misheard words are cups of water spit at the cataract
“Mercy…mercy…mercy…mercy I only offered her a cup of water for the sake of nature for the sake of mercy I am not sick that’s only a superstition The last to die of it was in my mother’s time Everybody dies of shame which they find impossible to endure but not me I die of mercy They only keep me here because I show mercy They say I summon the fattest rats the grand ol’ emperors of rats but that’s because they are lowly hungry slobs and I show them mercy To be the daughter of god is to be the mother of rats to be the greatest gift giver holding back nothing but the deluge of doubt which runs away from the lord like rabbits from barking dogs the lord who gives gifts because she must But what is this key good for now that doors become locked at the mere mention of it? My right to salvation tricked away from me tricked from under my nose I’ve been tricked into being too kind—the lord of darkness is the lord of kindness the lord of words is the lord that lies Who will take the same dumb risk and sneak me heaven? In who’s pocket? Under who’s shadow? Only rats are kind enough to carry me in morsels to the land that was promised
better to be rat-vomit than rape-fodder Mercy… mercy … mercy …mercy …who remembers me?
refectory
In the kitchen an evil butcher splits a head of rotten lettuce and evaporates. An ensemble of blackened herring fallen dead over its score and instruments projects and sustains a sour note; a pile of their eyeballs stares out in all a compound eye. Dunes of pepper spread across the butcher’s slab where rigid hares display half eaten guts beside stale bread soaked in vinegar. A feast continues here, for someone whom this unwholesome fare does not sicken, whom the redolent air does not nauseate.
encountering skeletons
there is no distance A skeleton glows endogenously with cuirassed chest at rest against the glowing wall lifts its sword speculatively like a mallet above its head crumbles under its dreamt defiance of you And now you posses a broadsword and a cuirass Nothing but darkness in the arcade and the infrequent presence of skeletons which neither attack nor ignore but who approached do lunge with no ambition and if you watch them long enough the toppled bones attempt to regain footing, and if you are truly patient you will see them rise up You will watch their solemn backsides flail into the darkness. A lone-legged skeleton leans against the wall using its sorry broken spear as a cane with which it cannot truly right itself Seeing you it raises the tip of the half-spear brandishes it hops past you on its lone foot which wears a lone peasant’s boot.I was told to rejoice; my letter had made its way to the king’s very hands as unlikely as that was the king had decided that from then on I should sustain only the king’s monumental metabolism. In the refectory which had become his lordship’s private hall I was sat down at the table. The room was empty but for the thugs who clubbed me on the head. I awoke to see the king tearing with his teeth strips of flesh from an object of perishable meat that I had no reason to believe had ever been appended to me. I was in pain, feeling as if I had been trampled by horses. To dull the pain I was offered the kings own wine which I admit was splendid. They planned to have me dine with the king for seven consecutive nights, or long as my disappearing body could sustain a presence at the table. He laughed describing how he would spoon feed me duck soup once I had no arms but infection from the first amputation had made me delirious, feverish and unfit for his lordship’s company. In death I found absolution from the field labor which had occupied nearly all of my life and I died knowing that the king had ingested all the hatred I had reserved for his court; my blood was poison my bones irremovably lodged in his throat This hatred could not sustain him but would burn and ulcerate his lordship…the scar spiraling like a fat worm with a taste for health…ah…my name is Fedor, by the way and…I fear I’ve lost my other boot. Where could it be? Where? Where?” You smell its fragrant rags surprisingly delicious herbed and spiced like fine cuisine. You detect rosemary caraway and mustard you follow a quarter step behind listening to its whispered gibberish. Single words grow audible; fragments of queer nonsense catch your ear “scary candle” “poisonous worm” Half sentences teased out of murky prattle followed by whole sentances “The noble's only God is pride” “Heia o-ho” “On the castle roof let the red cock crow.”
there is no distance A skeleton glows endogenously with cuirassed chest at rest against the glowing wall lifts its sword speculatively like a mallet above its head crumbles under its dreamt defiance of you And now you posses a broadsword and a cuirass Nothing but darkness in the arcade and the infrequent presence of skeletons which neither attack nor ignore but who approached do lunge with no ambition and if you watch them long enough the toppled bones attempt to regain footing, and if you are truly patient you will see them rise up You will watch their solemn backsides flail into the darkness. A lone-legged skeleton leans against the wall using its sorry broken spear as a cane with which it cannot truly right itself Seeing you it raises the tip of the half-spear brandishes it hops past you on its lone foot which wears a lone peasant’s boot.I was told to rejoice; my letter had made its way to the king’s very hands as unlikely as that was the king had decided that from then on I should sustain only the king’s monumental metabolism. In the refectory which had become his lordship’s private hall I was sat down at the table. The room was empty but for the thugs who clubbed me on the head. I awoke to see the king tearing with his teeth strips of flesh from an object of perishable meat that I had no reason to believe had ever been appended to me. I was in pain, feeling as if I had been trampled by horses. To dull the pain I was offered the kings own wine which I admit was splendid. They planned to have me dine with the king for seven consecutive nights, or long as my disappearing body could sustain a presence at the table. He laughed describing how he would spoon feed me duck soup once I had no arms but infection from the first amputation had made me delirious, feverish and unfit for his lordship’s company. In death I found absolution from the field labor which had occupied nearly all of my life and I died knowing that the king had ingested all the hatred I had reserved for his court; my blood was poison my bones irremovably lodged in his throat This hatred could not sustain him but would burn and ulcerate his lordship…the scar spiraling like a fat worm with a taste for health…ah…my name is Fedor, by the way and…I fear I’ve lost my other boot. Where could it be? Where? Where?” You smell its fragrant rags surprisingly delicious herbed and spiced like fine cuisine. You detect rosemary caraway and mustard you follow a quarter step behind listening to its whispered gibberish. Single words grow audible; fragments of queer nonsense catch your ear “scary candle” “poisonous worm” Half sentences teased out of murky prattle followed by whole sentances “The noble's only God is pride” “Heia o-ho” “On the castle roof let the red cock crow.”
Walpurgisnacht
The scene is of a celebration of one of those festivals which happen in this region at the end of April, when people will stand on a hill under animal pelts blowing horns to keep foxes and wolves from ravaging their livestock. How could they have known that this would be prohibited? Something so useful denounced by men of God and banished as a kind of superstition, when even royals act according to their own set of signs and portents. For example, it is said that as he crossed his territory, the king noted how tongues and dialects changed slowly. Never did they shift abruptly at a border and always did they grade and overlap. So convinced was he of his divinity that just as hungry stars consume planets whose earth and atmosphere are purified through their passage; just as language ends in unknown syncretic smatterings of unusual and incomplete words at the borders of the civilized world, where only scavengers haunt abandoned ruinations; just as these things change the closer or further they move from perfection, so too would anything brought closer to his lordshipbe consumed and assimilated by his purity. Not even the flesh of disloyal subjects could vitiate his intellect, or his palette.
