Wednesday, August 3, 2011

8/3/11

Posted by E.S. Wynn at 12:00 AM

Revelations 101
By Andrew J. Stone


“The thing is,” she says, “how come there are so many poems about vampires and werewolves?”
            “I don’t know,” I say.
            “Do you even know anyone who has seen a werewolf or a vampire?”
            “I’ve got a friend who swore he killed a werewolf while he was hunting, but it turned out to be a teenage girl who dressed up as one under a full moon.”
            “How about vampires?”
            “My dad was attacked by one once.  When I was younger, late one night, he was rocking in his chair on the patio and a woman floated towards him.  As she got close to him she revealed her fangs and my dad bolted for the door.  He locked it, woke up mom and I.  He told us of his encounter and warned us to never let it in.  Mom said he needed to quit the booze.”
            “So, you can’t be certain that either exists.”
            “No, not really.”
            “See there, in all those mystical poems about vampires, has anyone once mentioned that they are probably fictitious?  I don’t remember ever reading a poem titled ‘Vampires: Figments of the Imagination.’  Do you ever remember reading anything as honest as that?”
            “No, but vampires are living things that are nearly dead, aren’t they?  People love the idea of being dead.  They’re putting it in personal ads: ‘Single male in search of single female.  Must be skinny, curvy, and lifeless’.”
            “Listen, I love death too, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
            “What are you talking about?”
            “I’m saying that poets always write about the erotic, bestiality shit.  Or the exotic, necrophilia shit.  I mean, poets like werewolves because they can get all sexual with the tan skin and muscular body, or get all violent with the wolf transmutation, or get all sexual and violent at the same time.”
            “That’s true.  I wish somebody would write a poem about a simple creature, say, a fairy.”
            “Poets aren’t going to use a fairy because the name sounds gentle, almost innocent.  You can’t put the word ‘fairy’ in a poem.  Nobody will take you seriously if you put the word ‘fairy’ in your poem.”
            “Use the word ‘fairy’ and they’ll call you a pacifist.”
            “And once they call you a pacifist, your career is fucked.  You know what it says in the poetry dictionary when you look up of the word ‘pacifist?”
            “What?”
            “It says ‘loony-old-woman-who-would-kill-herself-before-endangering-an-animal’ or ‘senseless-young-man-stuck-in-the-sixties’.”
            “You know what?  To hell with them.  I’m going to write a poem about fairies.  I’m going to celebrate those nonviolent creatures.”
            “Thing is, I was just thinking and, in like, MiddleEarth, fairies are pretty popular.  Really swarming, I guess.”
            “Okay, so maybe my poem won’t make any sense in MiddleEarth.  But I’m not writing it in MiddleEarth.  Last time I checked, MiddleEarth inhabitants weren’t rushing out to read my poetry.  They might be overpopulated with fairies, but they aren’t giving shit to me.  So in terms of this poem, I say, to hell with MiddleEarth.”
            “No, no, no, no, you don’t say, ‘To hell with MiddleEarth.’  That could easily be interpreted as you being Satanist.  It will bring a subtext to your fairy poem you don’t want.  What you’re really saying is, ‘To hell with the violent mythological bastards.’”
            “Okay, now I know you’re using ‘to hell’ in a negative sense, in a dark and realistic way, but if you think about it in a metaphorical sense, then ‘To hell with the violent mythological bastards’ is kind of sexual and exotic.  I mean, don’t we all, when it comes right down to it, want to have sex with a vampire’s cold flesh?  Or at least a beastly werewolf?”
            “Yeah, you’re right.  And all those damn poets are writing those poems about vampires and werewolves because of their desire to have sex with the dead or with the animals.”
            “Yeah, and I want my poem about fairies to have a completely different meaning.  I want my poem to say, ‘To hell with the passive creature all poets have been avoiding their entire career.’”
            “And by ‘To hell’ you mean–”
            “Burning in a lake of sulfur with Satan.”
            “Good, good.  But make sure it has other meanings than the whole Satan thing, okay?”
            “I’ll try.”
            “And can you maybe make it into a fairy revelation?”
            “I always do.”
            “Okay, good, because people will know you mean it if you make it sound like fairy worship.”
            “Okay, then, here’s your little revelation.”


There lived a fairy trapped in a gothic castle.
Black hair swam down her back and tears lingered
as her eyes watched the man inside her head.

Shrinking sunlight drifted in through the window,
she studied in the mirror’s reflection.  A dark man,
hooded and caped, hovers outside the gothic castle. 

Sun to moon she dreamt colors gray, heart
pounding, sounding into the depths of the sea,
into the death of a lover who swims inside her head.

Lungs spew invisible smoke as the man outside the window
dances with her name, “Mae the Fae,” he gloats
as the fairy stares breathless from the gothic castle

into the man’s light.  NAKED when their eyes meet,
DEAD when their bodies collide, SILENCE
as his lips move, igniting black hues inside her head.

White fingers sprouting from a white hand clench
white wings until they are plucked, fucked,
crumpled into a colorless heap on the gothic castle
floor, where the man once existed inside the fairy’s head.



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I am a storyteller and words express what I see in the world. I try to expose the dark layer surrounding the heart in order to make sense of this life. My hope is that my poetry will enable other individuals to do the same. My work has recently appeared in Phantom Kangaroo.

 

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