2022.3 Charm

I seem to have written a paean to the Allographic philosophy of #NoSelfDiss in the wake of another They//Us workshop prompt.

From Discovering Skye, by Jonathan MacDonald, pg 69 (thanks, Crow!).

“It is said that the MacCrimmons possessed a silver chanter which was presented to them by a fairy woman… [after coming across young Patrick MacCrimmon piping alone in a slightly self-destructive huff by the riverside] ‘I will let you choose from three gifts – the power to sail a boat so you can sail the seven seas and become the wealthiest man in your clan; or strength in battle so that the ravens of the Dun can be satisfied with the blood of your enemies; or a gift for piping so that your music will lure the birds from the trees and give peace to wounded men and pain-worn women…’”

My whole life I’ve been a broken mimic,
dripping with the need to reflect,
echo everything in my domain.

My fingers fumble, humbling beauty,
polluting the ways of nature,
grating on the nerves of the world.

I cannot capture what I want,
taunted with the ordinary,
taught that my net worth is just the cost of twine.

My mind is tangled in the dewed prisms of sunrise,
blithe with its slippery prettiness,
blessed with perfect curls of mist.

It keeps resisting me. Halting and faltering,
I have rendered the ecstasy of existence
into nothing but a handful of sand.

And she says: stop trying, these things come with time,
but I’m spurred by a burr of bitterness
to hiss: not good enough.

She sighs. And a part of me, frightened, chides myself for
openly despising the opinions of the Sidhe
(a really swift path to ruin, if they choose it).

But she just listens, offers gifts,
and I glimpse a future that is Not-This,
glistening, buoyed by a belief from beyond my ponderings.

Because in years to come her promise is fulfilled;
a thing to pass down the ages,
a way to sway the doubt from clouded minds.

You’ll find it’s not the silver that’s enchanted,
but the clasping fingers that fling caution to the wind,
bringing beauty to the ears and inner eyes.

And I’ve been blessed, all right,
brightened by a loving sleight of hand that
captured all my fears and said: make art of this.

See there’s no artifice in listening to every step,
each one begetting more, each landmark
only half the story.

Glory’s less important than the challenge of the
next peak, and the next,
of hefting new-found strength against the heights.

But mind you never seek to keep the art
held fast against whoever strives behind you.
Use your keys to keep the gates from closing.

No-one sensible would seek to say
the fae ain’t listening still, the hollow hills
all ringing with the echoes of your actions.

For it’s a fact that generosity begets more wealth,
and every day the music grows,
we only, every one of us, get richer still.

Image (“a romanticised Victorian era depiction of a MacCrimmon piper”) from the Wikipedia article about the clan

Weirdly, I’ve not yet been able to find any reference to this version of the myth anywhere online. The closest talk of a fairy woman or a mysterious stranger helping a weeping boy feeling himself not up to a big competition for the title of MacLeod official piper where he’d been subbed in at the last minute, so I’m not sure where MacDonald got this one from (let alone his startling use of symbolism whereon the fae maiden brings out the chanter from under her apron!). And the tenor of the tale changed a little when I discovered that the clan still hold competitions for the best piper to claim the silver chanter – but they must only play the old tunes, written by clan ancestors…

2022.2 Concerted

Today on the They//Us workshop, I was asked to provide five emoji and we were all asked to write something from them in 15 minutes. Here they are:

👀🔥

(hope these work!)

It’s not like you haven’t thought this before, your mind expanding to touch the other elements at play, but here, fearing dissolution, you succumb to the most basic ways of centring yourself, deft in your clumsiness. Clutching solidity, you look to the others and it’s difficult. Martin’s eyes are wider than you’ve ever seen them, and it’s nothing like unalloyed delight – he’s bright with all the colours of panic, static and absolute. You slew your gaze to Jenny, bouncing, hands almost frantic, but gleaming with glee, and you feel like a traitor, want to turn away to take your terror elsewhere, protect her from its stain. Chris burns, but you’re learning that that’s the ground state of their being, a bedrock of molten ire that can be surprisingly ecstatic at times, or even an elemental type of serenity. And maybe you’ll take their brightness, her joy, and his rigour into yourself, let yourself find the rhythm of prisms, the ligature of ignominious connections, abetting your own everything, and just sway, horrible and lovely, blank-faced, forgetting grace in the the name of truth.

Lights flash, gliding past.
You are entering the beat,
tucked into the pit.

2022.1 Diplomatic Impunity

My first attempt at a Rondo Redoublé, courtesy of Ann Atkins, who persuaded me to put the type on the forms template. Inspired by real events.

I am a stranger in this stranger land,
now stranded in a court of foreign kings,
finding my assumptions built on sand,
branded by what my occlusion brings.

My confusion oscillates and swings;
I am humbled where I once was grand.
And charm now clatters where it used to sing.
I am a stranger in this stranger land,

This encounter’s not what I had planned.
Speeches hobble, envying the wings
of favoured members of the louder band
not “stranded” in this court of other kings,

I’m used to being heeded, is the thing,
instead of frozen by these flames I’ve fanned.
I try to dodge the arrows and the stings,
finding my assumptions built on sand,

It seems that “arrogance” is my new brand;
I listen to the truth with which that sings,
and wish they’d go ahead and have me banned,
branded by what my occlusion brings.

They say that mud, once flung, will always cling
I’ll have to work to scrub it from my hands,
stop loading ammunition into slings
where fear has left me washed up on this strand.
I am a stranger in this.

Image from Borgen Magazine. Description in alt-text.