Oni Buchanan
Song Cycle
Song of the voice, mellifluous song, delight
of the breath. The noise of the unbuttoning
will commence from underneath, the organs
casting off their fumes of exhaust, a decay we can shape
to the language we exchange, dying— The sound
differs, as always, as always—vaporous, and
the water, spilling from the curved
borders of the body. There was a day,
perhaps not even a full day, as the moon
waned, as the interchangeable bodies collide on a field
and leave behind them
the interchangeable bodies. Dull thuds
from within the glass jar (one must surround
the ear with glass, trembling like a
marsh marigold in its globe). Blood to be gathered
in thimbles. So many lit windows,
and the dark flow between, a current with the bodies
enfolded, those that fell without so much
as a whisper to the night, or to the water
which seduced with its susurrous slippage—
(The swannery, where swallowtails swaggered on swards— )
Like dew-embers, the suspirations. The spruce
bedazzling with its scents swirling, an essence distilled.
And the plangent cry
of the boughs! And the tundra swans trumpeting!
The yearlings in the migratory line. Oh stillness, your safe,
your chiseled hand—let the birds land upon it
and leave again, an acrobat’s smile—
To Breathe the Blue
At the top of a marble staircase (with its landings
alternating higher and higher through the column of air),
through the great window at the top, the whole city
gleams in the blue, and the pinnacles
separated in their spires by pieces of blue (shapes
carved by the razored-edges of towers)—
The light is thrown off the thousand windows
in scythes, in scimitars, the curved blade unsheathed,
and the metal of the world blinding the world
in deflection of light, a white fire arriving—
Who is it that imagined the land between the waters
rising like the broad back of an animal?
Who is it that first imagined “tree” with its gorgeous limbs dividing
outward from the torso and the sky embedded
in the tiniest windows of the branches crossing—
(There is a madman who gazes up into the branches,
who in his movement shifts the windows
to collapse and open again, a fanning, like a hand
of cards, a fortune made by motion, changed— )
Not just “tree” but birch with its dashed scrolls peeling,
but aspen with its tiny hands applauding in the breeze,
with its change-purse rattling, its satchel of tokens,
dogwood, hickory, banyan, magnolia with its tongues
protruding, with its chambered spaceships wired to the red crew,
mimosa, sycamore, weeping—the lonely drag of the hair
over water—willow; who?
But try to reach the blue—the space of air
dissolves its hue to lucent, clearer as approached,
like transparent water lifted from a dark stream,
cupped in the hands. (We wish to breathe the blue,
the shards of blue, the tiny wounds of crystals,
an injury of diamonds)—
We run and run—
And all around, the other animals burning
until they are gone. The sun tumbling in its plasma geysers, haloed
in its tentacles of burn and the burn
of its spots. How the air retains light, and at night,
the memory of light in its hold—
(Night, while the dead light
circles, offering its hand— Thumbprint from the sentinels’ files:
he who held a bone through the cage grate, silent. Designed,
an insignia from the senders of sky;
carved body, acoustic and hollow.)
For there is only so much time.
We run. We run. We run faster.
The Surface, from ShardsA great tree was there, on the bank of the great river
(the silvering river as the dusk comes on, the river
with its bodies, spent, enfolded in swathes)—
Its leaves and branches hung completely to the ground, a hive
of color, a woven dome,
the leaves purple, mauve, maroon, a darkening hue like a plum,
the leaves like rudders by which the dusk (the darkening air) could steer
its course through the current of sky,
or palettes, the leaves
from which the purple seeped in swirls into the air,
from which the color slid into the river (slithered).
(The leaves a sequence of hand mirrors
that the fatter caterpillars wave
as they admire their fluctuating bristles in the setting sun.)
(And the sound too, like fluctuating bristles streaming
from the purple hive: so many tiny bodies entering and exiting,
the bodies in passage through the matrix of paths, and the sound
like coarse and silken fabrics rubbing with a soft
mesh, a collision of surface— )
The leaves overlaid hold a stretch of shimmer,
just as the surface of the river
in glimmer-shards shows a cloak, a smooth velvet curve
(—while from below, the shrouded bodies extend
their long strands of hair to the surface, and the hair
drifting in network to snare the edges
of purpling leaves, to hold the leaves
in bits, individual, against the current [so that they stay:
leaves, the single leaves that fell],
and the long, cold arm in sway
with the water, and at its end, like a limp
blossom, the fingers hung from the hand,
a downward blooming, a blooming towards cold—)
And as the dark touches down to the earth
(and as the gradual dark touches down), always
that glint in the pitch, hint to pass
through and let the surface seal
seamlessly behind—the leaves, the water,
the sky— Seamless, or,
Seem-less, as in without
appearance (the disappeared— )
Certain FaultsBecause of certain faults peculiar to me,
we were left in a volume of gnats,
considering for our dinner
lichen growing on several big rocks to the left.
A piano rag issued weakly forth
from an old jack-in-the-box left wound in the weeds.
We changed our lapel pins
as the situation changed. For God forgot
the situation of my head to disable and deliriate, despicably.
That desert was delectable, one cactus commented coyly
to his compatriot. I’m parched.
They toasted one another with their petite forks.
A fruit fly was furious, fluctuating in a film of flan-fungus.
It flew festering forward, then failed physically
from the viscous fructose, a funny and fascinating fluid.
Due to ultraviolet radiation,
Ambervision glasses were demanded of humanity,
and I clocked in as a “have,” whisking aside
a panel of my long work shirt to reveal said glasses
clipped expertly to my utility belt.
Hence, we called forth the remnant songbirds
using a green wooden barrel, brass, and resin construct.
Certain larks had shorter toes than
certain other larks, and these were unaware
of their deficiency. A helicopter lowered itself, beating,
upon its landing pad as a bright orange wind sock, enormous snout
stitched in nylon, maneuvered with grotesque agility
within the vacillations of wind. The gloved hands
of the pilot had been preserved, and because of shea butter
rubbed in, the skin remained youthful. The gloves too
were lotioned in the leather, the hairless hide shining,
and the sluices smoothed out.
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