estuaryhymns

[estuaryhymns]

Hi all. I'm running a kickstarter for a zine called Bad Wizards Club 2. It only has 48 hours left, but if you like content about wizards, you will enjoy this. It has tons of art and stories from some of my favourite collaborators, and I'll be shipping it out next month. Check it out!

[estuaryhymns]

Belly and Teeth Sooner or later we all end up in the belly of the whale. Sooner, it seems, and we will find our own bones broken, in cavernous gut, as though we had always been breaking down in our watery gaol. Sooner or later, the lion's jaw will close around our skin. And there, in that terrible silence, the world will come rushing in. There in that silence, unable to speak, all the moments undone will crowd at our ears, and the silence will hold us, safe and soundless, in the grip of two-inch teeth. Sooner or later, the flood will lift us all away.

[estuaryhymns]

I launched a kickstarter for my new zine BIRD LIFE. There are zines! T-shirts! Cool pins! And it's already funded (but there are cool stretch goals)! The zine is all about birds, it's full of poems and illustrations, and it's only $5 to get the zine itself. Check it out!

[estuaryhymns]

Storm System Deep under Spring-spreading leaves, from evening thunder splitting Summer air with a crackling expectation, drops as big as your thumb, bursting on hot cement. Your neck carries the scent of peppermint, my lips buried there, tasting the oil the warmth releases. Our breath suffused in the pressure and heat, of the world before the storm. The storm. It is a tyrant of pleasure, cool drops soaking to skin in seconds, on stepping out from the canopied leaves, from shelter. It is a rush of upward-exalting pores, pressure released in the trails of every drop. Your fingers slick in mine; the earth releases its own emollients, rich draughts of carmine, ferro-humic, hints of aluminum and ozone. And the barometer drops, your skin is cool to touch, the storm darkens your brow. All above and between is unweaving.

[estuaryhymns]

Zine Season!!! I have way too many of these, and I want to give them to you. This is the third volume of Strange Creatures, and it takes the series in a wildly different direction. I've done my best to keep the insides completely under wraps, right down to the obfuscating nature of the cover. There is a lot here, and it's meant to be appreciated in layers. There is a narrative that runs through the pages, and there is another narrative that runs between them. The illustrations, this time around, were handled by the wildly talented Izzy Burgwin (https://www.instagram.com/drawinwolf/). She makes art out on Pender Island, drawing from beautiful surroundings and a strange imagination. The illustrations here contained are appropriately apocalyptic. That's it. You know the drill: let me know if you want one, and I'll mail it off to you. And I printed way too many, this time around, so tell your friends, or get one for them. The rest is up to you. #zineseason #strangecreatures

[estuaryhymns]

Awaken Awaken, shake your limbs, send blood to their tips. Wet your throat and wash your face, awaken and come away. There is much to do, there are words to say, there are places to plant your feet in, people to greet as they greet the day. The sun is full above the horizon, the whole stretch of the world is turning in it. Fresh twigs are showing their green, racing for what till now has been receding. You've seen it? The morning arriving earlier every morning now. Full in your face as you lie awake, it is time, it is time, it is day.

[estuaryhymns]

Stilling Time is tender against our skin; hours gently droop across your shoulders. Moment to moment I taste your cheeks and chin and nose, so close to mine. Time indulges our eyes, letting them study in silence the other's, finding flecks and flaws like volcanic diamonds. I am lucky to spend such a span of hours whispering into your fingers with mine. You speak chapter and verse with thin digits against my wrist. You draw my hand to your side, and I remark with probing fingers, it is I whose ribs are missing. Your fingers are cold as you touch my chest, and keep them there, still, as though a movement would render the moment null. We speak a language of our devising, staying still against a passing night. And time, still, has not comprehended our trick of stepping sideways through the minutes rushing by.

[estuaryhymns]

The Wolves of Pacific Spirit Shadows deepen, under the ferns. Something is passing, a pack of wolves. Breath condenses, joins the morning's fog. They pass unseen, over thick moss, unheard. If you leave the safety of busier trails, be careful where you stray. Know that the pack is hunting, Autumn has thinned the herds and the hunter's belly. So close to the comforts of cities, yet under the cover of Douglas fir, all grey things are stalking. All teeth and hunger and breath at your shoulders, unknown.

[estuaryhymns]

Drinking Coffee I have been drinking coffee at the cafe down the street. I should be working, I know, but it is nearly November and I do not want to work. I wish, instead, to be drinking coffee, and so I am. The weather is dolorous, and I have been reading of Doctor Solander and Pope Saint John the Twenty-Third. Often overlooked, both of them to be sure, and I as well. It is difficult to be drinking coffee while it rains so like a torrent of tears or a hundred years of mourning, at the cafe down the street. Oh humanity, how foul and fair you appear. Oh cursed bodies, oh beautiful images of God. I wonder if Christ enjoyed drinking coffee? Did he enjoy a croissant with it? For I know that I would. Thank you madam. I stretch like a sunning cat. Time has no meaning while you are drinking coffee. Certainly, others would disagree, would rudely shout that I should have been working an hour ago, that I will lose my job if I don't come in. But I do not wish to work today. I want to be drinking coffee at the cafe down the street.

[estuaryhymns]

Book and Staff All my charms are charmless, my tongue lacks the taste of magic, my spells depleted. I speak the words, the old formulae, and I swear I must be lacking conviction, or else my strength has failed, for you are going your way and I am going my way. I laid my finger between your cheek and nose, and said, "this right here could inspire a thousand pages." I told you that your eyes were static galaxies, and you blinked as though you had always known. And for all I know, you have. I must burn my books, my poems. Not for piety or holy longing; they merely proved to be futile at wooing you, at bringing your lips to my lips, your skin to my skin. And for it all, your eyes are truly frozen nebulae. I have not lied about that or that line beside your smile. How futile to, like Prospero, have found my book and staff to be without strength. Beyond the storm, they cannot charm the heart.

[estuaryhymns]

King of Autumn At last they led me deep into arbored oaks, and at their core, a grove, ringed in gold, of aspen, and down in a hollow of earth, its great berm of root exposed, was a throne. The King of Autumn was clothed in grey, his antlers graced the hanging foliage. He did not heed the approaching retinue, but rose, took a bowl from beneath his throne, dipped it in an adjoining pool, and, pulling back his ashen robes, came to the centre of the grove where a still- -green sapling stood in a crown of red. His amber eyes had deep-sunk pupils, searching the hollows of cheek bones, crowsfeet. He let the water spill, filling the grove with a field of flickering light. The sapling burst in orange flames, changed from a living thing to the voice of Autumn’s King. It spoke: Son of the Dust, you have been given a seed, a simple stone, a fulsome thing. My Kingdom has come, my blood races out to the furthest marks. I will split the leaf, I will sing my praises in tongues of flame. But you must carry this seed; you must be the song that remains. When I woke, I was wound in my sheets. The breeze blew bitingly through the unlatched window, which I closed. Red leaves, that would soon be black, plastered themselves on the neighbour’s roof. I folded the linens and pondered the art of resurrection.

[estuaryhymns]

Orcas on the Strait The air is clean across the strait. Waves break, perhaps hide orcas while we pass over close shoals, out to the open water where whales watch from far beneath. I send you photographs and messages to let you know I won't forget those spare moments we share in common. I know so little of your habits; a collection of stories and anecdotes. I know only that your eyes are rings of plaintive March skies. I know you are afraid, in a moment, fearless in how you approach me. On the outer deck today, everybody is snapping photographs, silver-plated seconds. They are laughing at gulls racing us then scattering at sudden pulls of the ship's horn. September is turning down the shades on Summer, but I am underwater with the orcas, watching.

[estuaryhymns]

The Moon and a Cherry Pit You are the Moon and a cherry pit. You are insignificant and I have felt your gravity on my veins. You have passed from memory and yet your scent petrifies me. You are smaller than my thumb in the sky. You have destroyed me utterly; I drift in elliptic orbit. I remain; I germinate.

[estuaryhymns]

Under the Stone I am under the stone. Search for me in rivers, in black dales where moss grows. Search behind the corners of crooked streams, grass-grown lanes, in the earth at your feet. Who am I that I should be minded? I have done fine with my own strange paths, and now I am under the stone, cool against the earth, in the shade where moss grows. Foxes have homes, and I have a stone to lay my head, in the dark where moss grows. Look for me in canyons and tree roots, follow your nose, the fragrance of lichen and rotting wood. I have known my own roads, I have hid myself, and thrown away my name. I am under the stone with only my own eyes for company, my own bones pressing against my skin. Search for me in the green bier. Come alone.

[estuaryhymns]

More VideoBooks from the Summer.

Baudelaire – Head of Hair

[estuaryhymns]

Obsolete Glory I assure you, I am falling apart. My toes peel like grapes, like thick snakeskin, molting in the sun. My knees ache under the weather, the weight of July in a single storm. My teeth offer sudden pain, when offered what is sweet. Behind my eyes these thick storms have all of them broken, breaking my concentration. My body is nothing to offer. Oh, this failing frame must be made in God's great image! Did Christ have a nub of skin from the later breaking of his frenulum? Did his hairline move as far as mine by thirty-three? I have nothing to give a later love, my appetites, also, all of them used. I have a body of obsolescence, of image, of glory, of greater truths.

[estuaryhymns]

Movements I am concerned with your movements, your hands kneading dough on the kitchen island, stretching long fibres. Stretching and pressing them close. Later you clutch tightly at your jacket, so your hands stay still at your side as you walk by mine. I am concerned by your movements. You look box canyoned, beset by overhanging ponderosa, foxes scattering tussocks in their passing. You look like a last hope as the wind picks up. Later you knead the wheel, as though you could form it into something living. I leave you looking back at me, looking relieved that the storm has broken.