THE BOOK OF DOLL
Jesse Glass
The Argument: Brother & Sister find a doll in the
attic.
The Brother buries it in a mock funeral & digs it
up again, after which it seems to have an intelligence
of its own &
appears to be the agency behind a rash of inexplicable fires.
At the doll's bidding
the children murder their parents, and are themselves
burned to death, yet the doll remains unscathed.
1.
What the doll sez once buried in the earth dreams day & night the rain
drops
fall above it
the soul of it
wet like a grub
washed clean by the blood of our looking
clock ticking
gold
dustmotes before it
in a lens of light
sez the boy took it to the fields and buried it
over and over
the child's acid prayers
ate away the sky till nothing but the Root of God
was visible
tumbling in the bright void
True Bones
snapped fingers to the doll Tap Root pierced it
heard Doll nothing
suicide doll
one eyed wooden eyed all
directions laced
in a black torus stake in the heart
sez
red clay stained its head
then it knew...
2.
PAMA picks face (darkness seen from the) mirror. Smiles
contemplating World Beast & Great Chain of Being as things remain fused into one
Suffering *tooth * hammer * nail. MAPA casts seed into hole & lizards beautify
moon-lichened rock. MAPA sucks own cock licks own clit shudders before the (what's that in
the corner) vomiting forth moths whirling in autumnal haze. MAPA has more teats than Diana
of the Ephesians.
more blesst than
business suits
Speaks from its own fleshy hole with the sound of many waters.
Ventriloquises for stones & paving tiles & guinea pigs
casting all things in its genteel image.
O doll in the cist runehewn runerock
O! 1, O! 10,
O! fragile 5
braver
than Quasars!
O Hochma!
O Binah!
weaker than Tygers
or Martin Luther!
O warrior pierced through the temples
with a tent stake!
falls between the legs
& Boy & Girl
in their nakedness drag open
earth
Doll awaits them
incorruptible
impervious to weather or the curved beak
its promise the vacant stare
crowns them King & Queen suggest they mount their cardboard thrones! (MAPA
battering the walls)
Doll teaches
what it means to harrow Hell
ride the Bull in the Grave
caper deosil by garage light
while T.V. flickers unwatched
in the midnight bedrooms
So King & Queen learned
whispering of the dickie bird of steel
red clack of wheeling beak
lands point first
in undiscovered continents of Gland
loiters there
among blood geysers
confusion of blood & air
& the hermetic heart sealing itself
throbs to stillness on a purpling stalk
King gave Queen his milky scepter of skin
she held it played it & they ruled
among the cardboard Galahads
where MAPA stored the Xmas bulbs
Angel of plastic
angle of elastic
blackens in its robes
flame wings while
MA (/) PA
Scissored
pig meat "what you doing in there" Boy sez: "workin' grails" Sis: "Yeah" "keep it down" sez Pa Sis: "ok" pyramid of matches in her lap
headlines in paper: DOG DEATH
OUTBREAK/INEXPLICABLE FIRE
old man in his
walker just a slippered foot found
plastic angel speeds
bolide into the distant barn
out near to Mattie's ford MAPA roars itself to sleep threatens
the antique gods
moans & farts
for Gods so fear the gross body
Stink
of tallow draining on the slabs
O words are tarochi
words are the fool
cur at his heels
abyss at his
toe tips
the hanged man
swelled foot & tongue
glitter of gold leaf
fleur de lis
unbelievable lioness with
eyes of a starlet
hooked on valium
peevishly looking
on while a strong man
unhinges her jaws
last trump & the dead
uprising puppets from
cigar boxes jiggle
on strings the great unwashed
climbing stairs
to Versailles
now tin flowers
bite the hand blood
makes the colors glow
the rune real
Doll whispered
"rip me with your teeth
my hounds
sew me together
Regina
with waxed thread, bold stitches
seal a black stone in my head
stitch it closed with red X's
roll me in garbage
then cut threads loose from my lips
piss upon me wipe ass & belly with me
wipe a black dog's blood across my lips
I'll bawl the songs of a child lost in a dark wood
a frozen river
moon & stars
sees Mother & Father
in silver chains staring at their reflections
in the ice"
3.
MAPA rose in the mulch bed on brutal elbows. "Wat u say?"
It stumbles in
"U Two MUCKIN yet? THOU SHALT not"
lowers head to charge King & Queen surround it
Now Doll with butcher knife
Doll
with stiletto
Doll
with ax & hammer
strikes the Midgard MAPA struggle furrows furious floor
stretched in the Microcosmos
Doll laughs turns, dropping clods of summer fields
crickets in the corners of the room small rivers churn down dagger handle
cut the MA from PA
holy butcher (IT on the 10-sided block)
release Mother cries
mule brays dog howls
crow caws
release
coiled bone Spring in a red snap flower
release nerve spirit from bone hollow
stars wheel
above the house while
(10,000 atomic suns explode)
uncouple I from T
wailing 'Death is Dead' in the middle of the air.
4.
Doll sez if you hear my voice
you know my secret
clock transformed beyond motors
transfiguration of the tick tock
mechanism of breath in an instant
the
Kingdom of Doll
comes
when engines burn out
in a power surge
--that darkness--
you must ingest the body
of the alphabet
--that
silence--
then flames crackle pyre dancing match
flame head lick flame browns blackens
loosens from the earth & flies
to a heaven red & blank as heated nickel
another torch points in 4 directions tumbles
on a hay rick
sirens
wail
then Doll cried
for a cap of stinking fur
& horses fell on their elastic foreheads
long
tongues
calibrated slather
pasture
mud
for
insect eyes
&
mandibles to seize...
5.
"Must sleep"
sez
Doll
"bury
me till Algol glows till
Wormwood falls till the bite of the Horned Moon
amen
till each dead tree has an
owl in it
till
the boar's head stalks from the kettle
on tripod legs
till the Tyrants' hands know uncontrollable applause
amen
till the Tully monster returns
to frisk in tropical shallows
its blind proboscis winnowing
slime
Hide me
in
a box of Sard
till
horn blows above the marble vaults
& the dead admire their cramped toes
then drag stitched lips
across your own
& suck doll's
breath for want of proper air.
& on that day all cards will be
Jack of Diamonds
framed
on a playroom table
in a farm house in the middle of a field
of
thickets in blossom each blossom
the
head of a child
bruised
by brutal forceps
& on that day
angels will fly on meathooks in steel boxes/ birds
will be worms
flying
through the rocks
missiles
tumble
television
apocalypse
&
sweet songs from the squeak box
turn to a salt
scrabbling in the ear
but before I go
LISTEN!
Cold so cold you see your breath
& a skeleton strung
puppet
from the rafters of earth
one arm pulled straight pointing
(Grand Man Kaedmon Ancient
of Days)
in a web of twine
next to the Bone Man
blue corpse in a block of ice
apes the gesture
Nigh the block
a Bald Man naked
shivering
repeats the gesture of both
LISTEN!
these I saw in my garden grave to give you before I'm gone
I,
Doll, cried out
for
love of you,
my King, my Queen
but earth said
'Hush' &
clotted my voice
&
I saw further
a
Gray Man
who
limned
bones
& melting corpse
& naked man He
can't
render the picture
to
his satisfaction
& his Apprentice
blunderer
engraves the painting
as the Painter works
each miserable mistake cut
into the plan
without
question.
LISTEN!
Then I screamed to
the whispering match fire!
dance
of smoke
unlaces
fingers in the eyes
down the throat
a black rose streaked with red
follows a hidden
moon
there the vortex will drag you
& the Soot Mother
put
you to sleep
No detective find you
No judge lock you away
No
MAPA to number your nerves
cup
your screams
in its mouth
distend your bellies with its trumpet breath
ovipositor piercing your fine skins
to leave the gnawing Witness
there
the guilt that tunnels
grub-like
through the bone
& locks its bright cocoon
behind
your eyes."
6.
&
Doll lifted one arm
pressed
a hooked flame
On the tongues of Boy
& Girl
&
they shrieked in languages unknown
half spasm & half swoon
shadows
pinned
between
the burning joists
pierced by a rod
they
tumble under steles
lie
with compass needles
spinning
on their breasts
caged ghosts
boxed together
death clangs in every nostril
tektites cover them in silence
& their screams
locked in the sprung jaw bone
lipless gathering the dark
while in a
space
swept
clean
Doll
feels the planetary shift
& a Hand finds it among the ruins
of a book
thrown face down in the fire
frees the Hieroglyph
from ashes
& bones of Unclean Beasts
whose roars are the hissing
Athanors
of Heaven.
7.
Doll
taps with fists of stare
through
reflective panes
no
God nor maggot there
only
your flattened face
among the handmade quilts lace heart-shaped wedding pillows
samplers stitched by virgins bored with ease of life
among spool manikins dressed in fashions of 1847 corn dolls
crudely carved
mandragora phalanxes of beads cloth
stiff as old flesh with blood & tears
Doll with rusted crown
in the glass casket
harrowing
the eye,
the
ear.
You may get more information about Jesse Glass and purchase more of his works online at: Jesse Glass
copyright © 2003
mysweetestangel.org