Bramah and the Beggar Boy Read online

Control of property was beyond us

  Often, we thought of that tree by the—

  That woman cradled pine cones in her apron

  Her mask hanging round her chin, blue cotton.

  Train tracks varied in their hot metal grooves.

  The ground gave, by way of fissures, deep cracks:

  We imagined there had been a great tumult

  withering bluestems, no sighs heard

  And so, we roamed, the Collect, calling, thuja, thuja

  Plantings done years ago——

  After the Battle of Kingsway, the Bees

  In the woods, a clearing—where we gathered

  measured circumference, grove of cedar,

  Douglas fir, redwoods, giant sequoia,

  orange trees imported, illegal—

  This were the time known as waiting.

  From Rentalsman, we, survivors, and masked,

  friends since the outbreak. Aunty Maria,

  her spectacles cracked, plastic caressed,

  kneeling, arms to hold linen, stitched over,

  immersed she spoke of honey lore: meadow,

  white boxes, pallets of—do this, she said

  and take—blue hyssop, straw skep, sage.

  Memory, a boxed wind chime, windowsill strings

  pulled, lengthwise crescendo pine varnished rain.

  Posted on Cy-Board #6: Aunty Maria’s Lament

  Stand and scroll these pages, what’s left of us.

  Be as we once were, flick, tap and swipe, quick!

  If you are forced to remain, leave word here.

  See to it, that these names are not erased:

  After the first Catastrophe,

  long after the battle, the bees:

  Enquiry! Diverse as water, and plastic.

  O bring production, she was heard to sing later

  save seeds, scavenge glass, jars to hold,

  those who seek asylum among these giant trees—

  The name sequoia, the name cedar, the name Douglas fir.

  And given,

  and given.

  The Last Known Observation Report

  Outside, then, abundant end—

  Inside, Beauty’s roots parched

  blooming—

  Alors, fin abondante;

  les racines de beauté desséchées, floraison

  ثم نهاية الجمال وفيرة كسراب بقيعة يحسبه الظمان الشعبية، ويوجد

  .بالفندق

  Let all evil die and the good endure

  Captured at the Gate of the Summer Portal, 2052

  Chained, we sang, Before is also a place

  Transport planes to buses, freight trains, shunting

  railway tracks bombed, rebuilt with old iron

  dry pine cones fell, unrelenting and sad.

  Baghdad to Paris, east to west

  reserve armies of labour, social unrest——

  lone stragglers, a handful of Beggar Boys

  one ragged little girl holding hands with

  the good doctor, chalice grasped to her chest

  covered with canvas sacking, bits of cloth

  banned now from practice, she pledged to heal them,

  the poorest families, sick with fever

  those who stood at the back of the line shared

  crusts of bread, telling tales of the Before.

  Chained, we heard those Beggar Boys singing faint:

  IED baby, your bombs, our arms, boom!

  IED baby, inside, outside, boom!

  Freedom fighter, terrorist, who’s right, wrong?

  We just want enough to eat, been so long.

  (translated from the French.)

  The Great Dispersal

  Transported Paris to Pacifica

  captured and released, then captured again.

  Aunty Maria and her glass jars, gone.

  We found that doctor, hours before dawn.

  Midnight across the river we heard them

  Seed Savers with their song, heard far and wide:

  Always, it were beginning and ending

  That were journey, migration over months. The years—

  That might be more than one lifetime

  That season were a pattern, revealing

  That many were, and twisted, and turned

  That wine-dark river, that wild shoreline, tamed

  That mountain range, blotted from view

  That mother root, tree uprooted

  That park bench, that concrete walkway

  That endless game of chess. Queen to King

  That floral arrangement, that left-behind object

  That stillness in the bedroom

  That earthquake disaster, that coming calamity, rivers and mountains

  That deep ancient built-upon lake, lake without name, name known only by

  That transmigration, that outcast slumber, that permanent exile, that bus-riding underclass

  That liminal, white into black, brown into light into darkness:

  When everything happened—

  The Good Doctor, as Posted on Cy-Board #6

  To Whom It May Concern

  —although scorned and fearful of—

  I found myself and sought them

  marauders, vagabonds, traders, riff-raff,

  brigands, invaders—survivors, they save

  seeds in glass jars.

  And at the bridge of locks, cut off, waxed paper

  Still redolent of honey and the flowers—

  documents and escape, a series of borders

  Once, would have been unthinkable, now we are close bound

  enough—

  I’ve discovered Colony Collapse.

  I’ve seen the despair of Queenless.

  I’ve seen oceans overflowing, then sink,

  smelt ice, the sound of it cracking, then—

  I’ve hugged close, glass vials and my microscope.

  I’ve told Beggar Boys and Girls: This is a chalice.

  They laugh and point, they help me barter glass.

  Signed,

  Dr. A.E. Anderson.

  The Good Doctor in Paris

  Sweltering heat, torrential rains, trees, stunted.

  Inside the city walls, five clinics bombed.

  Long after arrondissement destruction,

  Perimeter a hazing ground,

  Inside her battered clinic, what remains?

  Only the good doctor and the parts to her chalice.

  Those items found,

  will be of that kingdom(e):

  broken hive, two aged empty chestnut conkers, hairy halves. One hardwood nut.

  A seedling pine cone, needles

  still green. Empty husk, auburn gaping—

  astonishing, to our doctor:

  when peering into reserves of contraband substance

  the plastic of a freezer bag

  [brand name removed at the request of Consortium]

  heft of hive, destroyed, fragrant—strong smell,

  to be captured, from container Hive F

  there, at the exact time of looking

  out from hexagonal, dirty white and webbed,

  black sac-body—faded label marked, Mrs. Maria of Church at Tyne.

  Curfew alarms ignored, the bar open

  at Café M, Dr. Anderson seen

  writing in her notebook

  pages folded to reveal a letter:

  Dear Aunty Maria of Church at Tyne,

  I am sending a boy to you, with seeds in a glass jar.

  Kindly send word, when you can, of my chalice

  last seen at–—.

  Attention! cry the street children, diesel

  rags soaked, Molotov! Rocks, twigs, IED
baby!

  One slingshot—abandoned in the mud.

  The Good Doctor, Witness to the Fate of Children

  I refused to stop posting health records

  premature babies, their third eye, bulging

  Consortium banned all clinical trials

  One by one the beggar children lined up

  They thought cooperation meant hot meals

  Trembling, blood-spattered, I wrote out their words

  My eyes filled with tears, that was the moment

  I told them later, they looked up and smiled

  Shadow walker, my hair plaited with smoke

  Ash biscuits on my tongue, dissolving grief:

  left to die in the middle of the road.

  This they repeated just under their breath

  Who will come for us, the children asked me.

  My gaze steady, I told them, only death.

  Outside Sword Girls sighed, derisive, in chains:

  IED, baby, IED.

  Your bombs, our arms, boom!

  Resister Statements Pinned to Cy-Board #6

  Third attempt, connection intermittent

  —a millionth of the cell’s volume, spiked, cirque—

  —we thought, This won’t happen to us, and then—

  —our bones irradiated light—sparse—cold

  —almost transparent, we drifted across—

  —Sector turnstiles, those no-go zones, we paused—

  —at the Great Gate Called Destruction, we found—

  —fluttering in the wind, scraps of paper—

  —stray and stained, those ripped masks, sodden with rain—

  —matchbooks gripped in swollen fingers, we lit—

  —every affirmation, burnt to a crisp—

  —we coughed, our lungs swollen, droplets of blood—

  —Sit back and enjoy the ride, they told us—

  —prisoners on those transport planes, Portal bound—

  —we, the forgotten, all our stories, gone—

  Hidden beneath Cy-Board #6

  to you who will have arrived after

  if you read this, please leave word, or send signs

  and then the bees hummed to us and we did

  each note and entry, leading to the stars

  banned from every Portal, we still escaped

  that Wolf-Moon—laughing and coughing, droplets

  Certain nights, the skies clear, a great many interceptions.

  Logbook of the Guards, Paris Fifth Gate

  Signifier: 5 Rue Claude Bernard

  coin Rue Pascal,

  at the Café Mallarmé (formerly Café Léa)

  Observed: lintel carving above the threshold

  Will you deny day labour, light denied?

  Observed: carved into stone under foot

  Jumped the fence, you should too.

  As confiscated: the notebooks of Dr. A.E. Anderson:

  Should have proceeded so slowly

  That the plants had not only

  Cellular walls that could resist

  This was immensity, the forests

  Great arborescent. Those giants.

  Evolutionary. Incomplete form.

  Amid the cataclysms that changed us,

  To the point of destroying our small homes.

  As high and as constant as possible.

  Ozone and carbon dioxide levels.

  Outside sanctioned cordons, we were tested.

  They will procure

  our confession.

  Everyone incessantly insistent,

  about happiness.

  Fulfillment in the mandated enclosures.

  Today a group of children followed me.

  I am resolved into a stoic attitude,

  with a sure sense, the outer world:

  Indifferent. Everywhere,

  people are in chains.

  They seem to really like it.

  Dr. A.E. Anderson, Person of Interest

  Of my grandmothers and my aunties:

  Their voices calling me, memories’ echo:

  They sang lamentations:

  Our seeds scattered to the wind,

  our glass jars shattered.

  For years they kept our plantings hidden.

  As if it were a way station.

  As if there were a sounding,

  well outside the city.

  Verdant,

  a giant butterfly who spoke.

  My aunties would make us walk to Kerr Street.

  At dusk and at dawn we’d look to the trees.

  Sequoia, their spindle kernels, shake, shake.

  My aunties would say ever-after,

  down in the town of towns:

  If forced to use your knees,

  assess all ground eventualities.

  They were banned, and to no avail.

  When Consortium takes over Portals

  warned my aunties when I was growing up

  No matter Paris or Pacifica,

  they’d cough and laugh, then peer down and stare, hard,

  everywhere, the old river danger.

  After, they would just laugh and cough.

  We never spoke of it, our masks, ripped, stained.

  From a Transcript Given to the Guards of the Fifth Gate

  I, Dr. A.E. Anderson, set down these notes,

  in fear of impending.

  Before Paris, I stood for hours in Verona.

  —Said the Committee:

  you will need to, and you must.

  In that year I came to realize Science,

  strength and threat.

  Everybody reading everything, yet

  very few with the patience to discern.

  —Said the Committee: show us.

  I have given over all my documents.

  Betrayal, now my companion. Those two children!

  Her small brown hand.

  His gap-toothed smile, his beat-up runners,

  laces untied.

  Never ask me again, the price of pain.

  Partial Record: The Whereabouts of Dr. A.E. Anderson, Tracked

  Outside,

  in the year of the reign 2052

  in torrential rain, the winds, fierce

  Dr. A.E. Anderson, face pressed against glass

  Officine Grafiche de Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.

  Dr. A.E. Anderson clutched letters sodden in her hands.

  As if ink runs, scared of its dissolution—

  Outside,

  a Beggar Boy, his gap-toothed smile, sings:

  A coin is corner enough.

  Un coup de dés, ah-ayee, jamais, jamais

  La Nuit, La Lune, La Terre

  This is repeated many times.

  Outside: some unidentified migrants.

  Inside,

  in the year of the reign 2052

  carved over the lintel at the Bar of the Fifth Gate:

  Un coup de dés, jamais, jamais

  Transport Plane Manifest

  And his authority Investigative,

  having first met those prisoners

  thereafter known as XXXX.

  Came the times,

  and they were bad,

  authority sent,

  to search high and low

  beggar children with their arms exposed

  viral and connected,

  transport planes commandeered,

  resisters deported, penal colonies enhanced.

  B-seen: Baghdad to Paris

  them’s in the compound

  and that doctor, note-taking always.

  Guards tracked her, long and hard, drone to device.

  Her meetings with mothers of those children

  t
his were written about.

  To Pacifica then they came. Released.

  Paris to Pacifica, We Stitched Our Fragments

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound

  cracked nails, bruised thumbs, black linen thread and bound