Mythopoetry Scholar

Matter & Beauty

Necessary Fictions
Four Poems
-Brian Landis

Necessary Fictions

Look.
Dorothea Tanning did not explain her paintings,
the painting was the explanation.
If you think when this poem is done
your sensibilities will be smoothed with interpretation,
you are wrong.
You might as well pick at the scab of a failed marriage
or wonder at the taste of menstrual blood.

I will tell you this though,
I had a friend who collected samurai swords
and one day
I performed seppuku
on his shag rug
as a gift
to leave him something undeniably authentic.
If you think for one moment
there is any truth to this,
You are wrong.

I will tell you this though,
in April of last year
the world awoke without pubic hair,
textile adornment, or a sense of shame.
The Japanese government,
pleased that tradition had been vindicated,
disbanded the Board of Photographic Censors.
Sapphire-eyed South African blondes
lay dripping with their legs spread.
It was not sex of which we had been afraid,
It was hair (reminded us of our parents, perhaps).
If you think this is vaguely Freudian,
You are wrong.

I will tell you this though,
I do not believe in color,
time, evolution, or truth.
I do believe in necessary fictions.
I believe poetry is a perfumed wasp.
I believe silence is despair.
I believe poetry is inventing a way past silence.

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Iteration

A fractal physicist
a non-Euclidian geometer
working in membrane theory
and ten dimensional space
alone
on a mountaintop in Northern California
stops for the first time
at a roadhouse
for a cold beer
meets a woman for whom
color is an illusion
"Look!" she exclaims
"The moon is tangled in your hair!"

A door opens.

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Ventana

In the deep wilderness
the Spanish friars named Ventana
            in English, ‘The Window’
change is important
            not time.

Pine and oak rings tighten during a drought.
Animals disappear, especially the big cats.
Dust settles, years blur
            no-one speaks.

Suddenly rain!
Food for all, verdant profusion
            a frenzy of copulation.
Creeks rush and tumble
            full and fast
until late September.
Pumas feast on deer liver
caught in the high potreros
            the hanging meadows of volcanic cones.
Fat quail explode from thickets
            of lupine and manzanita.
Wet world is the nubile and fecund sister
            of brittle, old-maid, dry world.

Long ago one spring on the Big Sur coast
            I was given a vision
of the engine of the world
of the wheel of life
of all beings
            arising, returning
            eating, being consumed
to the pulse and rhythm
            of a sound which cannot be heard.
Zen poet Paul Reps writes
            “This is the law: No Sames”.
Change is the law, not time.

Today, my legs are sun-burnished
            well formed
for hiking in the rich larder
of the California backcountry.
I mark dry, and wet
            for the calendar of my life
the seasons of hibernation, awakening
            yielding to bliss
unfolding into wisdom.

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I Dreamed A Fish Leaped Into My Forehead                       
And Disappeared Between My Eyes 

I feel scaly scrapes, swimming finnily
            steadily, stealthily
along synapse meanders
            deeper, deeper, a coelacanthic denizen
of cool and clear and virgin pools.
I dreamed a topography
            a vortex, not a mountain
an orchid-colored sea
            blessed with eccentric sentience
on Earth's full extremity
I dreamed there is only one of us
            and two is an illusion
I dreamed of grapevines declivously draped
            'cross vault and fluted column
Bathed was I by Dryad hands
            in eggblood, wine, and semen
I dreamed of a cremation
            a last surreal performance
"I hope for easy exit, I hope for no return"
murmured Frida Kahlo, soon ash within her urn
Hair ablaze, a radiant halo
            "Look at me!", she cried silently
"Mind has fled, yet body suffers so!"
I dreamed the faces of bodies I'd worn
            the corpus, the meat
and cherished each one
            the ones before
            the ones to come
An acappella chorus whispered
            whispers lost in breeze
"True love is eros, not agape
            True love is eros, else time would freeze"
I dreamed of the void, a black sun
            and pastel engines of creation
of a sound which cannot be heard
            a wildness, a ritual, a unification
Pellucid dreams of clear quartz disks
of hummingbird skulls and verdigris
albino vipers and formularies
            of being, awareness, and bliss


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