Claire Hero – "A Landskip" from Sing, Mongrel (Noemi Press 2009)
When I read Claire Hero's work, I feel so many things -- splashed in the face with cold water, sucked into a vacuum, throttled, tossed around in a mosh pit even. Which is to say, her language is fresh, violent, smart, cool. Read her poems and allow your synapses to un- and re-stitch; then say, Oh. Yes. That's better.
A LANDSKIP
I am in the stitching room and I am in the stable.
At some point, I may need to make a choice,
but in the meantime, let's make a quilt.
Of horses? For horses?
Outside the plucky ponies
buck and tumble. Rimed machines grind down the pasture.
I've put up signs to mark the trail –
Hou Grene Wås Mi Valey—>
—and still the tourists go astray.
What can hold back a flood?
A new beginning: There's an edificial bull.
Together we'll plant our feet in the final snow
to fall upon these alps.
And what will be next?
Finny things swimming through moon-drawn water?
A provisional forest crawling with bats
on wings and knees? A disastrous turn
toward flightlessness?
Why look for an ending?
Come inside the orangery. We'll grow
exuberant azaleas, live on cake and rice.
We'll ride our quilted horse beyond the selvedge of time.
Sing, mongrel, sing.
Sing of automatic lifeforms, and the fruit.
Links to other poems:
http://caketrain.org/afterpastures/
http://thediagram.com/7_4/hero.html
