TIM MILLER’s latest book of poetry, Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, was just published by S4N Books. His poetry has appeared in Crannóg, Southword, Londongrip, Forgotten Ground Regained, and others across the US and UK. He is online at wordandsilence.com and can be heard on the poetry podcast Human Voices Wake Us.
The Great Year takes place a few centuries from now as a handful of people journey from eastern Europe to Iceland after the world has been decimated by war and environmental collapse. As they go, and in the manner of a post-apocalyptic Canterbury Tales, the survivors take turns telling stories. One of these survivors is a severed and magically-preserved head named John who occasionally recites poetry of his own. His first two songs are gnomic and ecstatic and don’t need any context. The third narrates how he met another survivor, a man named Smith (also his occupation). The fourth song, coming near the end of the book, describes John’s affection for his friends that he has traveled with for so long.
A Severed Head’s First Song
See what my eyes see –
why do I need a body?
I see a man’s head
placed in a hazel tree
and the poisoned blood it drips
rips the tree in three –
why do I need a body?
I see a saint beheaded
and watch milk instead of blood
flow with white ferocity –
why do I need a body?
I see a warrior
fishing for the serpent
that surrounds the world,
and the line that he unfurled
(this tendency is innate)
is hooked with an ox’s head for bait –
what high comedy! –
why do I need a body?
I see a mother in her ecstasy
mistake her son for a lion
and tear him completely apart:
and with her mind utterly beyond
she put his head on a thyrsus wand
for the sake of deepest Mystery –
why do I need a body?
I have ridden with the cavalry
I have participated in atrocity
I have clogged the flesh-clogged axletree
with the debris of my enemy,
and I have offloaded it all
into the waters and soured the sea –
why do I need a body?
I have seen heads on platters
and heads in pictures
painted in plaster upon the wall:
they have been called omens and prodigies
and their poetry is a poverty,
a malady and endless litany,
damned without a body
to only see and see and see –
why do I need a body?
I have seen the great loom
set up in the crowded room
and I saw the loom get going –
and the weights on that loom
that were in the great room
were the heads of women and men,
and mine was among them.
There are only visions,
endless echo and revelation,
and I cannot flee –
why do I need a body?
A Severed Head’s Second Song
I dreamt of two reeds growing
two stalks blowing
that I wanted to keep from harm –
but a strong arm
tore them from the ground
and from their roots I found
that blood would not stop dripping,
even when they were put on a plate –
and I was told to eat and celebrate.
I dreamt that two hawks flew from my hand
and finding no food they flew to the land
of Hel to ask for meat from the dead –
but somehow a table was spread
and I ate those hawks’ hearts dipped in honey,
blood and bee’s treasure an awful money.
I dreamt of a ring wrapped in wolf’s hair
and when I wore it I was well,
because I went home, home to Hel,
where the graves open and the dripping dead tell
what has not happened yet –
the god in the net, the lover not met,
the grudge and blood born of debt –
Hel an ink-well where the ink is mead
and where all need has died, and the need for greed,
only strong drink and the Book to read.
I dreamt of an old woman –
but don’t we all –
and she said to burn the chickweed
growing round the hall.
And the old woman pestered me
all summer long
saying the hall would burn with it,
an awful double song.
I didn’t listen to the old woman –
but none of us ever do –
and when the grey horses came
the man stopped there and threw
flames everywhere and all:
and he lit it first in that weed
until the hall was gone
and its ashes like black seed.
A Severed Head’s Third Song
It was me,
like a nest of bees
covered in a hood –
and suddenly this blasphemy
revealed on the table,
preserved and wrapped in rosemary
My head
of soliloquy and sorcery and serenity
and my eyes
for the first time on Smith –
what a myth
what a tale and a story
to meet with this tapestry
this effigy of centuries
this mind of masonry
I was only a trick
to that old soothsayer
and he only won me
as some curiosity,
not for my ability, no,
he wanted simplicity, not eternity,
not the ferocity and calamity,
not the anxiety of true augury,
of seeing beyond, and far between
of seeing beyond, and far beneath
not one season but them all
not one shock but every fall
not one height but the constant climb
not one word but every rhyme
not one season, not the one that’s near,
but all of them, the great year
and I knew Smith would be with me
each our own devotee
on land or on sea,
and through cruelty and atrocity
through the litany of history
through poverty and glad obscurity,
I knew he would take me with him
and that’s why I asked to be given away
to be put on a platter, put on a tray,
to be presented to this friend
whose heart I could perhaps mend,
poetry and prophecy the cure
for the heartache that will not end,
the two of us one strange tree
tending to our shared roots and mysteries.
A Severed Head’s Last Song
My head still holds
its eyes of oak,
and these tired eyes
have been my yoke
for much too long –
If I could stop –
stop somewhere
with you four
and live somewhere
and close the door,
and put my tools aside –
my boat of words and my loom
my knot of words
and the timbered room
where each plank is a song
that only I can sing,
words given flight
and songs given wings –
How I would rather cling
to calm and love and rest
I would rather snip the string
and feel our long calm blessed –
But then I see more melted gold
then I see more mountains in flame
then I see the new become old
and all the earth washed in smoke
and like a story told and retold
in the voice of the multitude
every portent loosens its hold
and every eye is ringed with flame
and the pillars of smoke topple down
and the mountain is a torn gown
split down the middle and smoking
and with every image, I drown.
TIM MILLER’s latest book of poetry, Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, was just published by S4N Books. His poetry has appeared in Crannóg, Southword, Londongrip, Forgotten Ground Regained, and others across the US and UK. He is online at wordandsilence.com and can be heard on the poetry podcast Human Voices Wake Us.