BY DOUGLAS LUMAN
Author's note: These poems take on the occult through means of alchemy, created out of a book of practical magic: Perkins, Henry, and Barrington Haswell. Parlour Magic. Philadelphia: H. Perkins, 1838.
The Magician: Sight & Sound – Imitative Haloes
Spring suddenly burns in
a rosemary, the ruddy
color of lit charcoal,
artificial light, or
things a person intends.
You are told moonstone. You
are told moonglow. A chip
from the edge of the Earth;
you picture it, the slip
of a boy’s pop-gun. Two
minutes of crystals of
whispers. O, such a small
quantity leaves wanting.
An ounce of crow. One dram
of you. To change places?
Simple: fill an appearance.
Look from the moon’s long view
a blueness. But from here
a dark brown knot of dirt,
body shaken of moss.
The Magician: Sleights & Subtleties - Curious Experiment with a Glass of Water
Pick a mirror, hollow
glass; a highly polished
dish filled with the right air,
quicksilver, water, &
a scruple of alum.
Convert scruples to grains
to drachms—the apartment
of the palm, hold it,
vitreous animal.
The candle’s spirit turns
violet, turns indigo.
Even shutting the eye
they burn themselves from rest.
When Sir Isaac Newton
found fire, it was dropping
threads in liquid. Incant
now, I become an ounce.
The point—to vibrate in
unintelligible
jargon of linen. A
beverage of a voice,
the phantom in a skin.
Of the skull—what a nest—
a song or crucible
made of smooth masonry.
We think of it crafted
of ivory, dull &
polished, or an engraved
color of pearl. What if it
was empty? Gently knock
to sound its thickness. Find it
filled with stuff of yourself.
A space filled with crumpled
gray metal? An extract
that melts like camphor & in
an hour, it hardens.
The Magician: Sight & Sound – To Make a Prism
Open box containing
darkness. Introduce a
commonly dismal light
made completely of heat,
the degrees of which lie
in holding objects above
you. Follow the moon with
care. At the same time hold
tight to the weather. Steep
the air in your mouth. Call
a name to the glass—the shade
cast is amusing & burns
like fire. Laugh to cool
it. Iron folds out of
a paper slip, writing
the varieties of
gems & marble—one of which,
the eye occasioned by
magnesium, nitre,
some compound of beauty
& time breaking like a thumb
from hands from arms—hollow
stalks of lightning. A wan
figure. Shutter the blinds.
The Magician: Sight & Sound – Theory of Whispering
Literation somehow
leaves you, though all the neck’s
other parts seem to be
working fine. But the tongue,
a lunar muscle, acts
according to phases—
mostly waxing the moss
of promises, echoes
of some other name spilling
the crumbs of you that are
left about. No matter
of volume, sound travels
farther in warm places,
but is no substitute
for a body. Loudness,
as such, mistaken for
carelessness. Dismantle
the parts of his minute
& find a mouth or a proof
the surrounding space is
hollow & still.
Douglas Luman’s poetry has been published in magazines such as Salamander, Ocean State Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and Prelude. He is Production Director of Container, Art Director at Stillhouse Press, Head Researcher at appliedpoetics.org, a book designer, and digital human. His first book, The F Text, will be released in fall 2017 on Inside the Castle.
