"All this sun, my heart is a toad!"/"We fucked on the roof, not everyone looked"/The Inspired Writing of Anthony McCann

Here's one of my favorite poems, from one of my favorite teachers (and one of my favorite people, for that matter--someone who has helped me immensely with my own writing, helped me learn how to live with this constant word-intake/alchemy that presses from the inside, out--without fear--with willing embarrassment and plenty of laughter).  I just found out that he has a new book of poems available, so now seems like an appropriate time to revisit his work. I think of Anthony as a sort of Wildebeest/human hybrid, which seems fitting given the frequency with which wildebeests and similar beastly characters pop up in his poetry.   His poetry walks this delightful line between the insanely beautiful, enlightened ecstasy of human-absurdity and emotions, NOISE and sacred nonsense, always threatening to fall off the edge, but somehow maintaining this teetering balance.  There is a lot of Kafka-esque mechanical malfeasance and thing-hood that appears in his poems as well (and I really shouldn't say Kafka-esque, because it is a thing-hood totally and completely unique to Anthony's writing style).  His poems are definitely meant to be read aloud--voiced, they come alive, unwieldy, beastly and full of the insistence of absurd, rambling rhythms and noise--intoxicated by shadows and trees with a roaring hunger: throat open, eyes twinkling with an almost devilish glee.
Really, all these poetic descriptions of mine don't do his work justice, so I will just post some of his work (I think of it as one long poem, even though it is titled "Five Poems").  Here it is:

Five Poems

*

I came out of the past, with fingers all stained

Behind my face my brain glows like carp

It’s like this, you’ll see, even in pictures

Leave it to someone to figure that out

That sad bug guy just imitates birds

Hey guy, I said, hailing the dude

The flowers you gave me weighed like ten pounds

But I walk up that hill every night

Still, I won’t put the moon in my poem

The moon knocks at the window, each window it makes

These bugs deposit some eggs in the dust

I respect the impulse, but can’t understand

The weather was there, a feeling like teeth

A small kindness, something like that

She’d wanted to listen to my voice late at night

She’d asked me to mail my voice to her home

I’d only wanted to speak truth to weather

It doesn’t matter, it’s going to happen

The moment withered, stood up and looked

I leaned in to get kissed, but I’d misunderstood

*

The surface is quiet; I’m suffering joy

Silently weeping she sniffed at my hair

All the blood, together, spilled from my face

May happy precision inflect your whole fate

“What have you done?” our someone exclaimed

You shrieked as though you’d stabbed me yourself

It was weird; being there, with the rocks and the trees

I leapt from the platform into your arms

You gazed down through the branches, the flowers, to me

I saw myself stumble from two miles out

When I opened the door you leapt into my arms

All the water spilled from my body at once

I was happy, adrift, in the spectacle fires

When I opened my mouth little bodies came out

In my dream there were dogs, blue feathers and dread

The cops filmed our wounds while we strolled in the park

As the city acquired a specialty light

As each night we watched the light drain from its wound

I can’t really imagine what anything’s like

But at times I’m compelled to recall how I felt

*

In this forest milieu: an encounter with void

I burst from the scrub to the roar of the crowd

Was a horse, untethered, alone in the glade

I stood in your place while you backed away

A horse is some kind of encounter with legs

The enormous head, hooded, just lowered itself

Here is precisely what gentleness is

There was shit on the stairs, I had to go back

O to wiggle and still be blessed and have legs!

Now here is a landscape for feeling bald things

This path wanders down through some unfurnished thoughts

I followed these ruts to your shack in the pines

O little blue bird, clear voice of the pines

Your letter has made me hot with new joy

Truly I tremble here in my plight

To have passed this close to one animal’s health!

I dozed with my view of the stream and the hills

Woke with blue fur in my teeth and my beard

Slowly—in bloom—my skull grew new eyes

Thin fingered light slipped down through the pines

*

The clouds drifted over a late human lunch
From miles away the tiny clouds came
Soft moss underfoot, far off rage of the dogs
Protect me, my love, from these horrible words

When the rains began I was waiting for you
The sky opened up and delivered this sound
It makes my lips linger here near the plates
Each thing we perform is rehearsing for death

This miracle gland gives my body no rest
To be emptied again by the meaningless roar
Let’s go die, and then die, and then die and then die
Roll on, little toes, to the top of the earth!

I address this next line to the mind of the trees
The trees are green hair, all wild and ripped
Then the world slumps and is soft as clay heads
I lie at your feet and imagine my eyes

The hedge behind me is filled with small eyes

Each animal seems like a personal trait
All of these signs—but only one word!
Demented! Demented! I run through the woods

*

It’s strange to be seen, I’ve said to a tree

To have trembled so much while breathing the air

For I stood by the lake and was taking its place

And you were the first to see me be seen

You sat and I watched you watching me watch

I was hearing the wind and then seeing the wind

I’d slowed down the film to watch your hair seethe

So that you were The Phantom and I was The Hand

I’m over your face—leaning in—to your face

(I watch the light change as your eyes re-adjust)

Soft lids close over the voice in its dream

Cloud shadows drift and shoot over the lake

Vacant and bright I hoist breakfast flags

Just watching the lake I’m forgetting your face

Hot, wet and alive—slickened with beads

All I see is your tongue, where it sits, in your head

No object here aches to be seen (except me)

Once again I’d arrived at the limit of friends

It might just be me and it might not be me

But it’s nice to be held while watching the waves

Here's a link to more of Anthony's work for anyone who is interested: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/05/poetry/four-poems

The Seduction of Angels

It's been a very nightshade-heavy day; I have a feeling it's going to be a nightshade-heavy night as well.  The rain, the recent full moon... various cavalcades, emotional collisions and a serious overdose of brain-intensity these last few days. But, on rare occasions, you ask something and the universe answers you clearly, unequivocally.  That is what happened today, regarding the harvesting procedure for Belladonna.  While this is a plant I've been enthusiastically growing since May, it is also one of the most formidable presences in my garden; she has serious attitude, intensity, and VERY sharp teeth.  Seeing as this is first time I planned to harvest the leaves and use them, I wanted to go about it properly.  So I asked & got a very clear sense of what my own "right way" of approaching her would be--without going into great detail, my ritual/harvesting more or less boiled down to stripping naked in the rain, wooing the plant with homegrown tobacco, other appropriate gifts & some eerie singing.  My fingers and toes went numb rather quickly, but it was well worth it.... the whole thing left me feeling very connected to the plant in a way I haven't previously.  I took a bath in the leaves afterward to thaw out & spent an hour or so languishing in the hot water, watching the room fill with incense and steam--enjoying the intensely powerful, intoxicating embrace (arm-lock? vice-grip?) of Atropa Belladonna.
I was reminded of a particular section of Dale Pendell's beautiful Pharmako/Poeia titled On the Seduction of Angels.  Here's a brief excerpt:  "Our Way is the seduction of angels.  Trouble is, sometimes after you've seduced the angel, you find that is really the angel that has seduced you.  Then you find out that the angel has horns.  Wonderful hard nubs of goatlike horn beneath her hair.  If you are a shaman of our way you don't care.  In fact you are delighted.  You love the horns.  You kiss and fondle them.  You weave intimate designs upon them.  And are given woven charms in return."

deep water

My love is buried—caught up in the teeth of fear,

like so many things.

I thought nearer to you—fighting the empty space between us

(it knows, but do you?)

breathing underwater, i'm struggling to stay afloat. Kicking my legs, uselessly writhing.

Such a strange and willful dance.

It is your breath I want.

(This may or may not be a declaration of --------. )

the current tides me back under, and for a moment I forget.

For a moment the smoke in my lungs reminds me that I am only human—that this is only my humanity

manifesting itself, taking hold of me,

my own intensity eternally circling the drain

Sucking peels of water down with hungry power.

(It is raining outside.  It is raining inside this skin, my skin)

soaked with dewdrops, wet with raindrops.

mouth open wide

throat bare

head tilted back

to drink the wetness.

I drank water from a maple leaf this morning, and saw your face

reflected back

in my cupped hands.

My eyes looked out across the horizon

searching for a glimpse of something that would explain my rushing blood, shivers.

But I found only sleeping mountains.

I invoked their names and whispered another. Pieces, unraveling. (I surrender)

yet the electricity of the air shudders my skin with ecstasy--

point, counterpoint.

I am all earth and water--fingers, hands and eyes.

(there are places in me you have not yet seen, unexplored landscapes. earthquakes--)

The seething pit that swallows me whole

Endlessly,

hides full moons

cauterized with craters and caverns; a twisted gravity begs my release

beneath the calm sea—and that sea,

that sea is what you see

when you look at me.

(It is deep water)

Eyes--torn asunder.

Coyote teeth, snake bones. The sawed-off front leg of a deer, fur still attached in patches.

I sat with the coyote until it died, paralyzed.

Watched the life go out of its eyes,

wondering.

why the light goes out of our eyes, sometimes

even as blood still races life through our veins.

There is fog on my brain today, whiskey and red wine.

And lust-dreams keep me awake even in sleep

after the drive home, watching the yellow tracks blur on the highway

where I was the only one—swans and smoke, exhaling transcendent noise

reverberations and tobacco spiraling

spilling through the open space of the window.

Gas-light on.

then, stripping my stockings off and climbing into warmth.

Knowing sleep would not come.

even as I was dreaming, I wished it were true--

All the absurdities, confessions, faith.

Twisted elegiac logic of dreams

the soft feeling of your skin, unreal.

I contort myself to escape back into my dream; the rain tethers me.

Sometimes daylight is...

beating me over the head with a sharp stick.

A presence so full of absence.

Blue Vervain

While on a hike with friends yesterday, I came across a few blue vervain plants. They were unusually soft and fuzzy, sensual—much more pliable and yielding than the vervain plants I grew last year (the ones that are currently dreaming under the earth, with just the shiny purple leaves crowning above the ground) and although they did not look identical to the blue vervain I was familiar with, a taste-test confirmed their identity. Blue vervain has a very distinctive slightly sweet (almost narcotic) bitterness that has a way of creeping and sliding around the back of your throat with a very thick potency & astringency—once you've tasted fresh leaves, that particular bitterness is unmistakable.

Anyway, I identified the plant as Verbena Lasiostachys, also called blue vervain & western vervain. It is used along with Verbena Hastata (the blue vervain I have growing in my backyard) in the Herb Pharm blue vervain tincture, so it's got to be good stuff. Finding the plant growing in Ojai jolted me with an intense curiosity, and this curiosity prompted some thorough research and a good amount of leaf-fondling (my way of requesting extra information from the plants themselves).

Medicinally, vervain is one of those plants that provides an unlimited panoply of remedies. Not only that, but every part of the plant has its own particular medicinal use, from seed to root. It was fondly referred to as “The Herb of Enchantment” in many ancient cultures and seems to have been used consistently for both protection and fertility across many geographic locations—used in Greece, Italy, Jamaica, by Druids, by early Christians (who believed it had been used to staunch Jesus' wounds as he was crucified) and by various Native Americans. I'm not sure there is anything this plant couldn't do—it's been used to soothe intestinal complaints, as an analgesic (both internally and topically), to rid the body of parasites/worms, to prevent regular recurring symptoms of a particular disease (from malaria to asthma), as an astringent, to promote sweating & rid the body of toxins, to gently cleanse the liver and kidneys, as an emetic, expectorant, as an emmenagogue & to stimulate blood flow in general (which also explains why it is such a powerful aphrodisiac), to increase the flow of breast-milk, as a vulnerary (again, both topically and internally), to treat fevers & UTI's, and as a powerful nerve tonic/mild sedative, treatment for insomnia, dream-enhancer/lucid-dream enabler. Poultices were also used to treat headaches, sore muscles & rheumatism. The Iroquois used the seeds as a food source, and other tribes also made a type of blue vervain flour (resembling corn-meal) from the ground seeds.

During the summer I had used blue vervain a few times (made a very strong decoction from the leaves of the plants I had growing) and my experience of the plant boiled down to this: fevers and dreams, with a very strong, pervasive sexual energy. Again, there is a conflation of the masculine and the feminine. This plant is sacred to Thor, Mercury, Diana/Artemis, & Isis (and I would suspect Kali has a presence here as well), giving it the following affiliations: thunder, lightning, storms, knowledge, communication/connection, the wild virgin hunter, the moon, love, fertility, magic, motherhood, the protector of “all beginnings” (children and the dead).

The plant has a very strong serpent vibe—it was used as a charm against snakebites, and could make a man “tough as iron” and “hard as steel,” acting as a strong aphrodisiac and transferring the “hardness of iron” to the man while making love. Interestingly, the wild vervain has a much softer, yielding, feminine energy, while the V. Hastata was much stronger, sharper, rougher, more demanding and with a bit of a masculine touch (although still distinctly feminine). It seems to me that using these two varieties of Vervain together could create some serious mojo... both in terms of medicinal use, and otherwise.

Magically, Blue Vervain was used to sanctify altars and amulets, to purify the body and mind, to create lustral water, to help find true love and recover lost love, made into bridal wreaths (gathered by the bride herself) and as a sacred herb in Ancient Roman sacrifices. Vervain was often used with Rue (seems like a perfect combination) and was hung around windows and doors to protect the home, sprinkled around a room/house to bring peace and happiness, scattered in fields to ensure fertility and bountiful crops, added to potions to intensify their effect, used by witches to potentiate their will, used in exorcisms, added to dream pillows to prevent nightmares/intensify positive dreams, in healing ceremonies & to clarify sight and aid in divination (to help one see their path and their word more clearly). According to Thiselton-Dyer's book “The Folk-Lore of Plants,” Blue Vervain is to be harvested when neither the sun nor the moon is in the sky, only gathered “when the dog-star arose, from unsunned spots.” Given Isis' association with Sirius/the Dog-Star, this makes an awful lot of sense. According to Daniel Schulke's Viridarium Umbris, Vervain must always be collected with the Left Hand, and its preferred sacrifices are honey and beeswax (the bees really love this plant). It is quite startling to see the connections with this plant across such a large temporal/geographical/cultural sprawl, and to see how these different cultures identify it similarly in terms of mythology and its strong predilection for fertility/protection.

This plant is fascinating—I am becoming quite enamored... I can't wait until my sleeping crowns of blue vervain re-awaken for the spring, sending up their torches of blue-violet flowers for the bees to suckle, their leaves changing over time from green to deep-violet and blue, veined and tinged with lines and flashes of dark indigo. I imagine that honey made from blue vervain flowers would be something rather special—I'll have to have a chat with the bees, I suppose.

I can't resist...

Here is a fantastic music video from Sailboat--I did the makeup/swamp monster "facepainting" or whatever you want to call it for the singers & helped with the green screen stuff a few years ago.  Pretty delightful juicy electropop goodness... and sailors with eyeliner.  Yes, sailors with eyeliner.... Good shit.

Omie Wise

So, I have to say, murder ballads bring out everything that is great about folk music.  I was digging through the freakin mess that is the 500 gigs of music my brother gave me as a yuletide gift & I came across an entire compilation devoted to reiterations of this very old song, Omie Wise.  (There is another compilation that has about 20 versions of John Barleycorn--great marauder's tale about a famous bootlegger for anyone not familiar with the story).  Anyhow, the lyrics are beautiful and I love hearing all the different voices & instrumentation.  They are all so good it's hard to pick a favorite--Clarence "Tom" Ashley plays some really F*^%$(# great  banjo & the a capella version of Addie Graham is completely raw and kind of tugs at your emotions.  Dock Boggs is almost delighted with his story... not sure what to make of that.... also good banjo, on that one.  Doug & Jack Wallin have a bit of fiddle and really solid vocals--that might just be my favorite one so far, sort of tied neck & neck with Doc Watson.
Anyhow, enough rambling--the point of this is that this is a really old story, a true story about the murder of Naomi Wise sometime around 1808.  The fact that this woman's death has been preserved & passed down in via this sort of musical oral history for about 2 centuries, spawning a thousand different variations--a song sung by hundreds of singers, played on all sorts of different instruments--is simply incredible.  The lyrics, of course, have evolved and collaged themselves over time, so that the story has become a sort of fictionalized folk myth--though it began in the truthful story of a man named Jonathan Lewis who drowned a woman in Deep River, North Carolina.  He was arrested in 1808, promptly escaped, was captured & then acquitted of the murder, despite the fact that "it seems certain that Lewis murdered wise."

I'll tell you a story about Omie Wise,
How she was deluded by John Lewis's lies.
He promised to marry her at Adams's spring;
He 'd give her some money and other fine things.
He gave her no money, but flattered the case.
Says, "We will get married; there'll be no disgrace."
She got up behind him; away they did go
They rode till they came where the Deep River flowed.
"Now Omie, little Omie, I'll tell you my mind:
My mind is to drown you and leave you behind."
"Oh, pity your poor infant and spare me my life!
Let me go rejected and not be your wife."
"No pity, no pity," the monster did cry.
"On Deep River's bottom your body will lie."
The wretch he did choke her as we understand;
He threw her in the river below the mill dam.
Now Omie is missing as we all do know,
And down to the river a-hunting we 'II go.
Two little boys were fishing just at the break of dawn;
They spied poor Omie's body come floating along.
They arrested John Lewis; they arrested him today.
They buried little Omie down in the cold clay.
"Go hang me or kill me, for I am the man
Who murdered poor Naomi below the mill-dam."

If I ever figure out how to do it, I'll post some audio.  Reading the lyrics just isn't the same as listening to the song...

 

Emily--digging through old writing.

we found these artifacts, 

spiral closures wrapped in skin 

skin of the last one that came down laughing. 

and the headlights of dandelions breed a delicate madness--           as we walk

the black ribbons of the pier and stand above the ocean

                                                                                                 pearls,

                                                                                                 i smell seagulls. taste salt. 

       i left her in minneapolis, small apartment windows covered 

       black fabric to block out the light.        i lived here, sick and sweating. 

                      taking baths at four am to quell the shakes-- 

                                                               My legs have a life of their own.

she took pictures of herself          naked.          shaved head. 

                                                                     plastic dildo in hand. 

                  and i watched her. 

                  i watched her watching me.

                                                eight years and then she came down laughing---

                                                                                                      laughing, 

                                                                          eight years and she came down

                                                                          laughing. 

                                                when she found the edge--- 

                                                her proclivity for 

                                  steady pain sent her 

                                  spiraling--- 

                                                    ( did i? ) 

                                 so we spiraled.

                                                         vacant notebooks        hotel bathrooms

                                                         little blue bottles of shampoo

                                                                     for those dead dolls       in their dead dollhouses.

                                                                                                                       porcelain---- 

                        

                                                                                                                                  emily.

i closed the windows, skeleton keys straddling sanity. and she looked at her feet

and they were      wrapped in skin--- and the hotel bathroom,

we are wrapped in skin;

                                                                                                                         the pricking

                                     pregnancy of forgotten nouns, in my belly--- as she thinks of artifacts

                                                          i think of artifacts

                                                          and in this room, we come down laughing.

when hours pass and this door is opened.

         the drafts of the door,      opened,     send chills             shivering       

                                                                wafting over the sallow heads of children 

                                                                                                                       shallow ivy

        twisted vines of ivy 

        that have positioned themselves 

        in a stance of relative disclosure 

        equipped with a recursive silence that blinds       and 

                                                                binds her feet, 

                                                                              wrapped in skin 

                                                                              as she came down laughing.

                      

                                                                 ( we are casting off unnecessary equanimity ) 

  in order to melt into the drunken winding dusk. 

      “my spirals have come undone, the dollhouses closed their eyes

                        tavern's windows blinding my light.” 

                                           

                                                                                              so we drive.

we drive out of somewhere                     into nowhere,

                                                             on our way 

                                                             to a not-even-anything-place---- 

                                                                          but, perhaps-----perhaps we could 

                                                                                             purchase some peace, 

                                                                                             or find love in the eye of a needle.

                                            the kind with a possessive gravity, a lust for destruction. 

                                            pulling you down, 

                                            pulling you down, 

                                                                       down, 

                                                                                down. 

                                                                              until you wake, find yourself drooling with eyes open.     muscles slow.     mind detached. a vague memory     of    something like a waking dream still     sticking to your skin.          the skin of your mind, sedated.   shivers of pleasure. where the air hung wet and yellow     around your ears and you could hear----- the buzzing blizzard    of everything---pebbles shifting, bird feathers swishing, cars----always angry---the distance closing---and--- 

                                                                             and it was warm. 

                                                                                     for a few hours, anyway. 

                  there's always the black to every white even tar has a little ether in it    the up, and the                   down.

                                              and i hang.

                                              i hang-- 

                                              unwitting captive 

                                              strange ride. 

i find my hands        my hands     they are wrapped in skin, and i can travel for hours 

             wrapped in skin, going nowhere-- 

                                                      but up, down, 

                                                              up down 

                                            down up 

                                                     downnnn 

                                                                                      

                                                                 nnnnn 

                                                                     up down up 

                                                                           up up up--- 

                        unraveling my own solidarity                                                            (for loss       

                       under some stable middle ground                                         must be a carnival

                                                                                                                     riding my eyes) 

                       and when the daylight comes again 

                                       i will marvel at this snakebite 

                                                        three spots of blood---

                                                                                         three artifacts, laughing.

                                                                              

                                                                     wrapped in skin   the skin

                                                                     of a snake i          am wrapped in skin. 

                                                                                       and when the world came down 

                                                                                       i heard

                                                                                       not a sound.

                             

                                                                                                                   (not a sound

                                                                                                                           not a sound)

Mikaylah Bowman

I stumbled upon this artist's work recently (over at The Opium Fields) and I was struck by this particular photograph--it is Wormwood embodied.  From what I've seen of her work so far, Mikaylah Bowman's style possesses extraordinary depth--sharp images and musky, musty warmth layered beneath subdued colors and cataracts of shadows.  Everything is very still in her photographs, but the gazes (or lack thereof) of her subjects seem to act as catalysts for an internal motion that happens within our minds as our eyes follow the contours of leaves, chains, hardwood floors leading into plastic bags filled with water, leading into dark, dark hair, leading back into hidden eyes.

Artemisia Absinthium

The world seems like it is always cracking these days. Little cracks creep and shatter the outer edges—slowly, sometimes suddenly. Sometimes it takes a minute to realize what has happened. A crow flies down and hovers over the mullein stalk, and everything stops for just a second. Shifts in perspective contort the leafless oak tree into a witches broom, a bent figure of a woman with a swollen belly and shoulders like old rotting furniture slumped in a dark room, staring out at me.

It would be nice to quiet my thoughts occasionally, but I am pretty sure that this insistent pressing—this endless droning, wandering, rising, falling—is just my brain having its way with me, so I try to embrace the noise. (Noise like a loud river, not noise like an airport.)

I am drinking wormwood tea for the third night in a row. There is something so comforting about this deep green bitterness, the way the taste echoes on my tongue even after the warm liquid has made its way down into my throat, and then into my stomach. It bites—Wormwood has a very strong fire, hidden at first, but revealing heat-fingers in strange ways after moments have passed—even as the bitterness fades, it bites again, warming my skin, flushing the space behind my ears. It is a feeling like a bee sting inside your body, hurting at first and then flooding with warm pain, making you wake up into the burning circle of skin that begins to beg to be scratched.

Wormwood has become a great comfort these past few days, and I am continually amazed at how much this plant has to offer. Layers and layers of personality—edges covered up by waves, sharpness embedded in softness—and what is starting to reveal itself as an incredibly complex dual nature. When I first started growing Wormwood, she seemed very feminine to me—Artemis embodied, essentially. (Not to mention the whole Green Fairy business—it is Artemisia Absinthium, after all.) Wild green woman roaming through the woods with a bow and arrow—hunter, sharp-witted, spirited, quick-footed. Virgin and yet dripping, seething with sex at the same time—taker of animal life, giver of green life. I made a habit of drinking wormwood tea on full-moons and watching her leaves turn a hundred shades of silver as the moon rose. She was soft—leaves begging to be held up to my lips, bitter porcupine quills hidden under the fur of the silverwort. Lately she has become a he... Grandfather wormwood, I suppose. Very intense, demanding wise old man.... Very much Mars. This Mars/Moon conflation is rather perplexing to me.... the male/female hybrid seems to be fairly common in plant life, but I have yet to understand whether the Mars/Moon aspect is two separate versions of the same sort of thing, or if they are at odds with each other in some way, or if they are actually complimentary below the surface. So, I'll just keep scratching into the surface and drinking Wormwood tea and see what happens....