Amanda Earl
an excerpt from En Fer
Death
of the blooms,
of clocks,
of a secret kiss,
of jazz,
of minutes of fire.
No relief in art, junk
collections. Scraps of
canvas, ligatures, torn
parchment, beehives.
Destroy with a word.
Scum of drowned ideals
you are stained.
Stranded between
and knife-like, loom.
No Jaberwock, the claws,
the hours. Effort to hold
worlds, more than two.
Undone. Light that pierces
through petals of grief.
Alchemical properties.
Guidelines for your obsessions.
Fermented and fizzy.
Ghosts aren’t through with you.
Plan on floating through to the blues
to the howls.
We all break.
We never arrive.
The black dog.
And mud. Snowflowers.
Pick up the ducts of almost spring.
The executioner. The stumble.
Turn your spine.
Fields choke. No faith.
Embodied light. A spilled
child. Unnameable creature.
Beak. Blooded vultures
of the heart. Hiss your
lamentations.
You could language.
Disturb your bargain.
With God, with Mephisto,
with a machine now.
More than flesh.
Drown yourself in beauty.
Thickly from trees. Bends
dark moss. A gathering
of parasites. Empty words
flat with sorrow. Prone to
collapse.
Unharmonious overture
of ache. Octave below.
Lusterless grey mouthed,
a dead one.
Rosary.
Ink.
Leather belt.
Ultramarine, cadmium,
black acrylic tubes of paint.
Jesus on the wood cross.
On the gold cross.
Gentle tongue.
Lips.
Fingers.
Dark eyes from above.
Death.
Amanda Earl is a polyamorous poetesse, fiction writer, publisher, editor and visual poet who lives in Ottawa with her husband Charles. She’s the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress. Books and recent chapbooks include Kiki (Chaudiere Books, 2014); Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl (Coming Together, 2014), A World of Yes (DevilHouse, 2015), wintered (Shreeking Violet Press, 2017), The Book of Mark, A Vispo Bible Excerpt (above/ground press, 2018). She hankers after fellow misfits and kindred spirits in this trumped up epoque. Contact her @KikiFolle on Twitter. More info is available at AmandaEarl.com.