Andrew Mossin
INSCRIPTIONS
—for Nathaniel Mackey
I attempt to sow a seed in the survivor that runs through his reversed expectation of doom
into the shadow of the non-survivor. It as if they embrace like man and woman and the
shadow comes into the light. It is indeed a seed or frail bond between light and shadow,
a frail window of strangest flesh-and-blood between the visible and the invisible. That seed
is the primitive resurrection of the body. For how can there be a true resurrection without
a true balance between opposites by which we measure the human in the divine, the
divine in the human? To measure or weigh ourselves against the light-in-shadow, the
shadow-in-the-light of others is to deepen a reality that breaches the ailing premises
of time.
Wilson Harris, The Infinite Rehearsal
Where absence is your mouth and shale
papyri wrapped in rod of cinnamon
black leaves imprinted with the palm of a lit barge
moving through waters nightly until it rests
near the head of a drowning man
going forth his tongue and throat
hidden in the crease of a blackened crown
of laurel pasted to the inside of his thigh
its bounty of flax seed traced inside the cord
slipped over a knotted drum.
‘But I was dreaming again of the spell
surrounded by spilled speech swamp lairs
of writing inside a red monadic circle
imprinted in ink of myrrh and wine.
And what I saw was the red cloth
of Nephtys and Pre arose and set forth
the Seket boat of heaven
and the water under bark of Pre
had dried up and the gods and the two crowns
of the south and the north
complained until he was brought
back onto the shore and a line was inscribed
inside the torn root of his left hand
and his eyes were blessed with having seen
gum on the hand of a stranger.’
■ ■ ■
And I read where the prophecies
splintered in the hands of an adept
faceless prophecy of the dead
author bringing incarnate spirit
black leavings on a shelf of writing
split in two so that the second half
became the first opposing
water from sunlight in the shore’s epideictic
spill a sliding into light of day
glanced at from behind water’s primordial
shadow--
‘And I called my Soul and asked her
to dive down into the floods
whose distant roaring I could hear
and the book in which I wrote of this
was black the book bound in black
and given to me in words from another
I was living inside the plunged knife
of darkness and from the depths called
out to her, ‘Will you accept what
I bring?’
And she replied, ‘I will accept what
you give, I do not have the right
to reject or judge’
so that it was blind trust
leading me into the blank space
between her beginning and my own
wayward undoing inside
a text of silences
And I gave her my armor and rusty gear
and leather trappings
worm-eaten lance shafts
twisted spear heads
the bones of man and horse
smashed stone spearheads
everything the battered
had given us and littered the earth with
And I asked if she would accept
what I had to give
And she replied, ‘I accept it
You know better my soul.’
And when I woke it was the seventh day
of dreaming inside a black bank
river bank streaming with the debris
of older passages
I couldn’t navigate
and saw painted stones blackened bark
peeled from the cylinders of
paper trees
And the bleak staves of those
who had come before
lifted black winged voices
abject carry-overs flocked to a barren shore
And the voice of one I had come
to deliver me from penitence
circling around myself
finding no rest.
■ ■ ■
Eyebrow of the sun.
Eyebrow of the moon.
There are herbs.
Heliogonon. Selenogonon.
These are herbs. Spurge
in the gardens exuding milk.
Expunged principle of thirst.
Hang-dog glimpse of the one-to-have-been.
Throat gongned
milky seed day.
Was thirsty for the everafter.
Was clean for soulful sounds eye
A sun filled with sound
You should fill your eyes with it
(said ritual) and bear its straw
clean in your hands
bear its becoming a name of
flowering chamomile led by its white
horse name merged with
martagon lily
Beautiful of face
saying its name ‘golden flower’
its leaf strong
its stem cold
its flower gold
its leaf
like a martagon lily.
5 August 2014-21 April 2015
INVOCATIONS
in memory of my father, Efthimois Khouroubis
When the dead arrive,
we know ourselves fatherless.
Jay Wright
At the corona’ sedge
the belief in orphan words…
My father not my father
when can I see your face
inside a globe of seawater
inside a partition of Cretan balsa
aflame inside a cave
of inextistent light…
Efthimois
canyon red in mind’s divide
hoarse whisper from the famished
cobalt red of the earth
stubborn keeper of this book of spells
torn unopening
falcon’s bright cut into flesh.
*
I traveled
the sea stormy and rough for sailing
I kept wind at my back
the wind trails and the great fall rains
sent by Zeus
I saw the second season
come to no good end
a destiny kept apart from my name
a name kept apart from destiny
I saw the second season for sailing
come in the spring
when a man sees the topmost shoot
of a fig tree and leaves as large
as a crow’s footprint
I crossed his phantom image
from my mind
I cleansed myself in preparation
that my father might sail back to me.
And I heard him cry out
in a prayer to Helios
Keep silent everyone the voice
that’s in your mouths
O circling birds of air keep quiet
Cease frolicking you dolphins
Stand for me river streams and fountains
Birds of augury stop everything
Beneath the sky
Snakes in your dens attend
My cry hear my voice
And be afraid.
And what is it that keeps
the world astonished by secret words
What is it King Semea
father of the world
Be gracious to me O scarab
I call to you immortal
Golden-haired god
O scarab
I wrap my voice inside
the folds of your light
I crawl into the cavern’s lair
I harp on what has been taken
what cannot be returned
Tidal night I call unto your presence
I skip inside your messengerless
dead real O I come back
to hear your name
merged with mine
I call you heavenly
one who saves his people’s lives
perfect eye
imperfect I
called forward from life’s
apparitional light.
*
Yet we are not separate
Not dignity’s black coronal
sevenths of timber inside a field
Heart’s sun Angel sun
curled Angel of the sun
Who wrote your name down?
Who anguished over the spell?
Who leapt beyond the sweet and green treading of these waters?
Whose aim is high but not high enough?
black target on wood the ringed serpent tail
cloaked coeval black rim of rites
spent at the edge of the sorcerer’s drum.
I went adrift
I covered the tripod with clean linen
and placed a censer on the tripod
burning on the table a figurine of Apollo out of laurel
cut from laurel I broke a heel of wood
in my hands a heel engraved in red
on a lamella of gold of silver of tin I wrote
these characters in place of you…I diverted
Dead script joyous stenches of songs of mud
I clasped your hands when you fell black hosannas of praise
ringing in your ears
I slipped lamella under the censer near a wooden image
I lifted it upright and placed next to the tripod a beaker’s
shell containing pure water inscribed
on the floor with a white stylus I repeated our name in oaths
of authentic glory I sent for your next of kin
I gave unto them what was not mine what had never been made known
and I waited for three days in advance until you returned
The shrine of our meeting covered and what I wished to see I saw
emerge clean crowned with a crown of laurel
And it was as if I had come up through bestial pulse of your father’s name
I had learned the burden of crown wormwood black sevenths of laurel
And knelt down before your image the soft single-shooted form of you
roused nearly dead blackened stream of balsa and almond blossom
Rivaling speech the hundredth smoky taste of your mouth…
*
I read what was written down I gave it
a place under your tongue I took my finger
because I could not speak
I rivaled your silence in the decades it took to remember
your name known in advance
your name said along with the great names of our people
Greek poverty I said you are in poverty where you go
black in each person’s mind is a rite
of naming black ridge where you stood
not standing but kneeling in mind’s desperate reflection
rite of first advance in mind
I am finished dying my father
I am nearer to you finished when the falcon
rises I cannot see its distance
I cannot see the tree it has descended in
Departure’s gnomic rush of blood
formed under the sign of Helios.
*
And what I held in hand
what I saw….moon of Virgo…
black imperfect blow of night
air black synthesis of my father’s grasp
performing a rite of divination
in Gemini
performing a spell of binding
rites of divination and binding
where the rite was written down
first there is one then another
written on the face of a balsa branch
white when the falcon is rising
under the fig tree’s limbs
in Libra
to undo the sign of Gemini
to cross invocation with release
Saying a spell of release
for what was given to us
In Pisces…in Sagitarius…
In Capricorn…
Thrown into a deep river
until what was said was also unsaid
And whatever was asked for
whatever was wanted
words black smooth stones
under one’s tongue
lit again by these spells of release…
of necromancy…and binding
this wood carved from a circle of olive
this lamella of gold placed in our father’s hands
covered clean inside crowned with laurel
rinsed in light before the invocation’s sacrifice
asking of him to return and take his place
beneath a ring of almond blossoms.
19 October 2014
RED MOON (II)
Sky water. It needs no fence…It is a mirror which
no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never
wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs;
no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh;--
a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks,
swept and dusted by the sun’s hazy brush,—this
the light dust cloth,—which retains no breath that
is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds
high above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom
still.
Thoreau, Walden
Unskinned root of thirst
build inside it a rimmed cord
cool mother’s touch
Taut light that flares up now &
again--
It is this teacher
writing outside the taught
surface saying it can be
two strangers meeting
here two in one
strange house….
‘I am a participant in your estrangement….’
When we cannot return
the way is this, place is this
scene upset by what
we can’t replace, here’s
never-after, built someway
a mirror caught
between fences.
*
Heavenly root, triadic
prospect—to unbuild
what is here, burnt
eyes, fingers, tongue
branching out, these fire
scored images
Self’s scored lock, buried.
And what was, lifted
from inside, torn
split speech, backsided
alphabet, bled
out of tune. Asphodel
flecks, common sea
Blood moon, anniversarial
rites of passage. Here
among the mirrored ghosts, black
limbs, scorched earth
hold us up, heaven’s torque.
*
If invented, ‘once’
is ‘nonce’, if said it
were, bitten skin, brittle
bright moon, cusp of
its bell, black leaf
ferreted, into which
‘I’ disappears.
Some force of prayer
to undo
red sky, saith no
place on earth, haven out of
reach, then it’s dark
speech is a plank, broken into pieces
& do the elements rise
or sink.
*
Gnomic father, rested
sun-lit shape of his, face to
face with him, outsiders
disc light, saying he is comfort
plain demiurge, red
shade of his eye, blue gale
swept seven times a
vessel I can’t name…
Never you, not
you, nor I, never
you nor I--
wept over clear skies his markers
salt traces Pleiades basalt rim
organ sight where he handed thee out
*
Cuts bread house shore railing
citrus black fruit stranger to eat here when light
is coming out
far house where stranger sits
felt his tack blaze reality over night his hands
unfazed grasp for mine tender coarse beaded wrist
redemption where it was said there was a river to go into
black lagoon of his eye freedom’s lurking son
inside his place stars
red notches moon under
*
‘And gathered, not
what it was gathered to, each
an entry, point of no
return, each a point
created from sky
water, black rains
cursive, sloping field
after field, tree line
gone grey, elastic
flume of ascent, haptic
root, orphan’s june
name, foundling’s tongue
broken at the root, say
what it said to take, itself
away from light, gourd
hung heavy in the
night wind, saw it
hang high from its root, black
limb’s fallen arc, wave
after wave, sealed
up ball of light, red
dawn when it burst open
pale hand he gave it to give it back
like wings, broken to
undo flight, broad haze lit for miles
provident land not seen in years
brought home to him, homiletic reach of its surface
dark sea, wing of its coral, blue-black skate of its face
fate’s motherless son floats pearl gashed sky
Body that sinks or rises as it moves.
19 August 2015