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David Chorlton


A Black Witch Suite

I
The last of yesterday’s rain
evaporated in the day’s
first light. Starlings
were already on the lawn
and water dripped from the eaves
as the cats in the living room
lunged at the window
 
where dark wings beat
against the glass
before backing away and coming back
darker, heavier, louder
each time, until they held still
in mid-air for an instant,
 
having spread themselves wide
one more time to display
a curse once issued
 
from the lips of an Aztec priest.
 
II
The view from atop the pyramid
was of a mass so bright
and beyond restraint, the faces seemed
to rise in the moment
the flint blade appeared, catching for a moment
light from the sun
                                    that demanded a sacrifice
for whom the day became uniquely dark
while for the crowd it was
an occasion to wear feathers and feel
the uplift of flight
as the heart appeared that fed
impatient gods.
 
III
It has been said that the moth represents
the four directions, and in the event
of it entering a house
to touch each of its corners
one should take mourning clothes
from the old oak trunk
packed with weeping and headscarves
whose lid moans on a hinge, so tired
has it become of being raised.
 
IV
A Black Witch arrived in clear light
preceding nightfall, on the tail
of a storm that had shaken
the forest’s tranquility
and taken hold of the sky
to wring out its rain
before putting it back in time
for the vultures to come down
to a long dead sycamore
and spread their wings to dry.
It came without warning,
fast and straight across the summer grass,
the first part of night to reach us,
and when it did
it almost had a face.
 
V
Don’t let it fly above you, the old ones say,
move quickly from its path
or you’ll lose your hair, and all
your precious youth.
 
VI
When a Black Witch entered her house
it caused the owner to panic
as she interrupted putting
on her makeup and pinning back her hair
to scream a scream convinced
it was an omen.
                                    She opened all the windows
and chased and flapped
her arms until
it flew innocently away, leaving her
to consider appearances
as she returned to her mirror
of quicksilver and vanity.
 
VII
Should the black moth come into
a house in which a sick bed floats
on cold, hard tiles, the doctor
 
crosses himself and sighs, but leaves
the door open to keep hope
a little bit alive.

VIII
While some remain convinced
an appearance means imminent disaster,
that the moth comes only
to the Dies Irae tune,
                               the gamblers
who feel most alive
when they risk losing everything
see it fly to the lintel where black
is luck’s favourite colour
and they spend their money before
the winning numbers are announced.
 
IX
In the Aztec twilight
many souls turned into
moths. To this day
 
they have endured.
Whenever an empire burns,
flakes of the ash
 
float through the centuries
on the breath of immortals.

Drought

The drought insinuates itself at first
by using charm. All it takes
are clear skies and the warm days tourists
travel far to enjoy
with the desert close by and a cherry
in their drinks. It’s springtime by the pool
and the air conditioned lobby
at the hotel features photographs displaying
canyons grand and small, saguaro stands,
Navajo hogans, and cattle with a home
on a range close to Boot Hill
with cowboys watching over them
as if the cameras were still rolling
to capture one more ride
before the sunset to end all sunsets.
Nobody thinks to check the map
with the latest reading for drought,
whose colour scheme grows
from yellow through orange to the red
that says Extreme, because turning
the faucet brings water, and there’s plenty
in the bathroom for showering off
the nervous feeling that reminds them
this could be deserted in a few more decades time.
The drive from the airport
is always so pleasant, along streets
with green, green lawns where the sprinklers
spray glistening fans into the bright
air early in the day, when mowers cut down
what the water makes grow. On the outskirts
the wildflowers are fewer this year
because winter was dry, but there’s still
a crisp light on the mountains
and desert by name to a stranger
must be desert by nature. The drought
doesn’t check in for a short stay, it’s like
the unwelcome relative
who arrives unannounced
and makes himself so comfortable
it’s impossible to imagine
life without him. He loves the summer.
Stores enough bottled water to last a year.
Offers to help with chores
but forgets to turn off the hose. Washes the car
when it doesn’t need it. Polishes
the mirrors until grackles
think they are pools to drink from.
Nobody mentions him though, preferring
his presence be left as a secret
so he won’t scare anyone away, or
Heaven forbid discourage
new arrivals set on building houses
and drinking up
what water is left
when rivers are trickles of light
over the pawprints coyotes left behind
from long thirsty walks. Drought
digs in and remains
in the background while plans are drawn up
for more buildings, more business, more
people to occupy, work, and be happy
without stopping a moment to think
what will happen when groundwater
is just ground. It worsens in increments
so small they’re ignored
except by the animals who know
what’s happening and aren’t afraid to admit it.
Meanwhile, the drought becomes
demonic, still attractive, in a self-destructive
kind of way, to anyone easily seduced;
the character who invites you
for a drink and laughs
when there isn’t any.

Picture

​
​David Chorlton's profile

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The Roar

             Und wenn ich gewaltiger Tiger heule
             verstehn sie : ich meine es müßte hier
             noch andere Tiger geben
 
            (And when I mighty tiger roar
            they understand: I mean there ought to be
            still more tigers here)
                                    Sarah Kirsch
 
This is the way the world goes round, this is the way
it all works
            when everyone does what they do
to survive: the baker bakes bread; the minister
prays; the woodcutter cuts
trees to supply
                    wood for the shelves
the carpenter makes.  Explorers explore, soldiers
fight wars; nurses tend the wounded,
and cartographers draw
maps that show where explorers
have been. It all fits together
                                          somehow, from the miners
mining copper to the protesters who protest
how they devastate a canyon to make bullets, pipes
and wires, while wilderness
                                    loses the wild in its name.
This is when the displaced cats
stop traffic, rampage through shopping malls,
break open the doors to the chambers
where businessmen sit down with politicians,
and roar
            as they were born to, while we
who have spent centuries refining grammar,
syntax, and expanding our vocabularies,
can only wish we were
more like them.

Monsoon Flashes

The smell of distant rain
blew in from the desert
beneath an evening’s darkening clouds
when a lizard on the path
turned quickly
from the concrete’s warmth.
Jupiter was drifting
away from Venus in the west
while stormlight was concealed
inside the southern sky.

*

At dawn the thunder rolled
between the wheels of early traffic;
shook itself free from the curtains
being drawn back behind
waking windows; flashed
and faded into the clouds
as they paled and parted
for light to pass through.

*

The heat wasn’t dry anymore.
Moisture left behind
from a previous storm
had a chokehold on the air.
Tuning was hopeless:
the strings tightened around
every melody played.

*

Between the diminishing calls
the lovebirds made
as their shadows stretched out
on the grass
and the liquid sounds
that came with the cowbirds early,
the city lay at rest
in silver-lined darkness.

*

The mountains shaded into cumulous
edged with white. It was
a day very much
like the one preceding it, that
ended as quietly as it had begun
with only a faraway rumbling
as a tease, and the men
asleep beneath the awning
on the abandoned shopfront
were oblivious to passing time.

*

Foot traffic was light
along 16th Street
before the first cloud appeared
above the dulceria, where piñatas
were hanging in rows
waiting for the right occasion
to be struck
and spill open.

*

Early in the day the air
carried the smell of burning
as it rustled the evergreens
and buoyed the mockingbirds
in flight. It lasted a while
then drifted away. It was
the time of year fire
comes and goes at will.

*

Something the sky had to tell us
about the confluence of water and light
was held back above land
accustomed to drought. And the hummingbird
perched, as he does every dusk,
on the bare branch extending
from the orange tree
whose outermost leaves
had started to curl.

*

Dust

About ten miles north of Tucson
the wind begins to dig
into gravel beside
the driveway to a prefabricated house
set down without roots
and feels for the desert underneath.
It stirs a devil from a waste lot
and pulls at the foundations
of a motel down on its luck,
scoops up portions
                        of a field upon which
no rain has fallen in months
and loosens the surface, revealing the layer
above the layer where history
is recorded:
               the sandal prints a priest made
stained with candle wax and tears;
a horseshoe that brought no luck; the marks
created by a man’s fingers
when he crawled toward water
without knowing which direction
to take. Here is Pima dust,
Apache dust,
                dust that bloomed
behind stagecoaches
and settled back into the earth
mixed with the dust a pickup truck
kicked back from its tires. And here
comes the wind, out of a clear sky,
gently at first, just a whisper
asking the ground what it’s hiding,
and gradually it grows to a shout,
then a scream that carries all the way
to Phoenix. The late sun
                                    reflects on every grain
as the yellow mass swells
and draws strength from the ground
it moves across, tearing the topsoil
to release whatever lies beneath
and raise it to
a dry tide rolling
three thousand feet high.
At this moment the traffic
has surrendered, planes have been grounded
and time stops
with visibility zero,
                        not a bargain in sight at the mall,
no progress to believe in, no
history to deny; only the land the white man stole
reassembling itself as a cloud
and moving back to take the city
built where the Hohokam
had once
been neighbors to the sun.

Go to page 2 of David Chorlton's poetry

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