Digging Press

What Makes It Hell, What Makes It Heaven
by Agnes Marton

1. Tell me the tale when a raven
takes my Bobby
and I can’t but swallow a half-shoo,
struck dumb,
wishing I had been taken.

I keep drawing beaks.
Hungry, numinous hooks
on my palm,
on my shoulder.
My pen runs out of ink
but I can’t stop shaping the fading.

I’m chasing only-just-lingering scents
from down to twilight, on and on,
trajectories in water and air,
half-remembering.

I had a ring with a magic gem.
I lost the gem and am carrying the frame
with the able space.
Empty, miraculous weight.

How could I trust the sky?
It’s all black fluff and peck-peck.
How am I to wake
not to be the neverholdkeep?

2. Tell me, Raven, why Bobby,
did he give you a sign?
Or perhaps you understood
his once-feral words.

Uncanny guard of Heaven Playland,
kinging Memory and Thought,
you left a ring. That’s all I have.
No beginning, no end.

I lost the gem,
now I’m carrying the world.
Emerald-edged, heavy dreams.

You made me cherish the air.

3. Tell me, Bobby, was it just sobering,
the turbulence,
can you still tell up from down?
Or you went blind,
a whose-to-be-pet, torn airborne,
meant to bluesky the storm?

What was it for you? Just a sudden clumsy exit
from slimykid-embraces, disimprisoned?
Or kidnapped, induratized?

Tell me, Bobby, is it getting any faster
or is it the same second
glued to the flight,
a full-mucus superstroke?

You took my voice and my language,
not enough.

I hope you got to meet wolves
to be taught how to howl.

4. (ROBERT’S RESPONSE FROM FAR AWAY

We are not finished yet.

Don’t make comparisons.)

Agnes Marton is a Hungarian-born poet, editor, and linguist. Her most recent publications are: Sculpture/poésie (France); Penning Perfumes (UK), Estuary: A Confluence of Art and Poetry (USA); Poems for Pussy Riot (UK), Binders Full of Women (UK), Shorelines (UK), For Rhino in a Shrinking World (South Africa), Lines Underwater (UK), Drifting Down the Lane (USA), Exquisite Duet (USA). Recent commissions include: Double Bill (UK), Shakespeare/Bronte/Austen Anthology (UK), Telephone (USA). She participates in exhibitions and art projects all over the world.

 June 11, 2014
Photo by: Gessy Alvarez