Solstice Tango

For this new section of Horizon Review, poets Tony Williams and Barbara Smith agreed to the unusual step of writing a poem collaboratively. Below you can read the resulting poem and some brief comments by the two poets on what the collaborative process entailed.

Any poets interested in contributing to this experiment should contact Jane Holland via the Horizon Submissions Guidelines page, either as part of a pair or to be paired up with another interested party.

Tony Williams: There seem to be two ways of poets collaborating. They can write together; both working on the same lines, either together or one after the other, revising each other’s work. Or they can write separately, responding to each other’s work — like a dance, or a conversation. We chose the latter, and really had no idea what we were going to end up with — we thought about the possibilities, and then simply began.

Barbara Smith: Tony’s right, once we had bounced back and forth some emails deciding on our subject matter, magick, the process was relatively smooth. I enjoyed being able to bring to bear a side of my occult knowledge that I wouldn’t usually employ in my poetry We sent each other whole poems and simply responded to and resounded with each other’s work. I don’t know for sure, because we opted for plan B, so to speak, but I think the process was smoother than the line-by-line approach.

TW: What I like about this process was the way the poet has to relinquish control over the work — the other person’s words alter the meaning, not just of the whole, but of the bits you write too. And aside from some very minor tinkering we didn’t go back and revise our own work, and we certainly didn’t touch each other’s. In that way it really is like a conversation, it’s not stage-managed. That seems to me the whole reason for a collaborative work, the way it introduces a particularly stringent constraint which you have to respect. If I said to Barbara, ‘Oh I don’t like that bit’, or vice versa, it would be like telling your partner where to put her feet, or what to say. The value of talking is that the other person says stuff you wouldn’t, and between the two of you a third thing emerges, the dance or conversation or poem which is more than two individuals.

BS: Again, I would agree with this aspect of collaborating. I actually found it quite liberating — it’s a little like how I would read a published poem in a journal or book — it must be read with the original poet’s intent in mind: one must try to discover the meaning and intent, interpret it; rather than look for reasons not to like the poem. This interpretation then informs the direction that you go in. And I do see the end result as being greater than the sum of its parts. Definitely like a dance between two people whose basic steps are so deeply learned as to be instinctual, and who are capable of adding individual embellishments that make the dance sing true.

Solstice Tango

1

Finicky no-shows, teasers. The runes just so
in salt lines — snort them! — and the giant’s teaspoon,
rattail, resting on the table. Its cool bowl
laid on my nape calmed the qualms
the taste of pewter drilled through my teeth —
but they disdained me. Curse them,
the imps of absence, unbiddable servants:
perhaps they came anyway, dead skin, dead
hair answering sour breath from the rafters.
I sacrifice the thought of them
to themselves: sickly, scrawn dancing, all flip
and declawed malice too weak
to seduce the eye, burning, a wickless candle.

Up there, the imp remains, stoned
in the Angel choir, a grotesque
with one knee nursed over the other.
His mouth open to the air, his eyes
wider than the surprise of being caught
with Hecate’s dogs, honey and black lambs
at the crossroads. I left him there
a curio, a reminder to all who call
upon the communis rixatrix.

 

2

The passionflower’s my compass. The cow ate it,
so I ate the cow. But where will we three
meet — you, the sly devil and me —
to soil our four left hands? Where? Not Valdes,
not Cornelius, not Nettesheim nor my own mother
could tell me. (You open your wound-sharp mouth to answer;
there’s a bubble of spittle, bullfrog-swelling — a crystal ball!
It hardens to eggshell, goose or ostrich,
and when it cracks, what spews out on my shoes
could be albumen or something else.) He’ll find us.
Between hag and manhag lies down — what? —
a bald white rabbit whistling a merry tune,
breaded on one side and stewed on the other,
the other, the other, the other, the other. I’m in
his skull, looking out through the gap in his buck-teeth.

In spite of your teeth, the crux will remain:
eerie music from the open box plays
a swag of pearls across each bone.
Fidelity and faith have long fled all
the halls of mercy, the field of Sabbath.
Once you were a devil to our twelve
when we were children on the green.
This hag is all I am: one eye molten
in the dark, the other cracked upon
your shoes, covering your cloven hooves.

3

Liver-of-the-valley.
Ox eyes, wand-burst,
looming rhinoceros
thrown by a spear of sun.

The many-branching thistle:
Hecate’s caresses,
arms of scrawn flakes
nettle-down cheeks.

Goats in a cave
horn-curve and eye-cry
stalled appetite
waiting in the dark.

Her kitchen, the woods.
This cliff, a dresser
whose stone drawers contain
beetle-black hoards.

Lame-say, dear-fail,
love-stall, un-luck, look
back. Word-break, rope
slack. Shit-foot. The cat

that swallowed the moon
sings to fields of dead mice
dancing, and a clock
ticks backwards towards no one.

My puppet — I’ll tie
a black ribbon around
your head and bind
your brains tightly

I’ll take nine nuts
your belt, and a woollen
thread as long as your waist,
a key and a bolt

Your sperm, I shall put
into each of the nuts
and tie everything
in a white handkerchief

I’ll hide them all
in the deepest cave
upon the mountain
and recite the words

to each breath of
a dandelion clock
blown into the stream
of malediction

 

4

Egg fall out of the sky. Egg bomb, egg slice
through the lake to burst submariners’ bubbles.

Egg fall out of the sky gift from God,
orb of the fairies’ king, warm gold,

clockwork of blood and water, egg smooth
bud of the stemless, terrible flower.

Egg bald head of the conjuror cracked,
egg surface of the earth surrounding hell,

egg future whose shell is become permeable,
fall. Fall into the straw plackets of the dawn,

and break. The skirts are gathering over a closed box.
Egg white face falling darken, dark.

Show him an egg and instantly
the whole world is full of feathers.

I must pluck a crow with him
to see his reason for roasting eggs.

What can he see, scrying
into globules of albumen?

Only the mass of cells gathering
in the crush-room underneath the ninth orb.

I prefer the swift crash of sticks
that fall widdershins

or a watch ball, mercuried, on its silver stand
keeping a silent vigil in the sanctum.