an arm for an eye for a tooth

"Ne'er cast a cloot til Mey's oot"


__________________

boquet of daggers,
the crimson cloud swelled neath
his festering wound, seemingly inflicted
by an unseen spider in the course of days spent
in the crannies of where one reaches to pain
T a house, and not having good insurance
this fellow working alongside me
also tells of his herniated condition of his guts
drooping into his nutsack he said as i half listened
to what isn't much fun to hear of
the oregon health plan he has calls it "cosmetic"
though it could be comedic
were it not for being a real human, and now
he won't go to a doctor and the black scab over
a palm sized, smallish mango shaped bump
that days ago was an area of his arm with a
tattoo of a cross
now only the bottom of the tattoo is visible
and he still is laughing it off as he squeezes
out copious pus, to put it plainly, along
with blood of course, and i ask to photograph
it, but who'd want to see this picnic in the park
or try to comprehend
how one lets a piece of our body literally rot
well he did take some antibiotics
that were in some medicine cabinet from years ago
he swills a beer and takes another smoke break
under the hawthorn tree shade
with his axe and a black bird watching him from
the tree he is cursed to destroy
______________

above us, i wearing thick leather gloves
and long pants, and sunglasses for eye protection
are the cumuli heaped up in billowy swelling mounds
of dark blue and eggshell pale ruffles
i could have surmised rain they said they'd heard
long rolling thunder the night before in that brookside
area of town, as the hawthorn had
daily been trimmed back to accommodate ladders
as we cleaned gutters and commenced pain
-Ting our buddy's house, under eaves where
the funnel webs lead a wandering fly into a one
way hello that frodo knows, 
actually three trees we methodically
culled as the faerie king glowered a hundred miles
of rain under his furious brow
with lances on yellowjackets not trained on me
as i painted thirty feet in the air
and they lazily flew about the soffit under my
wet roller full of acrylic color 
not me, not me
the one who the spider chose who the thorn
laced spike tree demanded to avenge
not me, a year to the day of an accident 
which tore my shoulder in invisible winds a kite
crumpled but on fire beneath unruptured
skin, freshly summer tanned and freckled
there on rex, and now life on rex, 
co=incident, planted my heart like a walking stick
grown off a forest gump stump 
with sneakers shredded and the rag tree 
a sprig to the sovereign and the heartwood 
made into ladles for potions
the whitethorn maytree with diving boards for dewdrops
all those three inch swords of thorns
made jesus a cruel joke but also makes funnel clouds
over wine country and descending wrath
feeds Bacchus human blood but in turn dumps
nearly an inch of rain in two hours
in goddamn august, fattening the green hawthorn
berries even as we saw and clip
the triad overhanging the gentleman's fine home
as his daughter crafts an azure grinning wolf suit
at the dinner table out of fake fur
as banshee clouds brim the dead volcano bluffs
of surrounding east portland
____________

"These Siths or Fairies they call Sleagh Maith or the Good People...are said to be of middle nature between Man and Angel, as were Daemons thought to be of old; of intelligent fluidous Spirits, and light changeable bodies (lyke those called Astral) somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, and best seen in twilight.

 These bodies be so pliable through the sublety of Spirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure"


________________



does he lose his arm, the fairy army asks
as we guide the trunk to land away from the house
freshly grayed with a brown trim demeanor
as the afflicted mops at his mess wrapped in paper
towels the skin of trees chewed up and 
bleached to exact hue of a drained storm,
with a thud we fell
the god out of season all three grown from one
as the homeowner critiques
my mode of cutting the stump off at the ground
allowing it to endure he claims
as we pull the long deadly branches out past his
vw bus in a heap that a chipper will reduce to
dander, along with the thousand insect queens
and spider battalions buried in crushing 
leafy darkness whether the hawthorn 
planted the lightning or the elemental spark
planted the tree it is neither here
nor there, but it does
weep a sour reminder in goddamn august
perfect painting weather and a treehouse
guarded by oberon on land once tree filled
and needing no human needs nor clootes


8-12-2019

se portland oregon


_____________

"Hymen is the son of Dionysus/Bacchus (god of revelry) and Aphrodite (goddess of love); or, in some traditions, Apollo and one of the Muses


The hawthorn has been regarded as the emblem of hope, and its branches are stated to have been carried by the ancient Greeks in wedding processions, and to have been used by them to deck the altar of Hymenaios. 



The supposition that the tree was the source of Jesus's crown of thorns ....."