Snake IV

Original Grace

Gary Lemons

• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781556595745
• eBook ISBN: 9781597098793
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Original Grace is the last book in the Snake Quartet. In it, the journey from destruction leads through the darkened rooms of an enormous house where occasionally outside the windows creatures past, present, and future appear—asking for help or solace or trying to break the glass to get in. But the house is made of poetry and is unassailable unlike those who live in it.
By this time, Snake has undergone the transformations from sole survivor into the mythic voice of the collective with all their throats open and in full song. She has undergone the movement from original gender into all genders. The rough linguistic artifacts left from the first book—the dialects and fogginess she experienced living both in and out of a dream—slowly become more coherent as she learns to filter the collective voices back into her personal speech. Original Grace is not just the end of what was but the beginning of what comes next. The sun has gone down. The long wait for a new sunrise is nearly over.

SNAKE INTO PLOUGHSHARES

Snake lived so many

Times she forgot the distraction

Of flesh the way tourists

In an ancient car in a foreign land

Forget the broken springs when

Soldiers point guns at them.

As if we are nothing more than

Broken eggs from which the child

Of something old hatched out—

Snake lived on—with the disquieting

Sensation known to jungle trees

Strangled by orchids that produce

Pungent white flowers monkeys

Use to festoon a nest.

If anyone complains there’s no time

To stop the ghost on the other side of the hospital wall

From sucking on bandages in an attempt

To revive its missing heart let them consider

The surgeons pushing back a lock of hair

While blowing beef inside their masks—

Or one of us soaking a handkerchief

In tears from eyes forever pasted to

The image of unlocking the bathroom door

Expecting to find father only to find

An arrangement of red ribbons left

By both barrels of Deus ex Machina—

Or this abandoned factory—where poor

Families sleep forever around a briquette flame until

Authorities investigate vultures

Breaking windows—

Reckoning will come in the form

Of whales stranded in trees—the sacred

Tenderized by mallets in its wound—

Reckoning will be more than a cry

For help lowered by rope halfway down

A mine shaft pretending not to be

A suppository for a scream—

The equations on the chalkboard

Are complex but add up to zero

If subtracted from dreams that oppose

One another—as all dreams do.

With sufficient persistence and

Voluminous hours it’s possible to

Create a new calculus where stardust

Turns into cheese or lingerie or death row

Concrete leaking moisture toward a drain

Clogged by hair—anything can happen

When the nursery is unprotected—

The homestead sizzles in the dusky

Red twilight—or is it dawn that staggers

Into sight—like smoke inside the clarinet

When the player exhales an organ through the reed—

Or is it wind inside a thistle seed—

The way in and out is through the door—

On which side of your body do you stand?

Or are you undecided and afraid of that

Shadow disappearing on the floor.

In either case—the bloody

Spear of the charioteer drips with what’s

Left of the emperor’s sneer.

If only we didn’t see so imperfectly—

Our prophets sprout wings to dive

Bomb the little cloister of swallows

Huddled in the bell tower waiting

For the damn bell to stop ringing—

Then Kassandra might come down

The mountain unbuttoning her lips

Instead of her blouse.

(it is not quite a lie to say

Apollo spit in her mouth

But it was snake under her tongue

Whispering the details of future events

That turned her into a seer whom

No one believed—there were feathers on snake’s

Tongue but it’s not clear if they came from

Swallowing birds or vintage hats—

Or if the truth itself molted

While spelunking in a liar’s throat)

In just such a moral wasteland—

With burning tires and salty

T...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Author’s Note
• Chorus
• Aesop
• The Conscript
• Bebop Baby
• Demimonde
• How It Was
• Longevity
• Snake at the Door
• Echo
• Karma
• Absence
• The Despot
• The Old Man Who Ate Children
• False Positive
• Talking Stick
• In Mountains
• Chorus
• Last One Left
• Heart Attack
• Leadership
• Hold On
• Original Grace
• Impulse
• By Storm
• Unfed
• Snake into Ploughshares
• Vistas
• Used Cars
• Chorus
• The Elephant in the Room
• Adopting
• Ouroboros
• Vision
• Big Temporary
• Odd Duck
• Straight Jacket
• Gone
• Learning to Breathe
• The Border Shift
• Chorus
• Healing
• Giblet Gravy
• Hip Cat
• Eyes Open
• Country Learning
• Echo
• Seizure
• First Breath
• Visitation
• Devotion
• What It Is
• Rabbit Hole
• Village
• Without Regret
• Bartender
• One Sky
• Speaker of the House
• Hidden Water
• A Rock and a Hard Place
• Bouquet
• Short Goodbyes
• Snake the Other
• Chorus
• Biographical Note