Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Weird Fiction in Mount Abraxas' Frostsigils
A Translation in "Crystal Castles" (Raphus Press)
I reproduce it here:
The Poet’s Pipe (La Pipe d’un Poete)
I’m the pipe the poet smokes
The tit he sucks,
I’m the one who sedates his beastly nature.
He summons ragged monsters
To bash him in the face,
So I smoke... until he no longer sees
The spiders on the ceiling.
I make for him a sky, clouds,
The sea, the desert, mirages;
He lets his dead eye wander there...
And when they fall too heavy—thoughts of nude bodies—
And he thinks he sees a shadow he knows,
I’m the one who feels the bite on my stem.
Another volute of smoke releases
His Soul, his shackles, his life!
And I feel myself dying away. He sleeps—
—Sleeping still, the beast is calmed,
And your dreams go to the end of the line
Poor bastard! If it’s true
That everything is smoke then smoke is everything...
Fiction in Borges tribute The Conspirators
I contributed to Raphus Press' anthology in tribute to Borges, The Conspirators, published in 2019.