Christien Gholson
Bio: Christien Gholson is the author of several books, including The No One Poems (Thirty West Publishing) and A Fish Trapped Inside the Wind (Parthian Books,) a novel. A long eco-catastrophe-ceremony poem, "Tidal Flats", can be found at Mudlark, along with its sequel, "Solutions for the End of the World", which can be found at The American Journal of Poetry. He lives in New Mexico, alongside yucca spirits, prickly pear cactus, ghost mammoths, cunning hares, devouring ravens, canyon towhees, and the occasional dream manatee. http://christiengholson.blogspot.com/
Grey Whale Chthonic Praise-Chant
The whale entered my mind scoured the shrimp-like amphipods at the bottom where the bones have drifted Tyranny of silt in seawater silt mixed with salt gold-shine of minerals kicked up into the faint light Galleries of ancestor-faces kicked up breathing out lost green bacteria with names like Holyanna and Encyklops and Terfidious
The whale blows a cloud of mist that smells like the inside of a drowned sailor’s skull The whale’s breath was a sudden flicker at the corner of the eye And I danced on the sand like a selkie-angel who has been waiting for the appearance of her god since she first grew hands and legs and walked out of the water wondering at the whales lumbering past her into the sea
The whale is the whale of my eye strange to myself The whale is the whale of my arms strange to myself The whale is the whale of my spleen my feet strange to myself And the whale’s breath is the history of the predatory solitude that swims around all fish creates the light that moves in circles around a dying apple tree A dying old man and woman in twisted hospital sheets
The whale entered my eye carved a cavern at the back of my skull released the ghosts of two butterflies The Mourning Cloak and Juvenal’s Dusky Wing and the ghosts of three moths The Blinded Sphinx Himmelman’s Plume and The Western Grapeleaf Skeletonizer Dust-wings roamed through my body telling anyone who would listen how water created the moon’s aura
The whale entered the sea parted the waves searched for a plume of invisible shrimp the mumbling architects of mud tunnels that connect land to sea The dark weight around the body that buoys the body slipping from gravity’s knot The perpetual untangle and release of water Hunted for water inside water the invertebrate angel hiding under the seafloor
The whale entered the sea And then there were hotels on the cliff and the god of numbers sent waves and creatures to the shore line with phosphor eyes true kin of angler fish lures to witness sudden heart-shaped clouds of mist The something from nothing breath The long slide of the barnacled back The snake that eats its own tail
And the whale lured me in
The whale blows a cloud of mist that smells like the inside of a drowned sailor’s skull The whale’s breath was a sudden flicker at the corner of the eye And I danced on the sand like a selkie-angel who has been waiting for the appearance of her god since she first grew hands and legs and walked out of the water wondering at the whales lumbering past her into the sea
The whale is the whale of my eye strange to myself The whale is the whale of my arms strange to myself The whale is the whale of my spleen my feet strange to myself And the whale’s breath is the history of the predatory solitude that swims around all fish creates the light that moves in circles around a dying apple tree A dying old man and woman in twisted hospital sheets
The whale entered my eye carved a cavern at the back of my skull released the ghosts of two butterflies The Mourning Cloak and Juvenal’s Dusky Wing and the ghosts of three moths The Blinded Sphinx Himmelman’s Plume and The Western Grapeleaf Skeletonizer Dust-wings roamed through my body telling anyone who would listen how water created the moon’s aura
The whale entered the sea parted the waves searched for a plume of invisible shrimp the mumbling architects of mud tunnels that connect land to sea The dark weight around the body that buoys the body slipping from gravity’s knot The perpetual untangle and release of water Hunted for water inside water the invertebrate angel hiding under the seafloor
The whale entered the sea And then there were hotels on the cliff and the god of numbers sent waves and creatures to the shore line with phosphor eyes true kin of angler fish lures to witness sudden heart-shaped clouds of mist The something from nothing breath The long slide of the barnacled back The snake that eats its own tail
And the whale lured me in
The Cat-Faced Orb Weaver Chthonic Praise-Chant
Wind brings noise and absence to the cat-faced spider at the edge Gnat and snake-fly writhe and I am the clouds through the orb Seven crows in the pear tree picking high fruit Filigreed red and mint eyes made by the wind
Dark gravity of her body pulls the world into the center
The spider wraps earth-scent ichor of wet stone Wraps the long abdomen Can you hear the scrape of a clock made of grasshopper tibia dead sunflower stalks All rubbing together inside her
Wind measures hunger in the airSpider does likewiseThey are in league with each other Who made who no one knows except the particle of light that balances on silk
Blue stars sway in the night-basket that is not there
The cat-faced spider was once wind as I was once wind As I was once a weave of noise and absenceHow many trains have pulled out of the station with dark animal eyes shining between iron bars inside the web The smell of the soon-to-be slaughtered for a thousand miles
Weave of noise and absence the predator pattern She will grow as large as a small bird as large as a pear just now brutalized by an orange tanager through the webShe bursts the stone a dark galaxy appears What astromancer was swallowed by its spin Black hair gone white when he reappeared
Wind and spider two halves of one creating the world in the window-wellLeft a dead grasshopper in her wake no letters home nothing about what she will eat in the after-life Gorged on ghost thorax throat dusk tibia palp wing and mandible shavings
Dark gravity of her body pulls the world into the center
The spider wraps earth-scent ichor of wet stone Wraps the long abdomen Can you hear the scrape of a clock made of grasshopper tibia dead sunflower stalks All rubbing together inside her
Wind measures hunger in the airSpider does likewiseThey are in league with each other Who made who no one knows except the particle of light that balances on silk
Blue stars sway in the night-basket that is not there
The cat-faced spider was once wind as I was once wind As I was once a weave of noise and absenceHow many trains have pulled out of the station with dark animal eyes shining between iron bars inside the web The smell of the soon-to-be slaughtered for a thousand miles
Weave of noise and absence the predator pattern She will grow as large as a small bird as large as a pear just now brutalized by an orange tanager through the webShe bursts the stone a dark galaxy appears What astromancer was swallowed by its spin Black hair gone white when he reappeared
Wind and spider two halves of one creating the world in the window-wellLeft a dead grasshopper in her wake no letters home nothing about what she will eat in the after-life Gorged on ghost thorax throat dusk tibia palp wing and mandible shavings
Moonlight On a Deer Skull Chthonic Praise-Chant
The world is not a world, it is called ‘a world.’
Diamond Sutra
The moon is not a moon it is called a moon Inside the skull moonlight becomes the dark half-lidded eyes of a tranced moon-rabbit who knows the way through this maze of branch and bone shadows Allure-absence of eye allure-absence of light in the socket allure-absence the attentive moon-presence of lack
Moonlight is not moonlight it is called moonlight Put your finger inside the cool dark of the skull Feathered strands of dream sea-wrack shriek of human wrist-bones on a chalk cliff coyote tongue lapping what’s left Words I could not say at the death-bed of a friend Words pale as moonlight that is not moonlight
The skull is not a skull it is called a skull Cornmeal and tobacco on the skull crown like ants in moonlight composting pale bone into pale light Cold cold through the spine the skin curled fever-flushed in bed watching a moonlight-ignited deer leap the low stone wall into the moon
The empty space where the brain once churned in its furred socket is not the empty space where the brain once churned in its furred socket Filled with desire for pear branch bark pear branch femur bones inside the deer body pear branch teeth crunching pear bark born from Devonian moonlight
The void is not a void it is called a void Absence is the hole at the center holding it all together Presence by absence eyes blank dark lit by moon-scar suture lines where skull-plates were knit together Light clatter of hooves through last pear leaves A duet of bone and branch
The moon is not a moon it is called a moon Call and response of reflected light Skull and moon refuse to divulge the source A deer moves among moon-craters disappears inside the shadow of Mons Agnes I drift out over the low stone wall a deer skull in my hands Lantern held high For Ash & Alli
Moonlight is not moonlight it is called moonlight Put your finger inside the cool dark of the skull Feathered strands of dream sea-wrack shriek of human wrist-bones on a chalk cliff coyote tongue lapping what’s left Words I could not say at the death-bed of a friend Words pale as moonlight that is not moonlight
The skull is not a skull it is called a skull Cornmeal and tobacco on the skull crown like ants in moonlight composting pale bone into pale light Cold cold through the spine the skin curled fever-flushed in bed watching a moonlight-ignited deer leap the low stone wall into the moon
The empty space where the brain once churned in its furred socket is not the empty space where the brain once churned in its furred socket Filled with desire for pear branch bark pear branch femur bones inside the deer body pear branch teeth crunching pear bark born from Devonian moonlight
The void is not a void it is called a void Absence is the hole at the center holding it all together Presence by absence eyes blank dark lit by moon-scar suture lines where skull-plates were knit together Light clatter of hooves through last pear leaves A duet of bone and branch
The moon is not a moon it is called a moon Call and response of reflected light Skull and moon refuse to divulge the source A deer moves among moon-craters disappears inside the shadow of Mons Agnes I drift out over the low stone wall a deer skull in my hands Lantern held high For Ash & Alli
Oak Misericords in St David’s Cathedral Chthonic Praise-Chant
Misericord the underside of the mercy seat carved from a solid block of oak Misericord figures from observation from spirit-visits from half-heard stories in childhood about fox raven sphinx manticore Misericord how earth spoke through the oak that stood guard over the sea that watched over the underground stream that swallowed St. Non’s words whole
Misericord uroboros knots woven with pelican bear hydras pilgrim-ecologies who thread their way into local chimney smoke
Misericord branch-shadow mandorlas of grey lichen on sea- stone the original bridge between the living and the dead
Misericord the oak hands no one remembers who still speak raven mermaid wander-beasts who remember the word that will give wood a second life a third a fourth Misericord all human morals gone only oak-hands on oak- curve on oak-earth
Misericord uroboros knots woven with pelican bear hydras pilgrim-ecologies who thread their way into local chimney smoke
Misericord branch-shadow mandorlas of grey lichen on sea- stone the original bridge between the living and the dead
Misericord the oak hands no one remembers who still speak raven mermaid wander-beasts who remember the word that will give wood a second life a third a fourth Misericord all human morals gone only oak-hands on oak- curve on oak-earth
Listening to A Manatee Surface Late at Night
On the St. John’s River Chthonic Praise-Chant
She summons me to the water Her skin craters and wastes of grey moon-surface scarred by a boat propeller She lifts her snout above hyacinth inhales sings to the Megalodon tooth embedded in the riverbank and the tooth sings back a harsh song about the fire-shell blown off a distant star
She summons me to sleep And I am drafted into her war Awoke with flippers fluke suspended in dark water A conquistador dove in wanted to mate mistook me for a mermaid His savage-song about Jesus and iron and the transubstantiation of flesh into fire
She summons me to the water Sinks into hydrilla a bloated holy moon-cow buoyant with ruminant joy Her great face curious with knowledge of how water moves around bodies through bodies how fresh and salt water balance dreams between conquistador and moon
She summons me out of sleep And I walk suspended in black water towards her a stranger on the banks she follows me home dodging street cats and rats on phone wires She is the gargantuan grey asteroid floating through the bedroom window who cradles me in a bed of pickerelweed
She summons me to the surface Moon-breath water-breath I once swam with you and your sister in Crystal River do you remember the submerged vigil the sentence that flows out of the live-oak roots into the sea
She summons me And I sink back into what I was before she dreamed me into being Sound of the river as it rises to meet the night Her breath a circle of standing white stones on the shoreline I turn and turn and emerge from her gravity-less slow-motion like a shadow from her womb
She summons me
She summons me to sleep And I am drafted into her war Awoke with flippers fluke suspended in dark water A conquistador dove in wanted to mate mistook me for a mermaid His savage-song about Jesus and iron and the transubstantiation of flesh into fire
She summons me to the water Sinks into hydrilla a bloated holy moon-cow buoyant with ruminant joy Her great face curious with knowledge of how water moves around bodies through bodies how fresh and salt water balance dreams between conquistador and moon
She summons me out of sleep And I walk suspended in black water towards her a stranger on the banks she follows me home dodging street cats and rats on phone wires She is the gargantuan grey asteroid floating through the bedroom window who cradles me in a bed of pickerelweed
She summons me to the surface Moon-breath water-breath I once swam with you and your sister in Crystal River do you remember the submerged vigil the sentence that flows out of the live-oak roots into the sea
She summons me And I sink back into what I was before she dreamed me into being Sound of the river as it rises to meet the night Her breath a circle of standing white stones on the shoreline I turn and turn and emerge from her gravity-less slow-motion like a shadow from her womb
She summons me
