EMERGENCY HEALING HARLEY ARTHEL
SLCwrites
Deadly Chaps www.deadlychaps.com
Copyright Š 2011 Harley Arthel All Rights Reserved ISBN: 978-1-937739-01-0 Book Design by Joseph A. W. Quintela SLCwrites is an imprint of Deadly Chaps in partnership with SLCspeaks New York, NY| 2011 DCslcHA|1
Forward | by Joseph A. W. Quintela It was my great fortune to find myself in a writing workshop with Harley Arthel during my first year at Sarah Lawrence College, when we both spent a semester under the inspired tutelage of Suzanne Gardinier. Gardinier is well known for her exploration of the complex and beguiling Arabic poem-song known as the Ghazal. Her collection Today (2008) demonstrates a fluency with the form’s strict constraints that is tempting yet near-impossible to emulate. Most everyone took a stab at it and moved on. Arthel alone spent the entire semester grappling with Ghazal. The formalist knows that the strictures of structure bring their own kinds of freedom and power. But, at first, form unfailingly mimics a hostage situation. To find freedom in the golden shackles of structure requires an enlightened negotiation of language that can only be accomplished via disciplined tenacity. Arthel demonstrates this kind of enlightenment nowhere better than in “Ghazal for Harley”, where the final three repetitions of “Scared? Scared! Scared?” ring with a rich poignancy that is inflected by every appearance of the same word that has preceded it as required by the Ghazal’s architecture. It is as though the word itself has been cantilevered over a startling yet wondrous abyss. This abyss was known by the Romantic Poets as the Sublime and it is a rare poet who can maneuver language so far into its awe-striking void. To read Arthel’s work is to be swept in both the urgency of his verses and the restorative power of his repose. It has often perplexed me that the most urgent of voices could come from someone who consistently brings such a calm and peaceful presence to any room that he inhabits. The same contradiction inhabits each of the poems in this collection: though filled with a terrible urgency they are also underpinned with a profound sense of tranquility. This bending of urgency into repose is but underscored by the collection’s title: Emergency Healing. The choice sets an impetus, not only for the self-healing that the text seems to offer both its writer and reader, but more importantly, through this very healing of self, a healing of the world at large. We live in a deeply wounded age. Here, Arthel offers a much needed balm for both body and heart in the intricate dance of vivid language anchored in the impeccable foundation of the Ghazal form. October 2011 New York
Ghazal for Harley Olivia Meyer My locks and sockets scream demanding. Hipbones glisten like pulled molars, scaffold demanding. I remove my German lineage at the table. He cries. Run to the bathroom and bleed into the toilet, gristle demanding. Demanding gives no give no forgive – castle of night Castle of night, forgive no give. No gives only demanding. Harley Olivia, oracles drool praises to your sever-mind. What you have forgotten, I will remember. Repayment demanding.
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Ghazal for Sophia To tell you the truth, all words confound me. The word “rock” confounds me. “Tree” confounds me. “Child” confounds me. The word “sorrow” staggers me. The word “love” drops me to my knees. And yet silence resonates among all these words, and silence disturbs me most of all. - Urset, the Original Bear (via N. Scott Momaday) I cannot tooth this impossible star with my usual rooting. Confound the ants marrying flesh to soil, new sprout rooting. What rots doesn’t ever disappear and your wailing won’t help. Worm taut body skin stuffed with dirt tangled in rooting. Hagia, when sorrow peals. Hagia, when love prays. You do your silent washing with infusions of rooting. Your crows haggle over tinsel in a delirium of glee. You are node-point and weaver and midwife of rooting. Sophia, Sophia, Sophia – the white pinions of dirt won’t let me go Clary sage has me, clary sage has me wanting water, rooting.
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Ghazal for William An artichoke man with one eye to prophecy says welcome. Pick all of them up and bring them along, flooded welcome. The blue mountains cut me. You are the living heat. No breezes. You make me wait in my welcome. There is blood in this soil and it dances like clay. Whether spilled now or later, it is always welcome. You have one healing hand and one for the strike. Hold me. William, bring the bandage and seed each rioting acre with welcome.
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Ghazal for Harley Horses tethered shove snorting in iced mud— scared. Blankness pulls at them like invisible biting bats—scared. Red doors open my heartwash of fluid hind legs shriek rabbit cavities thud loud in sod burrow scared. Mohammad the Turtle runs from a hot teacup a red thread universe gut sing-a-song smiles not not not scared! Slidden Chariots of Dream choke rally gallop Ridden iron hoarse factories a windowsmash tag torn-scared. An earthy muttering breath breath, finefeet scatter on stone Harley a field, my field – thrushes go mad with “Scared? Scared! Scared?”
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Ghazal for Adam The cut writhes and staggers slow. Clean line from Omaha, a reckoning sutured slow. Your hands produce, your mouth a map but words have stiffened legs, story crawling slow. We fuck in a hot tent in a sodden city. Each walk, each meal, each talk waltzes slow. The swamp is always sinking, watery liver. Cypress trees hoot a dirge, claw-singing slow. Your taut body shuddering in the shower. My hands inside you, a moan stretches slow. Adam, a skip a leap a land, you taught me the sound of a rib breaking slow.
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Ghazal for Yvelle In my experiments with reality, only love is real. Eggs, rajas and coffee: only love is real. We are born through a laughing shell. Your eyes clang out a gold voice: only love is real. To watch you eat from a bowl breaks my heart. Floods of sky clatter overrun us, thunder, love is real. I can only say things blunt in my child-language. Cafecito, un bien mezcla, you translate: love is real. When the leaving comes my flesh seals up. I won’t forgive you for pressing deep. Love is real. How did you know me, Yvelle? What stem, what thorn? Our subjunctive blooms in your mouth like a rose: love is real.
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Ghazal for Jenna My head is planted in the ground and the moon is in the sky. Your clam shell eyes whistle while the moon is in the sky. The wound story spools from my mouth unwoven and bit. You look. I do not. You look for me while the moon is in the sky. I have only ever drafted notes on my loving of you. This copy, this copy bleeds while the moon is in the sky. Jenna: a confluence of birds with tender throats have escaped The flight is ripe for us while the moon is in the sky.
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Ghazal for Harley I loop confusion around both hands in a web of forgetting. My muscles grow over the bricks of houses, slimy forgetting. Sugar textured solitude buries my mother, with a little money I hack and hack and hack at the sails but we churn towards forgetting. My throat, surprise! A bit of metal, surprise! Language surprise! Sudden light, smoke parting, billowing, lurching up – forgetting. A shovel shot in, a shovel pulled out. Harley won’t catch the gravel in his cup-grip – his hands work too fast, braiding forgetting.
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Ghazal for Arthel What do the night birds say about this emergency healing? The night birds hold threads of rope for the emergency healing. Her thick-veined yarn spells time in burnt purples and reds. Where do I put my hands? I said, for the emergency healing. His scars smile under his nipples, numb, happy and floral. Unknot the ship; doe-eyed seals will bark emergency healing. Oh poor creature, God’s creature, grandfather’s fingers. Hold the mouse, trap the squirrel, pierce with emergency healing. Hunger makes me lean as I scout green-wicked piss scent in spring. From a cave, Arthel: bear strong, bleeding emergency healing.
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Ghazal for Asher I hated the harsh, intricate, obstinate demands that he made on me in the name of life. - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness We do not know what the body can do here in the safe house. Our flesh is unknown. We only dance naked in the safe house. In the night I see your arms flaring with livid protection. I called the rain dry till they dragged me into the safe house. I undertake the grey mask of pain like a corpse of lead— You powder it and make a nice tea in the safe house. So much as slap me alive, scream out the frostbite, stomp my strangle Splinter and rend uncloak as joist and beam here at the safe house. His bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties: Asher-blessing My choose-verb. My line of salt. Asher, tattoo me the way to the safe house.
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