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Snows of a Mother’s Face
Snows of a Mother’s Face
“So, is your mother a landscape
or a face?”
~ G. Deleuze & F. Guattari,
A Thousand Plateaus
I
or landscape
if so, swidden
but snows of a mother’s face
bright as bible tripe
cicatrix
dove-shit over the ashlar
even litvit-skinned that
bright that
fictive
II
white cuts distance
ushers limit hems
the pestering light
in countless falls
sees the bitten leaf-raft eke a course
across dim nursery water
down sagittarian silver street
mid north
moon before yule
enfield arms bearing
an eagle-shanked and taloned wolf
sinister
back-foot
fleck-head
to the dexter
III
strange benison this winter
transmittance through layers of waking
hidden tiers
some ascend
too pure to fall
though in droves they do so and no sully
IV
celt-white
caught on fencerows
thistledown mimics
bits of fleece
drifts of face
traces
concealed by broken nurture
V
deepen bright obliterator
distance softens
a little nearer
and the teeth wheel tine-light
points to angelic pinions
jagged and atomic
disjecta
VI
begin small
frost-sane
on a path through the common
hearken in glade-womb
thee encrystalled spells remain
VII
the clear strain
seen through prints
negatives
yet developed
runs down the years
a willed relation
as through root of fern abides
the oblique redeemer
VIII
moth-furtive
bat glass
entreat the fond aperture
beyond
in drink
in candlelight
some are ghosts of
babies of
bastardy
hard the ancient judgements die
others come from caves with snow and crying
IX
as secrets whispered
the trees
distances mist
and provide with brighter irroration
where the same begin to darken darken
the winds
hanging nine nights as one
looking down into one
self at one
self
until as of old haunters
galloping over whimpers
the fontless torrent's charge is heard
X
fall in gentle ministrance
then as flurried maul
crispen bright the sloping stars
sharp as shroud-folds cold to touch
sting-flake whiter nettle
XI
crave an empty space to play burial
at night
in gaps in snow
the blacks and depths
asymmetric
crystals permit
pain as far as the threshold
XII
mirrors encrypt the darkness
some deciphered light
rises to the surface
breaks as glitter
assembles a shine
to walk out into silent woods
its shyness to bathe
denied by the summoned mother's gaze
the shunned light
darkening through elm to dark on alder
reminds that greater roots have withered
beneath these trees
XIII
teach one that when presence breaks
absence
completes
Adam Flint was born in North London and is currently based in Potsdam, Germany. Recent poems can be found in Poetry Salzburg Review, Shearsman magazine, and Reliquiae journal from Corbel Stone Press - including their Contemporary Poetry series.
Copyright © 2019 by Adam Flint, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
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