An Apparently Impossible Adventure by Laura Madeline Wiseman Book Preview

7/24/2019 An Apparently Impossible Adventure by Laura Madeline Wiseman Book Preview

1/23

AN APPARENTLYIMPOSSIBLE ADVENTURE

LAURA MADELINE WISEMAN

B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]Buffalo, New York


2/23

An Apparently Impossible Adventureby Laura Madeline Wiseman

Copyright 2016

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced withoutthe publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey GatzaCover Art by Susan Jamison, Avian Couture, egg tempera on panel, 72"x44"and Curious Bloom, egg tempera on panel, 36"x36"

First EditionISBN: 978-1-60964-232-7Library of Congress Control Number: 2015951606

BlazeVOX [books]131 Euclid AveKenmore, NY 14217

[email protected]

publisher of weird little books

BlazeVOX [ books ]blazevox.org

21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10


3/23

B l a z e V O X


4/23


5/23

Acknowledgements

Grateful appreciation is expressed to the editors and staff of the

following journals and anthologies in which many of thesepoems first appeared, often in earlier versions or under different

titles:

Abyss & Apex: The Fairy Tree

Canary: Our Cherry Trees

Damsel Fly: Knowledge Wands

District Lit: When Were Not HikingEmpty Mirror: Avalon Movie Marathon Night, Domesticity

with Fairies, Enchantment of Fairies

Eunoia Review:Work

The Fem:The Sword and the Dream

Festival of Language:Breasts, Dollar Store Fairies, City

Fairies

Foliate Oak Literary Magazine:Fairy America, Hoarder, HerFairy Groats

Fox Chase Review:Decoction for Pain

Gingerbread House Magazine: Enchantment Shame

Illuminations:Radiance, Magic House

Josephine Quarterly: New Journey

Kenning Journal: Wound

Kudzu House: Wish-giver, Front Yard GardenMelancholy Hyperbole: Fairy Pregnancy

The Plot:Doorways

Queen Mobs Teahouse: Red Roof, Folk of the Side

Red Paint Hill Poetry Journal:Pirate Trade

Silver Blade:Crossing the Fairy Threshold

Siren: Travel Charm, Necromancer Incantation

Sliver of Stone:ShadeThe Sows Ear Poetry Review: Our Foil

Subprimal: Transformation

Sugar Mule: Local Weather

Toad the Journal:Candy, Cigarettes, and Fairies


6/23

Unbroken Journal:Shape-shifter

Verse Wrights:Courage Spell

Her Urn first appeared in the digital project with graphic arts

by Adam Wagler, Peoria IL: Prairie Center of the Arts, 2012.

Knowledge Wands also appeared in the anthology Bearers of

Distance, Jenn Monroe and Martin Elwell, Eds. Manchester,

NH: East Point Lit House & Press, 2013.

Kin first appeared in the anthology Out of the Depths: Poetry of

PovertyCourage and Resilience. Susan Deborah King, Ed.

Holy Cow! Press, 2015.

Lineage and Crossing the Fairy Threshold appeared in the

Art & Words Show, edited, curated, and coordinated by

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, Art on the Boulevard,2015.

Blackbird Lime first appeared in the anthology Four SeasonsAnthology, A.J. Huffman and April Salzano, Eds. Kind of a

Hurricane Press, 2015.

Candy, Cigarettes, and Fairies also appeared in the anthology

Circes Lament: An Anthology of Wild Women. Bianca Spriggs &

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Eds. Accents Publishing, 2015.

When Were Not Hiking was selected by Sarah Vap as a finalist

for the 2015 District Lit Poetry Prize.

Thanks to the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico and

the Prairie Center of the Arts for residencies that made writing

the poems within this book possible.

Thanks to my colleagues and students at the University of

Nebraska-Lincoln, Southeast Community College, and the Red


7/23

Hen Press Writing in the Schools program, especially my

students, all of us together writing in the writing classroom.

Sincerest gratitude to Geoffrey Gatza, Sally Brown Deskins,

Karen Kelsay, Elizabeth Akin Stelling, Kathleen Anna

Faktorovich, Glassburn, Genevieve Williams, Andrea Blythe,

Raylan Clacher, and Britny Doane. Thanks to the readers who

have given this work a thorough reading, especially Cat Dixon.

Im grateful for the community of writers Ive come to know

through Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence and

The Chapbook Interview. Their work and dedication continues to

inspire my own. Thanks to my writing group and my writing

collaborators. A special thanks must go to the designer, teacher,

and scholar Adam Wagler for his support and generosity.


8/23


9/23

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... 7

Outside the Plains of Delight.................................................................. 17

I ....................................................................................................................... 19Dollar Store Fairies.................................................................................. 21City Fairies ................................................................................................. 22Avalon Movie Marathon Night .............................................................. 24Enchantment of Fairies........................................................................... 26Hoarder ...................................................................................................... 27Domesticity with Fairies .......................................................................... 29Pirate Trade............................................................................................... 31Candy, Cigarettes, and Fairies................................................................ 33Enchantment Shame............................................................................... 34Breasts ........................................................................................................ 36Fairy America ............................................................................................ 38Work.......................................................................................................... 40Her Fairy Groats ....................................................................................... 42Fairy Pregnancy....................................................................................... 44

The Sword and the Dream ...................................................................... 45Crossing the Fairy Threshold ................................................................. 47

II ..................................................................................................................... 49Among the Trees .......................................................................................51

I. Travel Charm ......................................................................................51II. Blackbird Lime ................................................................................. 52III. Shade ................................................................................................ 53IV. Decoction for Pain .......................................................................... 54V. Transformation ................................................................................ 55

VI. Necromancer Incantation ............................................................. 56VII. Courage Spell................................................................................ 57VIII. Knowledge Wands ...................................................................... 58IX. Wish-giver ....................................................................................... 59X. Our Cherry Trees ............................................................................ 60

Our Foil ...................................................................................................... 61Her Urn ...................................................................................................... 62Our Front Yard Garden ........................................................................... 63

Local Weather.......................................................................................... 64The Fairy Tree........................................................................................... 65Magic House .............................................................................................. 66New Journey .............................................................................................. 67


10/23

III ................................................................................................................... 69Preserve...................................................................................................... 71

When Were Not Hiking .......................................................................... 73Red Roof.................................................................................................... 74Heroes ......................................................................................................... 75Lineage ....................................................................................................... 76Learning to Tell .........................................................................................77Against Homes.......................................................................................... 78Shape-shifter............................................................................................. 79Radiance .................................................................................................... 80

Reinhabit .................................................................................................... 81Doorways................................................................................................... 82Folk of the Side ......................................................................................... 83Kin .............................................................................................................. 84One Foot Wide Bridge............................................................................. 85Wound ....................................................................................................... 87Home Test ................................................................................................. 88

IV ................................................................................................................... 89

Returning to this American Gothic........................................................ 91

References & Notes on the Text ........................................................... 93

About the Author ................................................................................... 102


11/23

AN APPARENTLYIMPOSSIBLE ADVENTURE


12/23


13/23

However unexpectedly to the hero she appears before him, she comes

always in quest of him, and for the purpose of carrying out a long-

formed design of claiming his love. Her power at first is manifested

by some mysterious agency The effects of these agencies is merely

the sign that the mortal is feeling the bewildering fairy influence, and

unconsciously, but perforce yielding to it. When the inevitable results

ensue, and he obeys her summons to the other world, his

bewilderment becomes oblivion, and he dwells in utter forgetfulness

of all things mortal, conscious only of the delights that the fay offers

him In the fairy mythology of romance the law is invariable, that

the mortal who once has experienced the fairy control there is no true

release, and the fay is never to be thwarted in her plans to win the

hero whose love she seeks.

Lucy Allen Paton


14/23


15/23

17

Outside the Plains of Delight

We cannot see in this nightsky moonless,

stars padded in black, unable to reflect ourdistant citys glow, the burning, trash glittering

in hues as it ignites. We row braided current.

Our oars like strong hands reaching to slope,

sandbar, driftwood, plastic, and pushing away.

We turn in the drift, noting where we might be

tested. The interstate thrums with semis,

buses, lone cars of women too tired to drive,too fearful to stop inside the orange din of rest

stop, too many miles to cross between the

place called home and the other. We listen to

the suck and lick of boat, feel the deft turns

made of narrow channels, and inhale the

effluvial churn water makes of prairie and

sand hill plaited above what homes mermaid,ladies of water, and monsters. To blackness,

we say, Lets put the blade in here. Our metal

slips into mouth of current and eddy. Its gone.

The water has it now. We turn the boat back to

dwelling and away from forgetfulness charm.

Our eyes flash with the light of dying city,

vengeful love, how the work we have yet to dois unknown. We say as we reach the shore,

Applesapples just sound so good. We climb

from the shore to the edge of the plains,

carrying what we have between us.Theres no

money for food here, no adventure but this.


16/23


17/23

I

So make your choice.

Le Morte dArthur


18/23


19/23

21

Dollar Store Fairies

At the dollar store, I buy the coloring

bookmaybe it can tell me how to find thefairies. I also buy a coffee mug with

snowflakes, condolence cards, and crayons,

too. As I wait for the bus, as the snow falls,

as I ride across the city, as I walk from my

stop to my door, as I shrug from Midwest

winter boots and gear, I think this is what

its like now that your sister is gone. At mydesk, I write all the expected sorrows. I sip

instant cocoa from my mug. I color, but the

crayons are waxy, bruising where I grip. I

find a handful of mismatched markers,

some bold, a few pastel, many dry, even if I

lick the tips. I color the kissing fairy in reds,

the kissed fairy in blues. A busty yellowbutterfly hugs the air. It takes me two days

to maker in the lines. You mightve asked

me if I did anything else while coloring

sang a little jazz, chanted nonsense to all

the forgettable songs, hummed the blues

or what I was thinking. I wasnt thinking,

more like meditation. My mantra is alwaysthe same.


20/23

22

City Fairies

There are fairies on our nieces backpacks

for school, fairies on headbands, fairies onPJs with frayed edges, pink polyester

sleeping bags, nightlights that glimmer and

turn a fairy galaxy on their ceiling and

walls. Figurine fairies with rubber legs

gather in toy boxes. Plastic fairies stand

shelvestheir mothers collection of

ceramic knickknacks painted in 1970shuessoft soled shoes, smocks, freckles,

mascara, big floppy hats. Their dresser

features fairies from Happy Meals and

cereal boxes of frosted marshmallow

flakes, ones with the words, kids love,

mothers approve. On their windows that

look into a city yard of fairy chimes, glassorbs on pedestals, fairy lights twining trees,

and fairy cement statues, are fairy window

clings. The girls play electronic gamesIce

Fairy Dress UpTM, Fairy Caf, Trendy

Autumn Fairy. When we arrive, your lips

pinch over your words, but your arms are

wide. You want to parent these girlstheirfather lives, our brother-in-law, even if

their mother does not. I said on the drive

over, They dont need our money or our food,

and you tossed your thumbs into the air.

Our nieces show you how to play Fairy

Factory, Fairy Bakery, and Fairy MakeDo. I

ask them what they wrote to Santa,knowing you thought fairy wands, fairy

wings, a fairyland come xmas morning and

a personal request for youtheir mothers

favorite siblingto be their king.We want


21/23

23

our Mom back, one says, climbing into her

bunk. Shes being a baby, her sister shushes.

Were reading a trilogy from the library about

amazon queens, wraiths, and fairies. From the

bunk, our niece squawks, Wraiths lack

brains. A little like chemo brain, I think,

wondering if they hoped fairies had saved

her, could save her still, could keep her on

some distant isle. When I ask you if you

want to talk on the way home, you grip the

wheel. I reach to smooth your crown, but

you say, Their bank foreclosed. Medical bills.


22/23

24

Avalon Movie Marathon Night

You keep pulling me to you and wrapping

your arms around my waist. Im standingin the kitchen with coffee as the morning

wind shakes the last red-gold from the

trees and youre squeezing me like Im a

stuffy, a baby blankie, or a puppy before

the first day of school. I say around your

damp hair, Have a good day at work. After

dinner, when were washing bedding andpolishing the lamps, you say, Were getting

too old for this, and kiss me hard, tilting your

head up as if I were taller than you, though

Ive never been. You kiss and kiss,

misreading my body language for a peck

as, Make-out time!Later, after youve closed

your home office door to work, I say fromthe other side, Im walking to the store. Its

two-for-a-dollar at Casa Video. Any requests

besides diet pop? I button my coat and wrap

the scarf around my throat. You open your

door for a kiss goodbye, grabbing my thigh

and fondling my chest. I step back and

push your hands away. Stop acting like ateenager. Were going G tonight, I say,

thinking old schoolFern Gully or The

Sword in the Stonenot yet ready for The

Sorcerers Apprentice, Maleficent, or Merlin.

You try again with the petting, sliding your

hands under my coat and beneath my

clothes to rest your cold palms on mywaist, but I step outside. Work, I say. We

need the funds. Ill be back in an hour. I shut

the door against your reaching hands and

tell myself, my flesh, that you can no


23/23

longer touch me unless I will it. I willed it

in college, willed it to you as a young man,

as a man in full power of job, income,

projects to complete. Im trying now to will

you back to living, not man at battle, war-

fury, one sister gone.

Date post:	21-Feb-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	geoffrey-gatza
View:	223 times
Download:	0 times

An Apparently Impossible Adventure by Laura Madeline Wiseman Book Preview

Documents