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Turtle Story: Turtle Tells How He Ferried Me to The Dolphin Queen
When She Summoned Me at My Wishes' Behests
"Yes, I am the crinkly faced, or worse; dumb-
Ness seems to steal upon me, true, but content?
I am. . . ; many legged weaver full of wisdom,
Don't fear; think of me a kindly continent --
Come on, climb that reed until your weight
Bends it like a bow and, like forgiveness,
Touches me; I love the reeds that sway like wheat. . .
That's it; hug my shell now; the fog rises --
We should go, it's best you don't be seen
You know. . . fog like shells all made of quiet;
No one laughs at me here, and my Queen. . . my Queen
Must always remain Duchess concealed; see that quaint
Crab who scuttles about like a traipsing skull?
A spy, sifting for her through the seas ancient, tropical. . ."
And so Uncle Caterpillar and Turtle set off across the sea, sailing in the moonlight past a coral island. This is a new experience for the former, who briefly entertains "false longings" for this new environment. Turtle on the other hand, becomes homesick for his pond home far away. The following poem is in both of their voices. It is meant to be read both in columns and across, in lines, as one normally would:
Divergent Longings Near a Volcanic Island: Where Turtle Becomes
Homesick, While I Long to Live in the Sea
| Turtle | Uncle Caterpillar |
|
| This fiery coralled island | Like a starlit sombrero |
| These waters strumming | Like sunsets that have sambaed |
| Into themselves | Landwards where some bear all |
| Their misery | Oh like leviathan's lamb awed |
|
| In the wilderness | That's me Can I ever again want |
| In the palaces of leaves | The woods and lush |
| A loom of longing weaves my life |
| I can't |
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| "Wish again" | But now in the sea's secret English |
| I hear it shuttle | Out from its starry fells |
| Down the leopard moon's storm-broken stairs | My heart comes |
|
| It illumines the purposeless parts of me | It fills |
| What I've always known | These places that are our homes |
| For I want | Wishes simple clear at peace |
| What is most true Heart |
| show me let my false longings cease |
Unfortunately, once Uncle Caterpillar and Turtle get to the citadel of the Dolphin Queen, they find that The Duchess of Moisture and her troops have preceeded them. The citadel has been destroyed and all the inhabitants killed. What follows is their discovery of this violation (it is probably, for better or worse, the only two page sonnet in existance). As with the previous poem, the voices of both Uncle Caterpillar and Turtle are represented:
The Dolphin Queen: Turtle and I Enter The Citadel of Pearl,
Only to Find The Duchess Has Been There First
| Turtle: | These red tides I labor through -- |
| Caterpillar: | Thick as blood |
|
| Turtle: | Colored like welts |
| Caterpillar: | Something makes the salt air ill |
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| Turtle: | This brined sea wind tastes bitter to me |
| Caterpillar: | biled |
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| Turtle: | My breath comes hard |
| Caterpillar: | So close to the citadel |
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| Turtle: | This all seems wrong |
| Caterpillar: | Is there no welcoming |
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| Turtle: | No whale song |
| Caterpillar: | No starred parapets of mountains |
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| Turtle: | No Queen's Guards |
| Caterpillar: | Where crowds wave flags winnowing |
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| Turtle: | Here are no subjects |
| Caterpillar: | Only verbed motions |
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| Turtle: | The wind shalloped waves |
| Caterpillar | Tug me to this bay |
|
| Turtle: | In which nothing lives |
| Caterpillar: | In the dead-jammed canal |
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| Turtle: | By the Pearl Castle |
| Caterpillar: | The dead float like buoys |
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| Turtle: | Beside their Queen |
| Caterpillar: | Slain in the gutted coral |
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| Turtle: | The Moisture Duchess |
| Caterpillar: | Who thinks through violence |
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| Turtle: | Rules Only these spelless nights now |
| Caterpillar: | Ruined voice less. . . |
Not only has The Duchess of Moisture visited The Dolphin Queen, but she has exacted revenge on the source of her hard heartedness, Moonlight. The Duchess has sent her troops to rape and kill his daughter, Moonlit Lake, the child of Moonlight and Princess Waterfall. Uncle Caterpillar witnesses this, as well as Moonlit Lake's spirit drifting out to sea from the marshland estuary where she has been killed. And so:
The Duchess' Revenge: Where I See Moonlit Lake Killed
| Now Boom! Boom of brain bursting, |
| bone fright, |
| Barracuda troops bristling; |
| life energy |
| Lanced, banged through her. . . |
| face, vulva pulped, her fate-- |
| Thrusted cock-leer of enemies. . . |
|
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| Oh, God, I watched her! |
| Now, like the murmuring dream |
| Waters, past the snowy egret, lullaby |
| sighs of white feathers, |
| her spirit sidles through green |
| Pond meadows, through tide pools, |
| into the sea. . . |
|
| Mists now, phantoms, |
| shimmering-gowned with claws and knives -- |
| Sorrow Mother, heart clenching, drifts |
| Through the brackish inlet -- |
| is this how desire leaves? |
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| God, I'm shivering cold in the dream drafts. . . |
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| Child, I dreamt Waterfall met the sea -- there was light, |
| Incandescent union -- it wasn't too late. . . |
About the preceeding events, The Duchess of Moisture has her own point of view about what happened, and why, and she tells it to Uncle Caterpillar, the "Weaver" of the following poem:
The Duchess' Destruction of Earth's 999 Moons: Her Account
of Recent Events, Both On and Off the Record
"You'll know my pain by how much pain I cause,
And still my heart forever will hurt more."
-- from The Duchess of Moisture's Autobiography
"' I have loved, Weaver, as much as anyone could;
And I long, I have longed, the length of milky time,
But my breasts, my heart invaded, were then made cold;
Tell them, too, that in youth my heart would teem
With the blown breath of Moonlight's April rain --
I was a young girl then; I was. . . .' My words
Metamorphose to mist reminiscing pain. . . ;
When Moonlight rose from me into the woods
I culled among my troops my curdling hate
For her, young girl whom Moonlight prizes most;
I made for him and Waterfall a broken heart --
Let them pine forever; those nights, my flood hosts
Of eroding tears cankered the moons -- my plaint --
Until all but the strongest like me split apart. . ."
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