from Posy + from Penny + from Shimmer + Tilt
from Posy: a charm almanack & atlas
A Posy for Larentalia
in the quiet of the year
our fates like stars like fates like stars
our fates
bright birds dark greens
rain cold glories soothe us all
Star Posy
each in her dress with her apple;
hearts sewn with invisible ink
into their hands
Alva
sorceress and singers
happiness comes
dark blue life size
abundant
back from the holy city
the summit the institute
shelves of books like clouds parnassus
above our twilit heads
for Paul
Orpha
creatures dripping in light
of stone & city, their ink-filled
eyes & songs, their darks
& earthling limbs, rootings
& dwellings & dreams
for Juliette Guilbert
Passerine
what are these tropes for in our humble lives
ruby-throated
what does this longing mean?
which echoes so bare
as I walk through wet leaves
with my daughters
of the men, whoever they are,
and the ruling, love
even the birds get
drunk on the berries
in this apple-light
which echoes so bare as
these stark melodies
shape the stones give the trees
their names
ruby-throated
what does this longing mean?
which echoes so bare
as I walk through wet leaves
with my daughters
what are these tropes for
these stark melodies
from Penny Marvel & the book of the city of selfys
Wood
[draft Narnia selfy no. 46]
aqua, celandine, drab
northern trees, our living
works & ministrations
we champion each other
we couldn’t sleep
their small foldy wings, the children
all the human things, paths & objects
our palms/our palms
Leda
even as the moon
carried our earthly griefs
Aphrodite, or selfy as the sound of Venus
informed by salt & light
the crystalline
remembrances & membranes
all the pretty selfys of the seas
selfy as the duchess of normcore
the gnostics give birth to him again and again,
forever normcore, in the sacred cave of
subjectivity and wife-ish splendor, whereby
doctrine cauldron
oak damsels magpie entrail--
the nymph echo
as the fish
and the rivers
cry
penny magdalen
the girls in their brave dresses
with their sweet penny hands
seeking a magdalen alcove
a repository for their unbidden prayers
the book of the city of selfys
Oh in & of the dark, song-mother, the seas, the skies, the landings. beings, creatures,
amplitudes. each sharp-shouldered radiance, every mecca, each shoreline its shell-gate.
Jesus or the phenomena of aldermen
in your creche hands
the physical preventatives, scour
our twinned inventions of press & flow
ashing myself with mud & mercy
money as a phrase, an atmosphere
some pretty science, a feather in the air
in dashing spells intoxicants
& by the wild seas
Lilith
in this world of flesh & candor
we aren’t all alone
[sea-rocket]
Non tibi sit grave dicere mater ave.
Vierge amiable, obtenez-moi la grace de partager les joies de votre fils par la pratique de la sim-
plicite.
our lady of the honey bees,
west-oak & tidal
please help to absolve & rectify
my errors & my failings, by the lean-to,
in the shack & of the waters--
kindly guide & kindly please do
witness as I carry--
through--
as in our tidy creche grove
oh lady of this beach curfew,
& of our surveyed tides,
oh lady of our common snakes,
whipsnake & coastal scrub,
kind lady of our native oaks, deer-kin,
stick-lake & droughty--
arrived in stems & yellowbill--
as water drains & pelican
dear lady of hopes immensities,
california sister—in mourning
cloak, & alder—little
cabbage whites, &
hairstreak, be it mended,
every—thing--
for in this pipevine swallowtail
we pour our dreams our methods
like shallows to the seas
& our children skip & bathe here,
sunlight velveteen & remnant
then leads us to our songs,
widespread in grasslands,
our ladies of expansive views,
killdeer & sanderling, as a true flock
steadies its way across a mudflat--
such skunks & amphibians, sweet raptors,
winged girls, as a tiny frog’s hand lingers
on a rock, our native mother whatsay,
our dreams & champions,
as into blue, purple, or yellow--
showing, also, as lady & poppy,
in common disrupted soils,
attended by bees & beetles
as of your creche hands
the bright days the rich nights carry us,
wild elementals, the shorelines & the seas,
as all mothers of the pacific rim,
as all the parents of all the worlds,
rise en-chanting for their broods & for each others
for we are made of dark & salt
of waterlight, of care of care
of care
song-sparrows, mockingbirds, & jays,
unsubtle squirrels & their cousins--
the house sprites—as into the hollows
of humanbuilt, they furrow, they
nest & cry & mate
of maps & of cathedrals
the moon in the daylight
the suns at night
litter & sea, sea-rocket
so feral & so stone
stone memoir, heap
& oh
oh holy wherewithals
as we are unalone
we’re curled up in an atmosphere,
present & account--
glass ornaments with recumbent deer--
& we of this gorgon library
found on stones & dolmens, & humane--
as in the cork rock & the cypress,
as of the palm & mend,
as with the red & pine
aye ladies as we all, & gentling the men--
oh lady, our lady--
in the hollows of the safe sweet night
in the calm of the fog-dawn
& the cool-dawn, & the plain
my adornment so obscured now
as I weave
oh riverlight, as
venus amid the palms
or as the birth of mary
in nest & evocation
oh riverlight, as
as
from Shimmer
telluric
we grow so used to time, Florimund
my tiny data
as I strain against
the very architecture of the box
car dancing
as our hearts
meet, & pulse
it is/an oath
Adam, root
in & of the time-pile, characterfur
& the freaking saltine nomenclature
of our volition
in the texture & the motion of
& as the river beneath the river
Adam, root, & flow
& Adam, this funny space-heap,
right?
& Adam, fur, & measure
witness, beam
& shimmer,
Adam, love
Tilt: statement in the form of a bio: a quaintrelle frivolette*
These are traces of awakening and labor and are sometimes perhaps reenactments of
culture—but not inscriptions or reinscriptions of same. I hope. I move. I write.
Posy: a charm almanack & atlas (2015) is just that, a calendar and a map. It is for my
younger daughter as Birds & Fancies (2007) is for my older daughter. It uses pagan, roman,
and other holidays as well as quotes from Laura Riding and others to bring itself
into the cartography of a year’s unfolding. (We were also loving Virginia Lee Burton’s
calendars and fabric works at the time.) Also, it echoes the book before it, Virginia or the
mud-flap girl (2012) [which is deeply indebted to one of my very favorite teachers, Paula
Gunn Allen, particularly her 2004 biography of Pocahontas], by using some titles derived
from baby name books (KM Sheard’s and Laura Wattenberg’s) as Virginia used
celebrity names for some titles. These are like pinpoints & little star kisses: they constellate.
On one personal level, Posy tracks the dissolution of a marriage without dissolving
a family (in fact the act of strengthening one, I daresay) and on another I hope it gives
my girls, here in our Artemis zeitgeist, a navigational device for Black Moon Lilith style
femininity — which is to say, utter, fluid, and replete. Astute readers will be able to
cross-reference the work with the mythological reality of Lauren Faust’s “My Little
Pony.”
Penny Marvel & the book of the city of selfys is both a tumblr and a text (forthcoming 2017). It is a feminine subjectivity and procedure of self-possession
in correspondence with numerous imageries and texts, including Romare Bearden’s
“Odysseus Series” (1970s) and Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies
(1405) — and here its title mirrors Birds, the title of which is an iteration of Margaret
Cavendish’s title for her Poems, and fancies (1653).
I like titling — it is like naming but less ordained, less coverall, quite stark (as opposed
to say, the moment of a parenthetical [a tiny]). And it is different than writing — is a coordinate,
or a privy — is a small swirl to touch on a tree trunk.
If Posy is a familial document, Penny is a sensory one. And Shimmer is still super-new --
infinity, plus landmarks.
These very words, also, collapse in on themselves, and dream there. They are telepathic
agencies.
*in the senses of craft & light
More info: elizabethtreadwell.com/biography
