death & the maiden | a susurration of songbirds

death & the maiden there, oft would he bring from his soft sighing lute wild strains to which, spellbound, the nightingales listen'd; john keats — on receiving a curious shell

the air here is rich with new wine; I cannot help but wonder if there is any decay sweeter than the taste of it. ah, reader, my dearest reader — october has been kind to me. a pleasing and lovely heaviness has mantled my body and settled deep in its' marrow, turning bone and blood and flesh and viscera into a dark, golden honey.

I found myself anew, deep in this moorland halfway slumbering.

INDEX one......an ode to october's hauntings two.........first quarter : monday 1–8 three....second quarter : tuesday 9–16 four...third quarter : wednesday 17–23 five....last quarter : wednesday 24-31 six...............letter to john keats seven.....odds & ends & ill-fit things

an ode to october's hauntings

what strange desires blossom here — in this marshland hidden from God's eye, a heart of evergreen abandoned between ribs of white stone; so old it is that time itself must've forgotten all it knew — its' secret forests, the names and faces of the gods that once in soft whispers had dared call it home; none of that world remains now, not under this new sun. yet still some phantoms linger — without effigy, without sigil, without power; ghosts they are, aye, ghosts just as the rest of us that tremble at how sweet the wine of life is on our tongue. and who could fault them? certainly not I; of all that feast on night, I am perhaps the hungriest, teeth rooted always in fruit I know to be forbidden, the cavern of my mouth thirsting ever for the unobtainable — nursing poison until it starts to nurse me back, making my body into a cathedral fit to host that strange and distant shadow borne of Jerusalem's living, flesh-and-bone God. the Eastern wind howls, raw and long and broken; I and every other wretched fruitling may do naught but mourn the coming dawn in answer.

first quarter one : I ease into this month as gently as I am able — it is always a little strange, the beginning of a new month; a kind of dying of its’ own. I am also rather faint, on account of…female anatomy. † two : some things of note: one, I decided that at least half of this month’s daily poems will follow the thematic of “death and the maiden”, which I suppose is a very predictable creative choice on my part; I have also decided to compile a list of spooky prompts that suit the atmosphere du jour — or should I say, du mois. as I do not yet feel confident in my brain’s ability to produce work of quality in considerable quantities, I myself will be working with these prompts on a quarterly basis, forming a narrative. † three : my migraines have returned with a vice, so today I try to waddle as little as possible. † four : slowly but surely, I am returning to myself: I intend to finish the second volume of Lingua Flora by the fifteenth of this month — though I doubt I will publish it before the thirtieth — and to start putting some other things together, chiefly this month’s zine series. † five : today, I find myself growing stranger. “erotic cannibalism” is not something I ever though I would research seriously, and yet here we are. † six : if before I was barren, then today I am overfull — verses spill forth as wine, rich and dark and, dare I hope, sweet. there is just one problem: I lack the hands needed to work on all I wish to. † seven : this is a reset day. I go to bed early. † eight : I wake up shortly after the full onset of daybreak and gather my sorry bones; I spend the morning tinkering with the first zine of October, one centered on languages and how I relate to them. it is on the all a difficult day, comprised of a flurry of self-battles. I sink anew in a cyclical low, and as desolate as it is, I grit my teeth and somehow try to bear it — how wonderful it is to have friends reassuring you at times such as these. Kavi and Quinn, if you read this: thank you. I love you impossibly.

second quarter nine : still in a low; discontent with everything about myself, most of all my words. alas, alas. † ten : “Whosoever seeks to conquer the world should do so one step at a time,” to quote a note I made to my philosophy class in one of the usual preaching fits. I suppose I should take my own advice; ergo I try to suppress the contempt I currently hold myself in and make rational judgments. † eleven : a culmination — tonight I begin working on my On Eroticism essay. it is far from academic, but then again writing it up in such a style would render the point of it moot in my eyes; I intend only to collect my thoughts on the topic in a cohesive and (mostly) coherent thought piece. † twelve : I put my brain on pause today, although I do continue writing; I cannot, at the moment, be trusted to assess how coherent I am, much less the quality of my work...so I have Bane look over the first part of my essay once it is complete. he gives it the green seal, and that is good enough for me. I also go out during the afternoon to buy some clothes; blessed be second-hand stores. † thirteen : as of ten past five in the morning, Lingua Flora volume two is finished. I know not what spirit has possessed me, but it is more than welcome to stay. † fourteen : today is a day of rest and of revisions. I am, surprisingly, quite pleased with everything in the manuscript — most of the changes I make are either spelling corrections or swaps in word choice. this is quite a new feeling for me; one I hope I will feel more often in regards to my work. † fifteen : a pause. I put the essay on hold, as well as most things. I am verseless again, choking again. † sixteen : the fit from yesterday was mercifully short-lived; I feel better today. I must confess that of late I have been feeling exceedingly alone, which has led to this...persisting inconsolability. I tend to refuge in my work more than I care to admit, and I suppose the completion of the chapbook manuscript allowed these emotions to loosen and come out of hiding. the question now is: do I confront them or do I run?

third quarter seventeen : in the end, I chose confrontation — and I must say I did not care much for what I found. † eighteen : getting restless; I must throw myself into more work, yet I find myself at a loss as to what to start on. the day after I finished revising the manuscript for Lingua Flora’s volume two, I picked up another chapbook idea — however I soon lost interest in the project. it is too...foreseeable, almost, too much of something I would obviously do. I want to experiment, one way or another. † nineteen : today, eureka — I have something. † twenty : before I may start on that, however, I have other more pressing matters to attend to. hopefully my energy reserves will still have some fuel by the time I am finished. † twenty-one : this is a relatively more quiet day; I take a moment to breathe, and another one to plan. † twenty-two : today is a fairly eventful day, if only through the sheer volume of things happening. one of my favorite bands releases a new album; the music makes for excellent companionship as I move along.

I have entered the final stages of preparing for the release Lingua Flora’s second volume, you see, so there is quite a lot of work to be done. sometime during the night, I started re-reading Hellblazer, beginning at issue one. Delano is so very often thrown under the bus, but I truly do enjoy his writing. † twenty-three : a zine-making day — or, well, a zine-making night. although my feelings regarding the finished product are mixed, the process itself was tremendously satisfying; more than that, it served me well as a test run for the two other projects I am on the verge of beginning. one of them is an exclusive micro-chapbook that will hopefully be encased alongside this newsletter; tentative title Dying Seasons. the other is the fuller work mentioned previous, as of yet nameless.

last quarter twenty-four : time is slow to start, today, and so is everything that it has subjugated. I had planned to spend all of my waking hours working on the portion of my projects rapidly approaching their due date; I feel dry at first, so dry that I worry I shan’t be able to write a single word. fortunately, I break through. † twenty-five : this is a day of hibernation — following an all-nighter, I drop off into the expectant arms of Hypnos sometime after noon and I stay there until the following morning, blissfully dead to the world. † twenty-six : work and then more work. at the end of the day I may however rest easy; every project I had marked as urgent has been successfully completed. only two things left now — outlining the horror short story anthology that I plan to work on throughout November, and making a rough landscape of my next chapbook, as of yet still untitled, which I (cautiously) hope will see the light in the coming month. † twenty-seven : more hibernation; I am starting to worry that I am coming down with a bug of some sort. † twenty-eight : this is a worldly kind of day — I abandon my proverbial philosopher’s barrel, my hermit’s abode, in favor of consorting with my supposed kinsmen. this is an over-dramatization, of course. in reality I am just going out for groceries; our fridge is running perilously low and we are in dire need of restocks. both mother and I come home with our arms full and our feet tired, but I am content. † twenty-nine : during the night, I break out into a bad fever — seasonal change tends to come with such mishaps, and autumn has finally started to show teeth. it subsides by daylight, and I return to more domestic activities: most of my time is spent cleaning. † thirty : today, the release of Lingua Flora Volume 2; it feels surreal to say that I have officially published four chapbooks. looking back at this year, I have come so far as both a writer and as a person. † thirty-one : a quiet day at home — I close the gold-gilt chapter of this October with a far lighter heart than I closed the one of September. I leave you with Keats: “[...] quiet coves / his soul has in its Autumn, when his wings / he furleth close; contented so to look / on mists in idleness —” (The Human Seasons)

darkling———

I dreamed you once, do you know? I dreamed the bones of you, somewhere on a far and sun-soaked shore. I think I asked you about flowers, which ones did you best like; and I know for sure that I asked you what being dead was like. “Just like sleep,” you said. “Something soft you may sink into and never quite regret the depth you reach.” I remember that, for some reason, it made me weep; and I remember your hand, your fearful and gentle hand, soothing my grief.

You’re half the reason I write, do you know that? Half of why my hands still move, why they’ve yet to give up — more than that, it is you and you alone that moved me to poesy. I read your “Ode to a Nightingale” and it was as if from deep within the ether a seraphic hand had found my heart and was tugging at it.

Ceaselessly. With careless abandon. You made me fall anew for art, for the cold, bloodless lips of Death. You moved my soul in a way few people have. You gave me a gift, birdling, a gift you surely have upon many others bestowed from where you lie, adream and unknowing and ever young, our very own Hyperion.

My personal Morpheus.

I think that the only one to ever love you more than I do was Percy; and although I wager he would be inclined to think me after a fashion blasphemous, I stand by it regardless. After all, you are the birdboy to my birdgirl.

The echoing song of this dawn-chorus has tied our souls across aeons.

with hands afull of roses and with light always, Lianna Schreiber

odds & ends

dans l’esprit de spooky, this month’s trivia section is all about one of my favorite critters: fruit bats. despite the old belief that they are strictly nocturnal, these friendly shadows have been known to function just as well in daylight. they have excellent vision — the best among their kind, in fact; and they combine it with a keen sense of scent when seeking out food sources. excellent pollinators and propagators of seed, they are also reproductively responsible: if the colony is in peril due to lack of feed or shelter, they will hold off mating so as to not endanger any eventual offspring.

we are moving East for this month’s album: an old favorite of mine, Piele De Găină by Subcarpații. the blend of folk and hip-hop is as superb as always; give Șarpe de Dudău an ear.

a closing fragment

his hands ableed with lantern fruit — mouth full of pomegranate and of poppy, the birds in heavens high above singing the hymn of our proscribed nuptials — three days it lasts, three dusks and one more dawn; the world entire has gathered for the feast.