2. Dream a Little Dream - The Old Stallion
The old stallion calls me
Out of fear of unrest,
and the unknown.
He needn’t have bothered;
The dream is restless
And I walk alone
In a land of strangers.
The Mooken
Dream of their goddess
Dayang Dayang Mangilai
And her sacred dangkan tree
Each blossom, they say, each leaf
Tells a story
Joined by so many
Vines and branches all tangled
together.
And they speak of their great
Kalamats
The most skilful, it is said
Could trace by moonlight
The ways and paths between
And in doing so,
Illuminate for themselves
The dreams of others
I am no god
Nor have I ever known a goddess
Save the Sun and Moon.
Yet dreams do not lie.
I behold the tree:
It is dead.
Its branches are gone
Its trunk is gone
And its roots are covered
In thorns of the thousand
Black roses that ensnared it,
Sapped it of its life,
And died themselves:
Their petals form a stygian carpet
Upon the grave.
There is another tree,
Sprouting from the
Broken limbs of the first
And it lives
And branch by branch
I can follow it
And trace its stories
I step closer and the dream
bends
around
me
A lily, wilted
And in its place
A rose, black without
But a bloodier shade within
A rose by any other name
Is just as cruel;
Littlemoth
Palei Hantu
Changeling
why don’t they suspect me yet
i had no choice i was starving
knew i couldn’t hide amongst
the two-legs but all the others were
dead
and i couldn’t pass the Wall
for fear of being
trapped
too risky they said
the two-legs can see
the things between
and will see you too
i took the risk
A bluebell droops over
The roses’ head
Leaning ever
Closer
I am a dedicated bull, Palei Hantu.
When I caught you bedding my brother
and you ran from his hut
of course they found out
i was stupid, desperate
but not dead like the others
why did he chase me
to the Wall of all places
even we avoid that place
perhaps he knew and thought
he’d trap me outside
i took another risk
and though spotted by
the Myinn guard
who sat up startled
after you vaulted the rampart
shouted and flung his spear at me
a quick confounding and
the guard was none the wiser
i had to find someone to replace
too many eyes and ears on the wall
i slunk away found one
with wings of skin and grey
i was so careless i had no time
her body thrown off the
docks
All around a chorus
of whispers
answers:
The lines between
dreams
blur
and though i feed
upon them
drew the gazes of the room
like a lightning-bug upon a darkened stage
and the foolish guard
until Dawn Patrol fluttered to her flame
and another
as our tangled bodies
sung carnal hymns
to each other
i know
it won’t last
i know
they'll find her
any day now
i'm trapped again
where are the boats
where
are
the
boats
The question
Rings out;
The whispers
Are silent
Confused
And waiting
A dawn lotus
floats
in the black rose’s
shadow;
It’s petals
All the darker
It answers;
I listen
Littlemoth
dances behind my eyelids. I can’t let them get
her
Can’t let them know because as soon as they do they’ll chase them and they’ll come after
her
and the others. I can’t stop the ships forever, but if I can find a moment alone with
her
I’ll flee with
her
As soon as I can get
her
alone
At the thought
Of the ships, the
dangkan responds:
A creeper
girdles the
tree trunk
choking
the life
of an
emerald
limb
Majority refuses to answer The boats have stopped and I
when we ask him why the do not know why or who
boats have stopped coming is responsible only that it
I suspect something means more raised voices and
is going on; that we are not more raised voices means
being told the truth or rather dissent and complaints and
Majority is not telling the truth Peridot always was the loudest
Where is the money going She doesn’t trust me nor I her
no trade and yet he I knew the old witch never could
refuses to lower the taxes be trusted to know her place and
he demands a skeleton even if she does not suspect my
crew (let’s face it: our deceptions (and I suspect that
garrison is nearly empty she does) she’s too much of an
if one discounts the influence stirring up the wrong
drunks and tuft-ears) kind of trouble you have to be
needs not the funds careful a whisper in one ear and
he’s been hiding he says poison in the other is the way to
a ship’s come in down at the docks do it not screaming in front of a
I don’t believe him of course full hall though blaming the tuft-
but I’m not sleeping so where’s ears now that’s an idea I’ll have to
the harm in confronting the off her and make do with what’s
old sod to come
Feck 'em both.
Gonna wake me up
by trippin' over me
at half past midnight
stumblin' toward the docks
Silence easier done than said in the end
surrounds and blame her death on the kelpies
I merely wish now that’s the thing maybe a
I had known speech to pull us all together
that that shaming those tuft-ears into
was what pulling their load should be
I wanted popular with the merchants
Enough.
I step away and the dream
breaks
around
me.
The tree stands still again
Its limbs singing
Of world brought to ruin
For the want of vengeance
And safe harbour;
In the name of love
And righteous suspicion
Born of greed;
And death born
Of greed
Giving birth to
Unfounded suspicion
In the name of unfounded
Hatred
Until all the blossoms one by one
Wilt and fall
In a flaky rain that
Covers the carpet of thorns
Upon which the tree rests
The rain
will not
stop until
all of the
branches
are bare
Perhaps Dayang Dayang Mangilai
was no goddess
But a pony
Condemned to
Watch
The mistakes of others
Powerless
To stop the fall of all she held dear
And I know, now
What great lament she cried
When she saw the
Very roots by which
Her tree grew and spread
Its limbs, were the agents
Of its long undoing
Peridot is dead and I
will not
mourn her passing.
And yet I wonder:
For this, will I
fall with them?
Dawn comes, and I must
Leave this dream for the other
Though my thoughts linger
On that final flower.
Know this, Majority:
There
will
yet
be
a
reckoning.
She stands
By the docks
Refusing to answer
The voice of the dangkan
And a cloudless sky.
Far above
The pale moon
Whispers:
“We will meet again
before you die.”
A mare stands in an empty room. At night-time. There’s a full moon, and it’s snowing. She’s playing a string instrument. Any string instrument. A violin. A viola. A cello. It doesn’t matter. There’s nobody to hear it.
The crackling of a new log in the old fireplace.
A mare continues to play her viola. A whole sonata. Wordless. Eyes closed. Ears open. Listening.
An old stallion in his chair, creaking as he gazes fondly at two foals asleep on a couch. A pegasus winging through the night, starlight playing off his frantic motions. A colt walking through the silent streets, leaving hoofprints in the snow. In the distance, there is music.
He pauses.
In a room – any room – a mare stands, playing. Her violin sings. Firelight traces her form as she steps, this way and that, dancing between the shadows. The smell of smoke. The grit of dust and dirt beneath hooves. The chill of winter through an open window. A mare. Any mare.
A mother in a white apron, with soot on one corner and something smeared across the other. A filly, restless, watching a colt walk by from between shuttered blinds. A mare, sleeping. Fitfully. Dreaming of fire and brimstone, and whole mountains and oceans that peel away, until there’s nothing but her and a wall covered in the scrawl of a half-empty marker pen.
A mare stands in an empty room. The paint is peeling. A fugue, half finished, scrawled in pen. In her hooves, a cello sings. A whole cantata. A whole choir. Breathless. Voiceless. On one string. The mare listens.
An old postcard on the mantelpiece, its picture faded only in her memory. The smell of warm pastries on cold mornings, held tight in hoof. The old clock marking the midnight hour, ringing out promises of warm daylight and a new tomorrow
In an empty room, a mare pauses. Fingers of moonlight dapple her coat. She listens. Hoofsteps below. Wingbeats above. Creaking adjacent. Shutters closed, doors locked, fires crackling. And for a moment –
She opens her eyes.
In a crowded room, a mare resumes. The song has changed.
And it is heard.
A colt walks down an empty street at night-time, through the snow, in the moonlight, in the starlight, past the bakery, hoofprints in his wake, listening to the sound of a violin in an empty room.
He likes the music.
