Lori Anderson Moseman
from
LINTEL | GUNWALE
Discreet, Flagrant Abundance
"Phoenixes are penned up in cages while common birds soar free"
Qu Yuan, from "Huai Sha" ("Embracing the Sand")
She stands doves up outside Somedays zikr is birdsong:
their towel-n-steel nest. multivocal warble, fingers
"Fledglings, feed yourself." pulling prayer beads apart.
I get to watch them slop. Still, I trade whirling
Later, she will wash them lessons for a boat full.
not with soap or fire or any Tribe of 22, we sync
four-letter configuration— our paddles into wings
not "love" not "evil." raise a dragon out of water.
not "love" not "evil." raise a dragon out of water.
Old plot: a protester drowns. We race to rescue. Tongue-tied.
No twitters from Qu Yuan. Stroke seat sets a count we see
before drums quicken our torso turns.
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Lintel | Gunwale
Our limbs now a leviathan we become source, same force—
swift sensory multitude. Like wind. We. We. We.
Blood pulses centuries. Codes in cadence plunge.
Pull Back. Pop our. Ancient habit. We enter the door the lake is.
Again. Reach over the gunwale. Arc in a discourse, we might
list hunger's corollaries, but we are intent on stroke.
Entry-in-sync satisfies even if eel grass swallows all paddles.
Entry-in-sync satisfies even if eel grass swallows all paddles.
She waits her turn to steer, to stand up through the surge
steady against starboard's stronger pull, compensate for others'
disproportion / distraction. Such balance is alliance—
amphibious, non-carnivorous.
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How Far Two Birds Flew to Carry Good News
the distance oarsman covered mourning dove nestlings within dog's reach
before changing out crew I was disassembled by their fall
a measure as variable as the sea I hardly knew what to do
go ahead, count syllables tube the bruised one, flush its sour crop
the runic inscription constant: "they need structure"
"often I was tired when I pulled you" orphan opossums to an empty pouch
vika at vatne = rost at lande1 a shoe-sized skunk tries to pull its mother
the distance between resting (road kill) from the center line
parch earth a pit to trap what drags us stroking the epileptic squirrel
snowmelt a torrent against humble bow a human meditates on the evolution of brains
what the gulls said: a secret still refusing to map synapse
a gruel of vocabulary held high a kestrel kept covered so it doesn't imprint
1There are clear points of contact between land roads and sea routes in older distance measuring systems. The 'vika' at sea is 'rost at lande' according to the Ostgota law." Christer Westerdahl, Trade Routes Resource Blog. October 2004. http://www.abc.se/~pa/publ/land&sea.htm
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Biomimicry: A Blessing, A Binaural Beat1
A currach is simple nest An echo is a simple test
in the history of exile: in the exile of history.
hazel & hind's hide float heron & hardcover flap
stones to trap light water records in waves.
Come solstice, ask Newgrange Come sundown, ask Big Ben
why Moses is hissing why Al Khidr is missing
from the genre of voluntary in the vocabulary of genes.
voyages. In need of twin tablets Theta state of neural knocks.
for an immram,2 I paddle wicker Gunwale at a dock. Bows
tarred with a skin of (c)odes in another hemisphere
to add wings to my rib cage rise up in as Rishi Ki3 dragon
to glide on regenerative pitch. or Basara Taisho4 at your door.
to add wings to my rib cage rise up in as Rishi Ki3 dragon
to glide on regenerative pitch. or Basara Taisho4 at your door.
1Binaural beats (tones) are auditory artifacts (apparent sounds) the brain perceives when it hears two different frequencies (one in each ear) simultaneously. If a tone of 400 Hz goes in the right ear and a tone of 410 Hz goes in the left ear, the difference between the two tones (standing wave of 10 Hz) is experienced as the two wave forms meshing in and out of phase. This effect was discovered by Wilhelm Dove in 1839.
2Immrama are 'rowings about' in medieval Irish Christian literature in which a protagonist sets about voyaging in penance for sins committed.
3Rishi Ki is a poet-sage through whom Vedic hymns flowed.
4Basara Taisho or Bajira (Varja in Sanskrit) is one of the 12 Yaksas, warriors of protection. He is the one who protects mankind, bringing people's aspirations to fruition.
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Neuron Mirrors
monkeys monks
Frontal lobes of monkeys "unreported" Qu Yuan goes to the well, sees Odin
provide a unifying framwork inaccessible in his well. Under each, effort
to experiments. Laced with wit, rolled r's the aquatic, the thirst. Pre-lingual?
flourished vowels, cells in human brains Moon cycles myth, stone etched
fire when watching others being paths to exchange: here then now.
poked with a needle. Mirror neurons Seats six and nine plunge paddles.
dissolve barriers, map phonemes to lip Seven and eight wait. Dead weight.
and tongue movements. Turning inward Never engage just the right or left.
a circuitry so intricate it seems paradoxical. Post-dock, port and starboard needed
Abstract cross-activity grips us. The exact Drum may or may not dictate when.
opposite too. Detach entity: engage sensory.
Abstract cross-activity grips us. The exact Drum may or may not dictate when.
opposite too. Detach entity: engage sensory.
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Will a Radical Dragon's Talons Fit on a Dervish?
trade sand for steel
rub
anything is possible
to avoid going numb
grasp
a paddle as if it were a bird
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Two In-Hand
Both hands cupped: mourning dove + mourning dove.
Two in-hand is worth God's don't-touch bush-on-fire.
I finger feather, fragile bone. Tremor. Treble. Cleft.
I break syntax toward epiphany in a holding pattern,
but sound is never a concoction to wean fledglings.
We need a full story, so let a naturalist tell his: a virus
literally eats his heart, but he lives to see a baby grey
whale surface. Eye to eye. Man reaches out, comes to
know whaleskin's shudder. Most of us never in that boat.
When the mother grey lifted his craft completely out,
she eased him into a sweet glide—no sonnet, no oar.
Aura. Easily read jazz riff: Tremor, Zoom, Lip. If I had not
held you...old body—pity, pituitary, nonplus—at ease...
I would not know the full range of sentience (yours/mine).
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I Have Gravel Paper If You Need It for Your Wren
I killed a humming bird while gathering folding chairs,
slid open a window the bird wanted to be air.
My hands too swift for my eyes to follow its shutter.
So, I struggle to spell guillotine, mourn a small green whir.
Where to put little broken neck? In the highest crook
within reach. Why I unfold chairs slowly with great care.
One by one the audience lets the guest poet harpoon.
Wail, wail, again wail. Her ghazal all sorrow.
Words I refuse to repeat. Anywhere. Were I in Cairo
wound in St. George's dragon chain, I could not unwind
in a nun's chant. Were I in Cairo, I'd try a dervish-whirl,
open into wingsong. Like when my friend let doves dare
to flee their rehab roost. Home is always wild woods.
Were I present to witness release, I'd own my own flight.
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Eat Try Not to Be Eaten
Last Night Night Before Last
fox's story as told by a freckled-face a flick, Following, about imprinting
girl who knew when to use a ladder (stalk, break, enter) murderous
to climb a beech so vista lets her see end. again. a master manipulates
the vixen transverse the glen again dedication and discipleship. curiosity.
girl enters the door in the mountain man shaves to clean-up for break-in
burrows in moss, drinks run-off, takes one pearl earring then a million
leaps gorge cliffs, scrambles scree, bills he tapes to his body, hammers
wards off wolves, nuzzles fox cubs the doorman on surveillance dead
she goes where vixin willingly leads as is the Marilyn-Monroe wannabe
the leash, we know, is a mistake model board at a grand piano
as is fire and playing house, boxed-in doomed to be what she witnesses
the fox lunging out a second story body on a bloody carpet, throw away
window. girl must carry the wounded rug another layer protecting nothing
wild back into the woods, walk away, blackmail she is surprised when she too
let little foxes lick its mother clean is double crossed. we distance ourselves
let the vixen battle back on all fours discuss jump-cuts and the slicing of time
one of my dogs watches growling
sudden movement and sound track
trigger concern as does my tensing
my other dog sleeps until I weep
See Luc Jacquet's film The Fox and The Child (2007) and Christopher Nolan's film Following (1998).
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Ah Yes, Isis1
radial symmetry,/ spokes to all margins for support, for those who
want movement/ this is achieved through bilateral symmetry only,/
a spine and straight attack, all muscles working up and alive
want movement/ this is achieved through bilateral symmetry only,/
a spine and straight attack, all muscles working up and alive
—Murial Rukeyser "Fifth Elegy. A Turning Wind"2
Her lovely wings missing On a pier where we once lived,
on the gravestones in Attica the nomad museum projected
I visit (via text) long before arches, antechambers: a falcon
menopause. Now the need transverses space with a dancer.
to see wings' original splendor. Closest to Isis I get. Echoic
Okay, no need, a desire memory fixed. Short of Osiris.
for a full unfolding. Night No Set. No manifest dragoon.
on the Nile. Tall stone expanse No destiny. Just Grooves.
between anticipated hot flashes. Arms to heart then opening out.
Yes, a dervish spin. Full skirt
turning wind. Yes. Gust. Gutsy.
Full throttle throat through crown.
1"There is a thought that St. George is distinctly Egyptian, is Isis spearing her evil brother Seth, who has turned himself into a hippopotamus, and that the monster under the water is the rising of the water itself, the seasonal flooding of the Nile." Susan Brind Morrow in The Names of Things: A Passage in the Egyptian Desert. (New York: Riverhead books, 1997: 146).
2"Fifth Elegy. A Turning Wind" in Muriel Rukeyser's Selected Poems edited by Adrienne Rich for the American Poets Project. New York: The Library of America, 2004.
1"There is a thought that St. George is distinctly Egyptian, is Isis spearing her evil brother Seth, who has turned himself into a hippopotamus, and that the monster under the water is the rising of the water itself, the seasonal flooding of the Nile." Susan Brind Morrow in The Names of Things: A Passage in the Egyptian Desert. (New York: Riverhead books, 1997: 146).
2"Fifth Elegy. A Turning Wind" in Muriel Rukeyser's Selected Poems edited by Adrienne Rich for the American Poets Project. New York: The Library of America, 2004.
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Lori Anderson Moseman founded Stockport Flats Press and the High Watermark Salo[o]n after Federal Disaster #1649, a Delaware River flood. Her poetry books are Cultivating Excess (The Eighth Mountain Press), Persona (Swank Books) and Temporary Bunk (Swank Books). Her Doctorate of Arts in writing is from the University at Albany; her Masters in Fine Arts in poetry is from the University of Iowa. She has a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from Oregon State University. She has been a forester, outdoor guide, farm reporter, educator and editor. Anderson Moseman was born in Montana and raised in California; she now lives in Ithaca, New York with her husband and two mutts. She is a member of Ithaca's dragon boat team, Gorges Dragons.
