C L A Y T O N   E S H L E M AN
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TWO POEMS

 

 

Some of Her Names

 

 

      At the Kerlescan megalithic alignments

             the opened     loaded
                         field

      Stegosaurian plates
      welted with lichen, granular
          saffron wounds

                      I write
      from the “lectern” of one
      piece of Car,  Ker,  the Carmenta
            scattered

Kali Ma  our Kauri,  the cowrie did it,  or was it Carya,
    the walnut-tree?
Kerlescan,  you are not only dedicated to Ker,  but to Kore,
    Q're,  Car-Dia,  Cerdo,  Carna,
your progeny are carnivals, charms, karma, cherubs,
the kernel thanks you,  charity is born,
because of you we have cereal,  Ceres,  we are carnal,
close kindred,  there are cardinal points,  cairns,  the kern
   out of which the grain god was born

At times these stone converge into a cromlech
to accommodate an animal band:  the lion is seated
sawing away at his zebra harp,  the bull is covering
his Leda-drum,  the snake is playing the human spine
    as if it were a chakra clarinet—
                                                 KA,
the curl of infant lip,  fern drifting onto a sleeping
      dragon's out-lapped tongue,
                                              stand
knee-deep in the flamy plush of this tongue,
ka becomes ka-r,  currr,  open ka seeking closure.
At the end, his vehicle lost,  Olson moaned:
                            “my wife    my car…”

These tall stones wear
on their granite the menstrual stains of dusk—
as the moon conceals herself forth, they seem to push on,
toward the ark of etymologies…

I've swallowed the millstone of my father,  no special feat,
the trick is to reimagine him,  to think of him as a bean,
to go with the grinding,  Car,  nut nymph or Carytid?
Caer Sidin,  the top of the pestle is in the Corona Borealis,
Caer Arianrhod,  the Cretan wife of Dionysus

To be human is to be stretched between one's tomb, her names,
    and one's star,
part of me is a prisoner in Caer Sidin,  the animal mortar,
I am the Beast trying to move Beauty through
    the sorgum of my eyes,
                                      glint of Caer Arianrhod
      in my iris implosions, distant Caer Arianrhod,
                              crown of the North Wind

As a poet my cor, my heart, is under Cerridwen,
I am of cerdd,  grain and the inspired arts,
the feast of lady Carnea is June 1,  my birth and wrath day.
As a cerdo, a craftsman,  I have eaten cerdo, pig,
my character goes back to carato,  from qirat,  bean, to Carnea:
    pig meat and beans.
I have swallowed my father, his attempt to enwomb and to be reborn,
I raise my keras , horns, cuckolded by the power of Charybdis—
as a door I am the son of Cardea,  from cardo,  hinge,
                                                           by these forces
   am I permeated,

      anima is pneuma,  the soul a storied fart.

 

 

[In memory of Paul Blackburn]

 

 

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