Issue 34: mendoza
MENDOZA
FRASS
the death-still unworld is shadeless core.
skin, earth-warm, stour dust as black as coal,
in-bled. who could translate the maze of
passages, the roadway drifts of end-
less tree-lands consigned to darkness? in-
verse architecture, unseen. I am
acquiring a new language: eye-blind,
deaf-mute. unimaginable forms.
you lose your light. spend all of your lives
where the hills aren’t and then no information and everyone is chairs standing on thin legs in the house you lived in. The house you lived in. Backyard. Flagstone. Ginnel. Stubenfliege. That is, house like fly like Musca domestica. [all]. Assume nothing. nicht endend.
contagion
contagion
contagion
measuring the distance between points / the myth of nostalgia / I am the same as you now a work in progress a convergence or precipitant. a Fundamental Niche without
affect
What is the naming of things? Tracing the roots of a thing
A memory is always bright. A memory is always bright the sun on your face. A memory is always bright the sun on your face / close eyes against the memory
To swallow there is an order and a shape and a sound and.
A bright yellow cup on the windowsill conceals an earwig beneath the dome.
And still broken glass fragments arrive on the urge. You make blisters of light.
When you tilt your head east, we find ourselves: bare legs in the back seat. a six-inch gash across the knee. A memory is always bright.
INTERLUDE
I wasnt always a door I am full of holes a country door unbendy against the swollen tone poem in the 1970s men in the fen peer at french moths le papillon de nuit upstairs & downstairs with my lily white hands in the 1970s men in the fen appear as french moths sucking their plums in a leisurely exchange I wasnt always amour I am mull of kin tired in the 1970s men in the fen are la phalène I wasnt always a door I am mull of kin tired & so full of holes against the swollen tone poem in the 1970s in an empty hotel upstairs & downstairs with my lily white hands & milky fen violets fussy & pale playing little beau peeps has lost all their sheeps oh little beau peeps in the 1970s I am upstairs & downstairs & mull of kin tired I lay me down in sheeps of linen in an empty hotel in the 1970s men in the fen are queer & french moths unbendy against the swollen tone poem men in the fen are so full of wholes there is no room for my nine lines in an empty hotel I am upstairs & downstairs playing peepsy me laddie I wasnt always adored I am full of woe & selected syllables upstairs & downstairs in the circular dances faythfull & trew men in the fen playing upstairs & downstairs with my lily white hands I lost my silky wainscots on the mothy banks of the swollen tone poem in the 1970s men of the fen lost the tansy beetle in the peaty bogs of the forested swamps I wasnt
or nothing is so lonely in the countryside as the shining stars
and so it went on like a charm such
is this cake made of small lady hands
its fingers point skyward like we see in
the dark a figure not jack-in-the-
pulpit striped and tinged with purple but
Cordyceps militaris bright orange
or scarlet orange on mossy wood
transforming from animal to plant
a winter creeper to summer herb
But its belly is not white. only whitish. I understand this and listen for birdsong. Rather I cut myself. on the barbed wire we circle around the nursery. more binding confines. the meaning of issue. When? corn fodder |corn | fodder starched smooth and rigid the edges frayed. Of their own accord in the soil beneath the mountain ash
but its belly is not white. only whitish. “Drop it, drop it. cover it up cover it up. pull it up. pull it up - pull it up” I understand this and walk in a clockwise direction. a six-inch gash across the knee. Rather I cut myself on the barbed wire. we circle around the nursery. When? Starched smooth and rigid the edges frayed in the soil beneath
and I am caught in the woods with my tiny violets, each one a name after that after this
turn only on a straight path as if to waltz as if to write a connection between two things
References
Found material from the entomological diaries of Henry David Thoreau
The Dictionary of Entomology Nigel K. Jardine, 1914
Maggie O’Sullivan
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Poems and images by
Mendoza aka Linus Slug: Insect Librarian
Mendoza, aka Linus Slug: Insect Librarian, is a Northumbrian poet and researcher. Their work evolves through a series of creative processes exploring the interaction between sound, image and text; in doing so, they are liberated from neurotypical modes of thinking allowing them to navigate the world through their own embodied language in which familiar terrain is disrupted.
Publications include:
“WINDSUCKERS & ONSETTERS: SONNOTS for Griffiths” collaboration with Peter Manson: Materials, 2018; “the science of poetry : the poetry of science” Linus Slug / Peter Manson broadside, 2015 and “Type Specimen: An Observant Guide To Linus Slug”, Contraband, 2014. Mendoza’s poetry can be heard at the Archive of the Now
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