Two of Knives and Sinistrose Poem
TWO OF KNIVES
at blind crescent, you said. the crossroads kiss at the hilt.
and roads go and go, and even straight, will turn
into other roads. they might turn winding then, you know,
serpentine, with snakes by the way. and still, by surprise,
i find adders on the adder-path,
and forked flames lick the ashen path: the road filled with snow.
my sister-twin, inextricable. just one day thinner of eye.
this kin of white you find only in bloodless marriages.
salt minds heap mounds in my milk-snow memories,
while sleeveless green winter’s evenings
stalk my dark grounds in our skins.
flensed of excesses, at the first press of pearlessence, we flex
trapezii and our shoulders’ blades to shades of caducei, the two
four or eight arrowy heads shedding too, their transluced sluices, through
the light which quivers florescent. and tensed as a bow string, strung.
(back, taut, taunting.)
here the vicious ribbons hiss, swanning
their hypnotic cursive dances, as if were calligraphic curses.
thither the come-hither flickers and quick slithers back.
white glimpses glint with sibilants like serrated lightning strikes.
writ in nicks and etches on th’threatening’s edge, i
erode the ending sentence spinning in divot
and dissolve unresolved.
refinding the fir world, the quivering.
its bole spine bares arms that spiral unwider,
growing up shorter in whorled order.
bolt-bitten tower, green house made of stairs.
fear rears, there’s
a point to this i won’t fall for.
(in an invisible memory of me at its pinnacle
i’m permitted one glimpse of the wind:
she’s feather-edged, shedding her breath.)
snow won’t melt into breath if i said
within this cave, i possess you. come, let me clutch you.
though a sword sleeps between
our bodies’ beings (but dream-sheathes),
in this dream, unsheathed. in its silvery I see she or me,
and fear of even sleeping, evening’s gentlest severance.
written in mirror this fog is called longing.
desire will dis and appear.
(unseen is the snow that falls
behind us, soon as the door closes,
slow as a wound.)
the fog will thicken as the fugue resolves.
the feathered snake nests in the rafters,
the attic recollects dust.
shadows cast themselves out
of these our bodies, to grey and lengthen with age.
so was it written in or with salt?
when the bow drawn back contracted
i saw the night go out
of its sky. wintering ravens
felled from the trees,
dark immensities devour our boundaries.
unknowing pains grow
in the dark of me.
then the writhing, the tidal,
vicious red ribbon
of life might unite, easy as life.
and red runs and runs and becomes
this eroding, o
this feeling of having done with it all,
relief casts its shadows, sighs pile in crystal.
(i remember she and i lying on my cellar door in the snow,
growing to heavy white heaps, feeling it bow.
and not falling.)
Hilma af Klint, Tree of Knowledge, No. 1, 1913–15, watercolor, gouache, graphite, and ink on paper, 17 7⁄8 × 11 5⁄8".
from Ithell Colquhoun’s Taro as Colour
SINISTROSE POEM
I won’t write around it.
Sinistrose twining round same
is twin snakes mating
and thorns for metaphor.
Sinistrose simply invoked
is. Sinister roses!
Sclerotic stems!
Come up enchanted,
countering fingers,
be my key and pen’s deft.
I invoke sinistrose, your green note’s knowing,
knowing that greenly encircles its staff.
Your form’s law’s like the way I won’t play piano.
Unthinkably, ivor-y, green tickling the wind.
Delicate now, tendrily rounding,
winding the sky’s white root.
Its spiral scales higher than strands may strain.
Invisible limits lying like keys
at Law’s feet.
At far green,
sinistrose. Full bloom corolla,
you coloratura,
seven notes rainbow and the eighth’s red again,
red again in perfection.
Red again, rose or thorns.
Too jejune to put to. The word
recoils its climb.
Widdershin then,
spindle finger,
distaff and unword
the red thread again
of time, untwine.
Reprise alone
in perfection,
the poem.
Sinistrose.
from Ithell Colquhoun’s Taro as Colour
