Hunger's Brides (101 page)
How you sang for bright Eros! As the Wonder Worker of Nazianzus crouched in the haven of Herodâin aromatic smoke masked, the fires hot on his faceâdid the song he cast upon the fire burn for him brightly?
Percussion, salt and honey,
A quivering in the thighs;
He shakes me all over again,
Eros who cannot be thrown,
Who stalks on all fours
Like a beast.
Sifting the ashes of your songs, I have found, unconsumed, a verse for all the Gregorys â¦
When dead you will lie forever forgotten
For you have no claim to the Pierian roses.
Dim here, you will move more dimly in Hell,
Flitting among the undistinguished dead â¦
And even as I sift, hands blackened, slandered in cinders, I try not to think. I sort through the ghostly gray ash like a mendicant. I try not to think of a world all but devoured by flame.
Yet even in my despair I find other fragments, too bright for even mortal fire to extinguish â¦
down from the blue sky
came Eros
shedding his clothes
his shirt of Phoenician red []
Surviving still, verses in slender strips all the shades of the firebird's shimmering plumage.
[] robes the colour of peaches []
purple coats and silver jars
And things made of ivory.
All yellow gold and like a daughter []
Just when dawn in her golden sandals []
five red oxen []
the rose red moon [ ]
they wore red yarn to bind their hair.
Leave your siege of her violet softness []
Violet breasted daughter of Kronos []
Remember what has been, the rose-and-violet crowns
I wove into your hair when we stood so close together heart against heart
To temper the red desire
That burned my heart.
The black earth's finest sight []
Black dreams of such virulence [ ]
Out of the ashes I pluck the remnants of flowers and the firebird's aromatic herbsâcharred vegetation, incense and balsamâ
Peach-flower crowns, crowns of flowers and dill []
Roses, tangled parsley, and the honey-headed clover []
A coronet of celery
A leaf melody plays among mellow apple trees []
[] fields thick and rich with flowers []
[] see the lotus under heavy dew on the banks of the Acheron []
The mountain hyacinth trod underfoot by shepherds, its flower purple on the ground []
Once upon a time, the story goes, Leda found a hyacinthine egg []
Out from the still glowing embers I tease abstractions like taffy, spin them out fine like threads of glass â¦
whittled perplexities ⦠round truth ⦠misery the size of terror ⦠peace become havoc ⦠my longing hovers on wings around your loveliness ⦠that island-born holiness of Kypros
How at its height the bonfireâsap pockets explodingâmust have incandesced with your adjectives!
⦠quick with astonishment ⦠arrogant of heart
tall in our certainty
famous in every ear
young beyond Acheron
Now lost, after so much labour and death ⦠Asleep against the breasts of a friend ⦠Half asleep with love â¦
deep in the cushions on that softest bed where, free in desire
⦠voluptuous ⦠softer than a fine dress ⦠more melodious than the harp ⦠more harmonious than lyres ⦠bold as friends before each other ⦠our knees weaker than water â¦
Flaring hotter still, that lyric conflagration stoked on food and drink and spices and vesselsâ
⦠to every god his ambrosia ⦠bowls of cassia, cups of olibanum and myrrh ⦠magic liquors ⦠poured from a leather bottle â¦
Pour nectar in the golden cups ⦠golden goblets with knucklebone stems ⦠mix it deftly with dancing and mortal wine ⦠And around your graceful neck, the oils of spices â¦
For unspeakable losses then, make restitution, O destitute flame, retrace now in ashes the scorched path of conquest, of hecatomb and holocaust. Charred geographies from Lesbos to Heliopolisâ
That famous place
with its strange towns â¦
and from Sardis ⦠Mytilena ⦠embroidered, Persian ⦠crying
Asia!
A sacred grove ⦠a ford at the river â¦
Not just in its geographies lies the world bereft: hangs blistered the very air. Once there existedâ
steep air ⦠charmed air â¦
The wind is glad
and sweet in its moving â¦
the wind a crystal crash in the apples â¦
⦠the west wind blows upon me ⦠sliding across the air on wings
spread wide â¦
High winds ⦠storm wind ⦠heavy weather ⦠gales â¦
And make restitution for the birds that flew thereâby Sappho made rareâby fire made dust â¦
sparrows reined and bitted,
a quick blur aquiver â¦
With quickened heart they hovered
fluttered, and lit with folding wings
the doves â¦
Swallow, swallow
Pandion's daughter
of wind and sky
why me, why me?
In the fire's blackened track, anatomies of love stunted and twisted, fire-hardened sentiment where once there existedâ
Graces with wrists like the wild rose â¦
wild hearts ⦠wandering hearts ⦠hilarious hearts ⦠tethered hearts â¦
a fury that rages in the breast â¦
for a lost desire that shakes the mind
as wind in the mountain forests
roars through trees
⦠the bittersweet ⦠disgrace, rising â¦
⦠love ⦠strong / grievous / sharp ⦠bounden
Make restitution, O self-righteous arson, for the human tongue, blasted, for the
eyes, scarred and blinded
, for the
ears that roar in their labyrinths
, for the minds parched and blunted.
Once there were similes
bold as friends, haughtier than horses
. Once
sleep sifted down like dust
and
night poured over eyelids like liquor
.
Now against the lids' blind scrim only the shadows of questions smoulder on.
⦠the fetching way she walksâ
who was she?
âand I yearn / and I huntâ
for whom and for what?
âI loved you, Atthis, and long agoâ
was she worthy?
âI talked; she talked / and all in a dreamâ
what was that? what were you saying?
âif only they had woven me such luckâ
what then would you have wished for dear Sappho?
âdownward my tearsâ
what has moved you?
âI gave you a white goatâ
was its coat thick and soft?
âgaze with candourâ
what love now shines in your face?
âI am willing â¦
I am willing but what have they left us?âseven hundred lines.
Restitution is a fable, a complacent vindicationâmore and less and other than what was lost. The traitor's sop, the liar's seal, its violent impress in a wax of silenceâanother vain translation. So what then is left after the onslaught, what is left to us? The thin consolations of farewells. Ritual.
Farewell to the fire-split wonders of the human hand's artifice.
carved toys incredibly strange
and things made of ivory â¦
keen flutes, and tight drums ⦠crowns of leaves ⦠golden houses ⦠a bright abstruse chair ⦠holy altars ⦠mules hitched to high-wheeled carts
Farewell to the humanity, into the infernal, cast unscriptedâ
the dusty messenger, winded runner silver with sweat ⦠dancing grandmothers who shout the marriage song ⦠bachelors who lead the chariot horses and charioteers like gods who sing commands â¦
To the gods themselves made vivid in your lambent eyes
Hera, strange in a dream
ghost or visitation but in a shape all grace â¦
Andromeda, Zeus, the dark lord Aida â¦
Hermes who enters my dreams â¦
Apollo of the harp, archer of archers â¦
Eros, child of Gea and Ouranos, taking off his clothes â¦
Aphrodita crowned with golden leaves â¦
the gods' stunning daughter breathless Aphrodita
At last, to the girls, lit by the torch you carriedâ
⦠a black-eyed girl from Theba ⦠a girl in a country frock ⦠a girl picking a flower just opened ⦠a wild girl with charm ⦠a bride with beautiful feet ⦠a shy little girl â¦
she who comes in flowers ⦠my lazy girl, on this soft cushion ⦠with your blouse off, in your soft arms ⦠to the girls of Lesbos ⦠chaste and holy daughters, daughters of God, Priam's daughters ⦠my constant girls ⦠the pure and chaste â¦
This beauty of girls â¦
What are songs of restitution next to this? What have I accomplished? I've only betrayed the beauty of a girl. Inspiration's hacked limbs reassembled falter, it is just the life that lacks, that matters. You were never to be another's Muse. In these lines I have only made Athena foolish, made Aphrodite love like a judge, like the Sun.
Sweet daughter of Lesbos, small islands must know the times. And it is time, though Time is not quite why. The work is false.
Wisdom does not love. Love is not wise. This breach, this split, I cannot repair it. There are too many now for the sacrifices. Mercies are small, and not enough to go around.
But I, who hold the corners of these pages now to a single candle's flame, do not put it out when its work is done. Let it flicker on, and tomorrow night another, and each night when the Sun is gone, let there burn a smaller, mortal light, beyond repair but not recall. Let the ash remain that is falling now. That I might not easily forget, the fire that once trembled in your eyes and in your lines.
Â
BOOKÂ FOUR
               Â
The sun is calling me.
C
ODEX
C
HIMALPOPOCA
In Cnossus did Daedalus build a dancing floor for fair-haired Ariadne.
I
LIAD
Â
ONTENTS
In defence of reason, prey to Love
Beautiful Phaedra, whom I adore
Fate, was my crime of such enormity
Green allurement of our human life
When Pedro, as a man of the sea
HEN
W
ERE
T
HEY
D
RAGONS
        