles to the pole;
And did not care although I felt
The strength go ebbing from my soul.

Oh! she has seen your strong young limbs,
And heard your laughter loud and gay,
And in your voices she has caught
The echo of a far-off day,
When man was closer to the earth;
And she has marked you for her prey.

She feels the old Antaean strength
In you, the great dynamic beat
Of primal passions, and she sees
In you the last besieged retreat
Of love relentless, lusty, fierce,
Love pain-ecstatic, cruel-sweet.

O, brothers mine, take care! Take care!
The great white witch rides out to-night.
O, younger brothers mine, beware!
Look not upon her beauty bright;
For in her glance there is a snare,
And in her smile there is a blight.

He said I must pay special attention in cars. He wasn’t, he assured me, saying that I’d be in an accident but that for two weeks some particular caution was in order, &, he said, all I really needed to do was throw the white light of Alma around any car I entered & then I’d be fine. & when I asked about Alma, he said, Oh, come on, you know Alma well. You two were together first in Egypt & then at Stonehenge, & I nodded though I’ve never been— in this life at least—to Stonehenge; then I said, Shouldn’t I always throw the white light of Alma around a car? & when he said, Well, it wouldn’t hurt, I said, What about around planes, houses? What if I throw the white light of Alma around anyone who might need protection from the reckless speed of driving or the reckless swerve & skid of the world? & the psychic opened his hands & shrugged up his shoulders. So despite your doubt or mine as to why I’d gone there, to a psychic, in—I kid you not—a town of psychics—in the first place, right now, as you read this, let me throw the white light of Alma around you & everyone you pass close to today, beloved or stranger, the grocer, the bus driver, the boy on his longboard, the lady you stand silent beside in the elevator, & also I am throwing it around anyone they care about anywhere in the spin of the world, because, we can agree that these days, everywhere, particular caution is in order &, even if unverifiable, the light of my dear sister Alma, couldn’t hurt.

Like a grey shadow lurking in the light,
He ventures forth along the edge of night ;
With silent foot he scouts the coulie’s rim
And scents the carrion awaiting him.
His savage eyeballs lurid with a flare
Seen but in unfed beasts which leave their lair
To wrangle with their fellows for a meal
Of bones ill-covered.   Sets he forth to steal,
To search and snarl and forage hungrily ;
A worthless prairie vagabond is he.
Luckless the settler’s heifer which astray
Falls to his fangs and violence a prey ;
Useless her blatant calling when his teeth
Are fast upon her quivering flank––beneath
His fell voracity she falls and dies
With inarticulate and piteous cries,
Unheard, unheeded in the barren waste,
To be devoured with savage greed and haste.
Up the horizon once again he prowls
And far across its desolation howls ;
Sneaking and satisfied his lair he gains
And leaves her bones to bleach upon the plains.

The spirit of Jane 
lives on in you,
my mother says

trying to describe
who I am. I feel like the girl
in the late-night movie

who gazes up in horror
at the portrait of
her freaky ancestor

as she realizes 
they wear the same
gaudy pendant

round their necks.
For as long as I can
remember, my grandfather

has made the same slip:
he sits in his kitchen,
his gelatinous blue eyes

fixed on me. Well Jane, 
he says, I think I’ll have
another cup of coffee.

^{I seem like one
Who treads alone
    Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
    And all but me departed.
            —Thomas Moore, “Oft in the Stilly Night (Scotch Air)”}

See’st thou yon gray gleaming hall,
Where the deep elm-shadows fall?
Voices that have left the earth
                Long ago,
Still are murmuring round its hearth,
               Soft and low:
Ever there;—yet one alone
Hath the gift to hear their tone.
Guests come thither, and depart,
Free of step, and light of heart;
Children, with sweet visions blessed,
In the haunted chambers rest;
One alone unslumbering lies
When the night hath sealed all eyes,
One quick heart and watchful ear,
Listening for those whispers clear.

See’st thou where the woodbine-flowers
O’er yon low porch hang in showers?
Startling faces of the dead,
               Pale, yet sweet,
One lone woman’s entering tread
               There still meet!
Some with young, smooth foreheads fair,
Faintly shining through bright hair;
Some with reverend locks of snow—
All, all buried long ago!
All, from under deep sea-waves,
Or the flowers of foreign graves,
Or the old and bannered aisle,
Where their high tombs gleam the while;
Rising, wandering, floating by,
Suddenly and silently,
Through their earthly home and place,
But amidst another race.

Wherefore, unto one alone,
Are those sounds and visions known?
Wherefore hath that spell of power
               Dark and dread,
On her soul, a baleful dower,
               Thus been shed?
Oh! in those deep-seeing eyes,
No strange gift of mystery lies!
She is lone where once she moved,
Fair, and happy, and beloved!
Sunny smiles were glancing round her,
Tendrils of kind hearts had bound her;
Now those silver chords are broken,
Those bright looks have left no token;
Not one trace on all the earth,
Save her memory of their mirth.
She is lone and lingering now,
Dreams have gathered o’er her brow,
Midst gay songs and children’s play,
She is dwelling far away;
Seeing what none else may see—
Haunted still her place must be!

In a churchyard old and still,
Where the breeze-touched branches thrill
             To and fro,
Giant oak trees blend their shade
O'er a sunken grave-mound, made
             Long ago.

No stone, crumbling at its head,
Bears the mossed name of the dead
             Graven deep;
But a myriad blossoms' grace
Clothes with trembling light the place
             Of his sleep.

Was a young man in his strength
Laid beneath this low mound's length,
             Heeding naught?
Did a maiden's parents wail
As they saw her, pulseless, pale,
             Hither brought?

Was it else one full of days,
Who had traveled darksome ways,
             And was tired,
Who looked forth unto the end,
And saw Death come as a friend
             Long desired?

Who it was that rests below
Not earth's wisest now may know,
             Or can tell;
But these blossoms witness bear
They who laid the sleeper there
             Loved him well.

In the dust that closed him o'er
Planted they the garden store
             Deemed most sweet,
Till the fragrant gleam, outspread,
Swept in beauty from his head
             To his feet.

Still, in early springtime's glow,
Guelder-roses cast their snow
             O'er his rest;
Still sweet-williams breathe perfume
Where the peonies' crimson bloom
             Drapes his breast.

Passing stranger, pity not
Him who lies here, all forgot,
             'Neath this earth;
Some one loved him—more can fall
To no mortal. Love is all
             Life is worth.

A fair witch crept to a young man’s side, 
And he kiss’d her and took her for his bride. 

But a Shape came in at the dead of night, 
And fill’d the room with snowy light. 

And he saw how in his arms there lay 
A thing more frightful than mouth may say. 

And he rose in haste, and follow’d the Shape 
Till morning crown’d an eastern cape. 

And he girded himself, and follow’d still 
When sunset sainted the western hill. 

But, mocking and thwarting, clung to his side, 
Weary day!—the foul Witch-Bride.

The three witches, casting a spell

Round about the cauldron go;   
In the poison’d entrails throw.   
Toad, that under cold stone    
Days and nights hast thirty one   
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,   
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.   

     Double, double toil and trouble; 
     Fire burn and cauldron bubble.   

Fillet of a fenny snake,   
In the cauldron boil and bake;   
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,   
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,   
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,   
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,   
For a charm of powerful trouble, 
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.   

     Double, double toil and trouble;   
     Fire burn and cauldron bubble.  

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,      
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf     
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,     
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,     
Liver of blaspheming Jew,      
Gall of goat, and slips of yew     
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,     
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,     
Finger of birth-strangled babe      
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,     
Make the gruel thick and slab:     
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,     
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

     Double, double toil and trouble;   
     Fire burn and cauldron bubble.  

Along the still cold plain o’erhead,
  In pale embattled crowds.
The stars their tents of darkness spread,
  And camped among the clouds;
Cinctured with shadows, like a wraith,
  Night moaned along the lea;
Like the blue hungry eye of Death,
  Shone the perfidious sea;
The moon was wearing to the wane,
  The winds were wild and high,
And a red meteor's flaming mane
  Streamed from the northern sky.

Across the black and barren moor,
  Her dainty bosom bare;
And white lips sobbing evermore,
  Rides Eleanor the fair.
So hath the pining sea-maid plained
  For love of mortal lips,
Riding the billows, silver-reined.
  Hard by disastrous ships.

Why covers she her mournful eyes?
  Why do her pulses cease,
As if she saw before her rise
  The ghost of murdered Peace?
From out her path the ground-bird drifts
  With wildly startled calls,
The moonlight snake its white fold lifts
  From where her shadow falls.

Ah me! I that delicate hand of hers,
  Now trembling like a reed.
Like to the ancient mariner’s
  Hath done a hellish deed;
And full of mercy were the frown
  Which might the power impart
To press the eternal darkness down
Against her bleeding heart.

‘Oh whence do you come, my dear friend, to me,
With your golden hair all fallen below your knee,
And your face as white as snowdrops on the lea,
And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?’

‘From the other world I come back to you:
My locks are uncurled with dripping drenching dew,
You know the old, whilst I know the new:
But to-morrow you shall know this too.’

‘Oh not to-morrow into the dark, I pray;
Oh not to-morrow, too soon to go away:
Here I feel warm and well-content and gay:
Give me another year, another day.’

‘Am I so changed in a day and a night
That mine own only love shrinks from me with fright,
Is fain to turn away to left or right
And cover up his eyes from the sight?’

‘Indeed I loved you, my chosen friend,
I loved you for life, but life has an end;
Through sickness I was ready to tend:
But death mars all, which we cannot mend.

‘Indeed I loved you; I love you yet,
If you will stay where your bed is set,
Where I have planted a violet,
Which the wind waves, which the dew makes wet.’

‘Life is gone, then love too is gone,
It was a reed that I leant upon:
Never doubt I will leave you alone
And not wake you rattling bone with bone.

‘I go home alone to my bed,
Dug deep at the foot and deep at the head,
Roofed in with a load of lead,
Warm enough for the forgotten dead.

‘But why did your tears soak through the clay,
And why did your sobs wake me where I lay?
I was away, far enough away:
Let me sleep now till the Judgment Day.’