The Empress Of Contrails Writes Upon Darkness - Anxiety Of Influence (1) Poem by Warren Falcon

for Anthros Del Mar

'the labyrinths that time creates vanish.

(only desert remains.)

the heart, fountain of desire, vanishes.

(only desert remains.) ' — from 'And After' by Federico Garcia Lorca

'In the deserts of the heart let the healing fountains start.' - W. H. Auden


I, on the other hand,

have lain down with

countless thousands.

My tent is worn out.

Love cries some blood

where tongues are root-ground,

utterance hard pounded,

soft tissue torn letter by letter,

tender verbs open to pain,

that which is paid for more

than alabaster embraces

and this strangling of waists.



My tent has drained more

of love's body than a mortuary.

Spikenard scented oils taint

fabric folds and flesh.

Rote, worn pillows are

hourly turned for teeth

or coins hoping to find

one true word for

love without name,

moths repelled instead

by flame, pillows reveal

nothing yet.

I turn them still.



Have I not spoken of tears

subtle parentheses of blame,

brine outlines punctuated,

thinly silked, easily taken

for wing-laced salt maps,

tongue lick sighs grown

weary with enunciating.



Nightly misspoken, the

flagons are tossed down.

Pleading echoes, the tents

are packed. Forgiving camels,

commas nailed to each hoof,

tread into cool unread darkness,

all that is within it -

a history of wax seals,

once important names,

broken pledges, lies still smooth,

their nuance-scripted smiles crisp,

predictable riffled pages

intent on cool gain upon

desert's shifting floor.



Oasis and cloaca,

love birds parched,

now moves caravansary

toward Heart's always

edited horizons.

There are many redactions

before the sun rises.



Perhaps my name goes

before me, my press,

the Empress of Contrails,

peacocks, accountants

in tow trailing tallies,

unsettled scores,

arrivals, departures,

ejaculations, rejections,

all faces hands have held

and, yearning beyond possibility,

hesitant dawn's mourning dove.



Men cry, Return, yet burns

no desert impervious to heat of

all kinds, even human, excepting

the heart, its capacities to startle.

Its dunes in vast stretches beat

for what moonlight cannot index

but only suggest:

breviaries, endless recounting

of causes - neglect, curses,

justifications, worst cases all,

just tent talk to scorpions

scribbling in silver shadows,

pitying serpents smug in their ability

to recite every skin they have shed

without regret unlike the men in veils;

their profane winds lightly perfumed

do the work of erasure well,

absolving memory.



What lies ahead shuffles in

cursives of sound confusing

the ear, a solitary traveler

compulsive for solar winds

stumbles it's own way.



No pressure for accuracy

nor to lose plume and ink

hiding what cannot be unwritten

A trail of brocaded skulls in time

returns to sand. One cannot see,

waving its goodbyes, the congealing

tint and quill.



Through ages, upon human vellum,

through cycles unending and same,

what heart heat bids,

I write best upon darkness,

eyes closed, tent

open to all who may,

supplicant,

come wandering in.