5.03 awful flower! the hurt! & the wound!
Leia Penina Wilson
outside the garden
inside the garden there is
only the certainty
death
& promise
—all is red marigold on fire
—all will be well i tried to tell you.
the rules to this game haven’t been very clear.
we carry on. we carry on. today
the return/ of failure: a wild animal
answers another wild animal’s mating
i like everything cold
i look for the burial place of death who
does that
the dermis of my own
my own burial place of death
some
some entire live
cycle feeds another saturn
swallowing hades hera we eat
the fig, sweet
achievement
inverted
today i invent feelings: would that i might
shelter you
cunting into the old skin of
the death adder i coil!
o glory! giant grasshopper nymph! she was right/ resentment can’t be parted
gently
voice mediator/ corpse manipulator/ poet—
that part in the movie where we realize we’re in the movie & we die
now you know
nothing will be soft
anymore
—theseus & the minotaur
—theseus killing the minotaur
—apollo & the nymphs
—apollo & daphne
in a crackling voice everyone asks something i don’t especially trust
& do you remember a poem
i am nearer
it’s important to remember to remember to remember to remember
&
………hmmmm………
the state has a monopoly on the use of force
& they cement the dead seal the deal
& 73, 639 deaths from covid-19 in the us
& greener than grass i am and dead—or almost i seem to me
if i lay here will i petrify i let
the text autofill
& it learns i don’t even know myself
touch screen SMOKE SCREEN! ant
S M O K E S C R E E N ! ant
SMOKE SCREEN! ant
pitiless sibyl! ever victorious rival! our!
terrible! love!
resistance & residue: i thought
everlastingness
bad angel! our! broken! love!
ruin & redemption: architecture of
apocalypsebaby we anticipate
fear, language, fantasy violence
your daily altar/ of eros
i don’t need
an audience to be alone
—yet
i perform/ my live/ threadbare
i perfume/ my life/ threadbare
& send messages through the mouths
of corpses mine, too
what
do you know
about love anyway
pleasure is/ its own
motivation we were villains &
i need.
+ On the Process
When I think about poems, it’s always as how to translate this pre-verbal whatever into some vocabulary, then into further order—so a project that specifically took translation and collaborative making on as an approach was very appealing. Looking at “roses, too,” the sculptural/installation/photograph, I thought of an altar, a monument, a terrible rupture in the earth, the creeping vines or flowers look like lava, fire; it seemed very hellmouth. Yet, still, and windless. I asked my best friend what she thinks of when I say “cement.” She replies: that people often mean concrete when they say cement, cement is one ingredient in concrete. So I ask myself, what bindings are at play, how do you hold stuff together, what even is connection. Concrete can be cast into any shape too. Of course—gray. Stone, Medusa, gargoyles, the eruption of Vesuvius. Controlled explosions, extraction. You’ll notice the Sappho poem, translated by Anne Carson, in my poem. I love this idea of inviting other voices into the poem as a way of speaking corpse. I’ve been thinking a lot about necromantic practices. I read that in ancient Greece one of the powers a witch learned was to speak through the mouth of corpses, to send messages and I guess this is my current obsession. This is equally about listening.
+ On Issue Five
I love that "cement" as a theme is echoed so differently across the issue. That the fixed-ness of cement has been circumvented by the process of translation.
Since I write all my work in a notebook as first drafts, there was a strange second where I recognized the words of my poem but not the handwriting. I loved that moment.
I also love these leisure poses against the backdrop of cement-making sounds. They sound like mechanical echos to me, some sort of unidentifiable thing and maybe a Gundam. B. Wijshijer said it best and I'll agree. There's something to be said here that I can't articulate right now about how the inheritance of "tradition, sensuality, labour, and filth combine to create a monument that questions its anchor." I think immediately "yes!" and also "set sail!" But we'd sink, wouldn't we? The idea of a monument making sacred brutality and nostalgia (the brutality of nostalgia? those lies), the echoes of Ariadne.
Fuck white supremacy. Fuck capitalism. Fuck patriarchy.
Please, I always want to be metamorphosing.
+ Bio
Leia Penina Wilson is a Samoan poet. Her current favorite tv show is She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Other favorites: Sailor Moon, weaving, reading YA, wrapping Xmas gifts, Halloween candy, ginger bread cookies. She teaches in the MFA program at Chatham University.
