“People who deny the existence of Dragons are often eaten by Dragons from within.” - Ursula K. Le Guin.
William Landau is a second year MFA student at Indiana University Bloomington. Their work has appeared in publications including Hanging Loose Press, Diabolical Plots and Sinister Wisdom and will appear in an upcoming issue of Painted Bride Quarterly. When not reading or writing they're usually busy worshipping their cat, overanalyzing gay tv shows or perfecting their shortbread recipe.
Welcome to the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. William, what have you brought for us today?
Monomyth
You there with your beard of bees, your garland of Galahad's, empty the chest of changelings. Set them free and stride past heathen heather under the wings of wombats, into the darkness of doorbells. Slay the silence. Kill the Kraken. Tell yourself its carcass will create new ecosystems. When you reach the home of the halfway, ask for the cat of chances. He will sniff your armor, and if he likes what he smells, he'll draw you a map to the Forest of Fathers. Shoes will serenade you as you climb the high hill. The trees grow darkly there. The moon’s grown shy and overcompensates with excessive apologies to the Earth. Conifers condescend. Pines patronize, and still, you must wind your way down to the spring and let the waters drink you down till you drown and die. What did you think you'd find? God? The grail? “A great job!” from your God, your dad, your King? You kept the children in a chest. The changelings chant. No, they're chatting. They're chasing each other with laughs. They're carrying the tired ones on their backs.
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Faerie Fruit
“Sometimes the changeling is not even a fairy, merely a stalk of wood or a block of wax enchanted to look like a child. When the trick is discovered, the infant must be thrown out into the hearth fire, wood burns, or [Maxwell's way,] and then the true child is restored. - Terri Windling, The Stolen Child.
When I was a boy, my father told me don't eat the fairy fruit. He drew a circle of salt around my bed each night, and each night I rubbed my toes against the salt to break the circle. I pulled snapdragons out of our garden, took long naps in the ruins, wore my socks right side out. Thirteen years later, grown and nearly abandoned all hope of getting kidnapped, days and nights spent entering data at my father's house. Still, I drank whiskey out of eggshells, yelled “fairies come kidnap me. I sleep naked!" Nothing. So, I took matters into my own hands under the pink flowering thorn. I gathered twigs and leaves, bound them with twine, placed them between my sheets. The closet door swung open and the path split coat from coat and led me to the crossroads. I took the winding path to Fairy. Waded in glitter up to my knee. It filled my shoes like sand. Waded in glitter up to the neck. Moved heavily then, until I [stepped all] changed my way into flight. Up and up, shedding glitter across the landscape. Strength spent by the time I reached the castle. Carbonated music shot out my nostrils. The banquet table laden with fruit. I didn't wait to be asked. I snatched the apple and ate it, seeds and all. Now I'm a piece of candy for strangers to suck. I'm a lens flare. I'm a park at night. I’m a bundle of sticks in the shape of a sun.
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To Be an F
This is a golden shovel after Claude McKay.
Plant me a garden in the sea foam. No gods, no laws to keep us pure. Plant yourself in the garden with me and every day we will tend the coral, the barnacles, the sea star’s branches reaching for us. Their loveliness as radial as yours. You are not siren, not Leviathan, not merman. You are as mortal as I, but tonight let's pretend for a moment we live in our sea flower, its tentacles opening for us alone. An undulating home, where you will be my fairy.
You've been listening to the poems of William Landau on the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.
