CIRCLE OF FIFTHS
Trees cast their calligraphies deeper and deeper.¹
I was never a quick scholar but sulked,²
dug two hundred graves,³
fell asleep in the field only to discover on waking⁴
inside my body, more night.⁵
The opposite of language is not silence,⁶
just laughter.⁷ A chime, a blush
of⁸ dark trees multiplying all around it.⁹ A moveable theme
drawn into being by a great composer,¹⁰
wound tight in the logicless pattern
of a crop circle. Waves,
silver on black… this time, I’ll accept¹¹
the piano’s sadness
and the rifle’s moonlight.¹²
Still these same bones bind my frame.
I grip the air with my eyes.¹³
* * *
Reeds bend and thrash. Breeze heaves,
sick with a blank stroke of luck.
I tug at a blunder: white gate,
false leap. Bleached cove where I stake out,
haughty, sore from flight.
Theatrics strangled what’s wild,
swapped rhyme for throat thrush. So
molt. Apply moral sound to the wound. Keen
crowds shuffle closer.
Indict the sea-drenched turn.
Oracular pitch of waves,
silver on black… this time I’ll accept¹⁴
a grand task’s risk,
my stifled earth-right.
Until the deep owns my name,
I drift. Times I stared and tried.
* * *
I’m incensed. This can be prudent. Lessons
from November heather: no art stalls
decay’s pathos. I sip at a tonic
to loosen the past. Door steady
as a hip. Till hinges twitch. Evade
fate. Bait fate. Dull drizzle in the rafter
leads to attic sag. As a draft, tightly
spliced, whittles a small room
from a full life. Outside, spot
indents. Through a yielding dawn, starlight
thins in waves,
silver on black… this time, I’ll accept¹⁵
delight’s gloom. The ruse is tainted.
Pissant stammer. Enterprise.
Spastic battle, acid rain through
my core. The shore’s now gone.
* * *
A dead stump’s rootless. My tendons
flex like tethers: I chart
the crow’s path, asymptotic.
Noons limp as laundry on a slackline.
My forehead slick with fever-sweat. Which indicates
a break. The inverse of laughter
is still laughter, light
as a knife, whittling a small room
from a full life. I slip out of the false round
and into the real pond, silk dress rippling
in waves,
silver on black… this time, I’ll accept¹⁶
the light as it moves through its stations.¹⁷
Shifting grammar of railroad ties.¹⁸
Language rattles. Like a train. Like a
die. Let it roll. It rolls on.
artist statement
Circle of Fifths is a sequence that draws on my identity and experiences as a woman writer. It explores the paradox that in order to call attention to the fact that an injustice is taking place, and especially a systemic injustice like gender-based violence or gender inequality, one must sometimes re-enact that injustice through narrative, imagery, etc. in a piece of writing.
The first part of the sequence is a cento (with a few lines taken from my own old work). All of my other sources are attributed in the footnotes, which I’ve included below.
The final part of the sequence is a modification of a form invented by Leila Chatti called the antipode. Chatti takes an existing poem and translates it, word by word, into its “exact opposite.” The final part of the sequence translates the first part, but using entire lines instead of words. (Sometimes, I actually used a line that I rejected from the original cento; these are marked and attributed in my footnotes).
The second and third parts of the sequence are (quite loose) phonetic translations of the first and final parts of the sequence. My intent with this was to free the sound of the words from the meanings imposed by their bodies.
Throughout the sequence, I grew especially intrigued by places where an act or method that should have been freeing created a meaning that felt more restrictive. I want the entire sequence to have a sort of knotlike structure, to feel like both a progression and a snare.
Notes
Hazelyn Aroian lives and writes in Massachusetts. She has worked as a software engineer, grocery store clerk, and movie theatre attendant. Her writing has been nominated for Best Spiritual Literature and can be found or is forthcoming in The Shore, Stone Circle Review, Strange Hymnal, and elsewhere.