Mudlark Poster No. 80 (2009)
The Black Edge | Christien Gholson
Christien Gholson is the author of On the Side of the Crow (Hanging Loose, 2006), nominated as one of the top five first books in 2006 by ColdFront Magazine. His work has appeared in Big Bridge, Cimarron Review, Ecotone, Lilliput Review, Mudlark, Poetry New Zealand, Santa Fe Poetry Broadside, and Sentence.
The Black Edge
Speaks true who speaks shadow
Paul Celan, Speak You Too
1. In Here
In here,
words travel, never
touch. No check-
point, soft
target. Out there,
snow
in the foothills.
In here,
words pass
through words, in-
corporeal. No entrance,
withdrawal. Out there,
snow grains
across yellow leaf.
In here,
words float, air
on air, un-
said, no
specific intent. Out
there -
2. Refusal
Don’t speak it. Keep it
smoke in a cold rain: Drift-
arms, driftlegs,
halved
by phone wire.
If you speak it, she
will appear, bent
fingers holding
a smolderstick, shaking it
at the still-dry creek.
A siren, rising through black trees
Unname her. Keep her
continually un-
named. Keep her
smoke
in a cold rain.
3. The Library
Refugees
from the cold, curled
into every corner, dreams un-
raveling: Un-
repentant shadows
burned
onto cave walls, glove-boxes
tossed
into ravines, mirrored windows
hunting stray dogs.
I saw him:
Smokemouth, Absence,
crouching mid-aisle,
flipping pages, fast,
faster. Conspiracy Lord, keeper
of the great secret,
wearing
black rubber gloves. Never touching
the words
(don’t).
What
is that smell? The great family
lost. Again
and again
a child stares
at pictures of the civil war dead. Diagrams
of who-done-it. Up
on the second floor, a woman
is crying,
silent.
4. Collateral
Beyond
the white cross,
a generator
churns, powers
fiberglass
flying from a white hose. Supply
and demand: Men hunch,
bandanas tied
against scatter-glass.
Faux-adobe
becomes
blood, blood-
beyond-blood,
sunwelt-purple
rising
from the skin,
ecstatic,
deepening.
A jet from Kirtland
skirts
the black edge,
breaks
the cloudless sky in two.
Streetlights ignite
slow,
precarious,
planted
between the ribs.
5. The Last Prophet
No map. Except
these
yellow leaves. Rattle-flakes
of chipped bone
in a spinning
gourd.
A gold
Cadillac
circles the plaza,
plays:
“All we are
saying...”
Tamarisks lining
each ravine
drink
and drink, drain
every small
rivulet.
6. White Phosphorus
A snow-dusted
truck
downshifts: Milk,
meat,
nitrogen,
gas. Downtown
pneumatic hammers, drills,
echo off
sleep-deprived
stone. Her sudden mouth,
corporeal,
burned-white, her
burnwhite
eyes
don’t
No. It’s
nothing (I mis-
spoke). No-
thing
can not
burn
through skin.
7. Dry Creek Bed
No wind, only
scavenge-ant
patterns in sand. Last
leaves
still flip, mimic
the sound of water. A rabbit
slips into
and out of
existence. She rises
white
from a dark ant-hill. No
mouths in sight. No one
to say it
won’t you please
Open your arms. A siren
is rising
through black trees.
8. Paleo-Return
She struggles
through a water-
slick
crevice. Emerges
scorch-white,
luminous,
into
another cave, sees
the outline
of a dark wing
on a curved rock
ridge.
I wake.
She continues.
Crushes limestone, spits
into it,
mixes.
9. The Hospital
Another
work day. No
windows, no
elm branches a-
kimbo, bare,
against blue.
Words on-
screen, elusive
(Echo-
cardiogram,
cirrhosis, cervical
epidural, babygirl
methadone withdrawal).
Mailroom to
morgue. Drift-
webs in storage. What is
that constant
thrum
behind the men’s room
wall?
Shh. I am naming the bones in the fist
10. Tourniquet
Invite them in: The ones
who believed, the ones
who did not. Leave
the door open, let
them eat. Stone
on stone.
Don’t bother
with flowers. They
can not eat
flowers. Don’t bother
with Peace. They
can not eat Peace.
Don’t bother
with names, why
try to name them? They
are always They,
aren’t they? (Let her be
She. Let him be He.)
Outside,
black apples in the rain, un-
picked.
11. Passing the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Angel Fire during a Snowstorm
The world,
opaque. Somewhere,
a red plastic flower, flag rope
slapping
a frozen pole. White wall,
white hill. Where
am I? Lone blue
fluorescent bulb. No
shoulder, no
road,
can’t stop, snow
endless, disappearing
over the edge, an open
black mouth: Winter
soldier
whispers his confession. No,
stop. Pull
the confession
from another man. Use
the hood, electric wire. Plow truck
splatters black snow. Blind,
can’t stop. Wind
knocks side-
ways. White fingers
squeeze a black wheel. Slide
toward a shocked face,
not mine, never
mine.
12. Los Alamos
Scatter-glass
surrounds
prickly pear. Listen:
The brilliant future
is near. Burnwhite
echoes
buried deep, secure
beneath
dark earth.
(Little one
without ears)
Pink-infused
blue. Impossible,
the twilight. Un-
speakable
cloudstrands, mycelia-
thin, mirror
the intricate
network
beneath the skin.
(Little one
without eyes)
Sandstone
seams: Interwoven
secret
with no door. Deep
silence between
the scrape
of brittle leaves. Never
speak it. Keep it
adrift.
(Little one
with no mouth)
13. The Black Edge
Sandstone
bodies, scattered
pinon shell, juniper
duff. All
the beautiful dead
here
in red dust.
She begins:
White pigment
against
red stone. Changes
the rock’s ridge
into the line
of a drone’s wing.
Ancestors
stare
through our eyes: Sky
and rock, un-
utterable. What remains
un-
forgiven.
Santa Fe, Bandelier, Los Alamos, Kitchen Mesa
Sept. 2005 - Nov. 2006
Author’s Note. Anyone willing to acquaint themselves with how much tax money goes to the military-academic-entertainment-industrial complex can find the information at The War Resisters League or FCNL. Information on weapons (white phosphorus, cluster bombs, landmines) can be found at Cluster Munitions Coalition, Int’l Campaign to Ban Landmines, and Campaign for Innocent Civilans in Conflict (CIVIC). Information about torture and the US military can be found at SOA Watch and Amnesty USA. Helpful books on the subject are the brilliant comic book Addicted to War by Joel Andreas, The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson, Collateral Damage Chris Hedges, The Complex by Nick Turse, and just about any other author you’ll find at Tomdispatch.com. Administrations come and go, but the military power structure remains.