The Grace of the Mountain & Other Poems
U.A Edwardson
The Grace of the Mountain
a.
The body hesitates toward the water and the valley serenades
into the mouth/ around the edges licking skies wearing hue, the
body blooms/ away without scent the feet tuck into rock, like the
symphony of [a] agony/ on this day there is so much noise for music,
too much silence over-speaking through the eyes/ mama echoes
the body is written for decadence, like a poem for the party within
a hearth, and the consumption thereof/ say the body is estranged,
say the body is a case with ready chick,
cracking, cracking objectively to rest
or to wander the desolation of quietude, the science of absence/
say the turmoil is kind, the body is a shelter for all the homeless
apocalypses/ the body is such a wildness seeking to dwell/ and
by the highlight, the body recondemns the earth to hunger/ must
every dead living die, unsynchronised, dropping like mountain dew?
b.
I flower before a vastness, daintily contouring a summit sighting
the heavens for meaning/ some birds proceed from an unknown
space in a configured banner, and I wonder how carelessly the Lord
lets these ones go/ how their beautiful hand chooses these ones
out/ of the programme of decay, in which the body allows death
to grow outward, after sufficiently taking dominance within/ I say,
Lord, I want to fly like these ones, above all the troubles of life/ a
voice says jump, and I spread my wings of cotton, in accompaniment
with echoes of all my poems of self harm/ I am so weightless for
the wind/ the heaviness of identity is nowhere near the bird/ and
I feel so comfortable, like a flower which knows the wind plucks it
to a better place, I feel so comfortable I begin to cry at the peace.
Figures in the Sound
Nocturne in F Major Op. 15/1
The adamant blue of the night was so still there were no shadows
but the white lights blazing into the spaces from my mother’s, ushering
decibels which pinched the quietude. I sat in mine, kneading
all my thoughts into kind horrors. In one of them, my father walks out
my mother’s favourite photograph of him, like a note bouncing on a stave
larghissimo, to the Sad Piano; shoes as fine as water faces under moonlight. He
holds her by the waist and they sway to such chords of agony, and grief seems to be
all around the witness. The music flows like a dancing river, adagissimo, and they
are just figures by the light, sinking into every reckless tone of rue, into all those
languorous octaves, and those selfish pitches beautifying the sorrow with flowers.
They kiss, and kiss until the music pauses. The music crescendos and my father
hits her, glory away. He hits her again, figure upon figure, glory away.
The music screams and I shelter my thoughts from tearing away.
Everything moves moderately,
in the manner of a march, and soon my father is back in the photograph,
shedding his eyes on his wife, carefully redesigned for his sight. And my
mother is still in the sound, punching the air, smashing the cassettes, saying
come back to me, like all was lost, like I was not there.
Hallelujah, or All the Graveside Songs Of Queerness
everybody stands before me as I want to speak like the sky does with water |
and every rhythm in my bones breaks into cacophony | in my eyes are a sea and
I am letting everybody drown | I bring a boy and name him the love of my life |
I try to make it known, here: love is so disrespectful it kills everything | there is,
then, a parting song | and my father turns his back | and my mother wears a smile |
and I am stealing breaths | and they know life is on a journey away from me | and
the love of my life says I do not need every Yes | he says some Nos are like the
chromatics which highlight a grave song into praises | even loss belongs to beauty |
he says I must live within this chaos | I die tomorrow | and tomorrow is soon |
U.A Edwardson (they/them) is a queer writer. They are the second-place winner of the SprinNG Annual Poetry Contest 2021, and are honourably mentioned in the Starlit Awards 2021 and Dan Veach Poetry Prize 2021. They were a semifinalist for the IHRAF Creators Of Justice Awards 2021, and they have works featured and forthcoming on POETRY, FOLIO, DREICH, Solarpunk, Aster Lit, Afritondo, Disquiet Arts, Madness Muse Press, African Writer, and elsewhere.
*Image by Olayinka Oladotun on Unsplash
