Where hast thou been sister? - 1/19/2002

"A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap
And munched and munched, and munched. 'Give me' quoth I
'Aroint thee witch', the rump-fed runnion cries
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o'th' Tiger ...
But in a sieve I'll thither sail
And like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do"
- Third Witch, Macbeth

One thick canvas shroud,
cloud drift dress
billowing underneath the Tyrant's tale.
"I was once a blue eyed sailor
Now to Aleppo gone
Master of the Tiger
A cat changed to a rat
Without a tail."

White sails fly pristine
No stains tell which unfortunate
Laddie with blood
smeared his mark.
A story without signposts is told
no one's blood is shed
in its telling.
"And they strung me up
because I couldn't sleep
though weariness like a bark
tempest tossed
lay so heavy on my eyes
that I could not weep
could not surprise
myself with dreams."

Crossing thick needles iron thick with
supple thread
they wrap blunt needle heads
in cotton,
and so cloth clothes to make new cloth
Fabrics engender a process
that joins
iron with canvas
to make the sewing smooth
the sewing strong
Needles used so long
their pin prick points are
At best blunt sensations.
"Having no sensation in any part of my body,
I shouted from the top-mast
continually, for the Ravens, Crows and Kites
to pick off me,
Flesh become so dull."

But Seabirds do not hear
The agony of a sleepless
Sailor: they want silver flesh
Living darting fish flesh.

"Thrice and thrice I cried out
Even now I proclaim
'O canvas sails be my shroud.'
That at least little death take me!"

"But on the third thrice
A woman's voice
My waiting wife wailing
For a husband lost
His ship tempest tossed."

In whose dreams do we drown,
Strung upon the mast,
O Master of the Tiger
To Aleppo gone?

I wrote this as an extension of the previous sketch. The initial idea from the last entry was to riff on the idea of sailors having to sew canvas sails together while sailing with the wind. It doesn't seem very smart or practical but it was an idea. Which came from a conversation with Yy about her job "I learnt how to sew" and the thought that books are of course, "text"s to be sewn up by the artist's loving hand. So it began with the prose and later I felt I should poeticise it to focus. I starting just cutting and pasting the images or phrases that seemed to have poetic potential. After about one stanza I suddenly had an associative moment with this passage from Shakespeare. Two sources: Am currently watching a video of a production of Macbeth (with Ian Mcallen and Judi Dench) and I remembered this bit. Also, was reading a book on the travels of the early English Spice Trade adventurers. Apparently there was a Tiger which did go to Aleppo. So there you have it, a work in progress.

What happens is this: the daily work of the sailors no matter how treacherous and dull, never gets traced for no blood is left behind. But now, the Tyrant, because he's a nuisance and deemed mad for a witch's curse (he can't sleep and his body grows dull to sensation) has been strung up on the rigging and is desperately trying to tell a story, trying to cry out for an end almost. The sails can't help him because they are texts that are without blood, without the markings of beginnings and ends. So I guess the Tyrant drowns in a perpetual trance, the "rat without a tail".