The Gypsy Queen

         

I. ECCE VIRAGO

  01. The great Rocky Trismegist, they call her.   02. Wild unkempt hair like a bristly besom,   03. Nails like coarse crag-clasping kitty-cat claws,   04. Lips like a light lilting moon-kissed black rose,   05. Ciggy in one hand, can in the other,   06. Baggy jeans, sandals, and greyed rastacap,   07. Cotton shirt, headband, rose-tinted glasses,   08. Rustic, unrestrained, vibrant, rad and free,   09. Draped with a loose blood-orange kimono,   10. Ready the paths! Here comes the Gypsy Queen.   11. An onyx-black crow perched on her shoulder,   12. Pusillanimous pitbull pup at heel,   13. Making her way down the busy old streets,   14. Spinning in infinity, stars in hair,   15. Arise, sun and lazy clouds! A new day!   16. Catching her usual tram, iron womb,   17. The city’s in a regular hot blaze,   18. The fire of a thousand souls’ commutes,   19. In suits and dresses and frayed miniskirts,   20. Suitcases and bags and purses plenty,   21. Rocky’s canvas scrolls strapped tight round her paps,   22. Oil paintings of scenic things, images   23. Like broken bud bottles and used puffers,   24. Kids playing in abandoned trailer parks,   25. Hopping in fresh puddles of rain and beer,   26. Oceans, time reclining on nature’s coils,   27. Rapture of a centillion round red stars   28. Bursting from Space’s supernal lotus,   29. With emerald eyes she beholds the world,   30. Beaded buttons sewn into life’s blue blouse,   31. Sequins of dazzling swans on the white lakes,   32. Filled with empty soda cans and used bags,   33. The tram with its steady beat, throbbing core,   34. Festers of colour in the cracked windows,   35. Playing with her cold-hot opaline skin,   36. She taps the window, its crystal bleakness,   37. Raindrops on the glossy glassy surface,   38. Dancing as determined dervish whirlers,   39. Ahab, get the telescope! A rainbow!   40. She has time to dream, go where dead thoughts dwell,   41. Rests her strawberry head on her elbow,   42. Fantasizing, if only for seconds,   43. Mary Jane playing with her dulled senses,   44. As the childish Moerae toy with mankind,   45. She sees herself in telestial form,   46. A winged fairy, like dread Gloriana,   47. Clutching a stylus, robed with a toga   48. Dyed with the hundred hues of the rainbow.   49. Doves’ eyes within her locks, her hair braided,   50. Her teeth like fresh icebergs, bluish and chipped,   51. Her fingers spinning the universes.   52. Her lips are dried threads of scarlet, softly   53. Her tongue scratches her left canine chomper,   54. Her neck’s a stalwart armoury tower   55. Whereon there hangs a thousand steel bucklers.   56. Her shoulder blades are swords of the mountains,   57. The joints of her fingers are cut jewels,   58. The work of the hands of a cunning elf.   59. Her palms reach out for hope, so small but sure.   60. Her belly heaves with the pull of the day.   61. Her nose is a tower of ivory,   62. Her eyes fishpools with endless frigid depth,   63. She rests like a lion’s whelp, motherless.   64. Kings are held in her gallery of hair,   65. A crimson frame to measure destiny.   66. Wrapped safe in her technicoloured dreamcoat,   67. Cascading over her sculpted shoulders,   68. Carved out by the vices of liquid form,   69. Refined with a thousand lone tear-filled nights,   70. The horned Moon cast up in yonder heavens,   71. Like a dusty and cobwebbed disco ball,   72. The morningstars being fated dancers,   73. And the poor Sun, just a lonely shuffler.   74. Tear down the walls of hate with air guitars,   75. Stop seeing fear in a handful of dust!   76. She awakes, the wide world on her shoulders.   77. O doomed black rose! Velvety, meek and mild,   78. Thy role hath been cast in Destiny’s die,   79. Shoshanah, hide away thy mortal soul   80. From those that will pierce thy beating petals.   81. Fear crouches at the mind’s door, blade in hand,   82. The dream ends with a flash of pink thunder   83. As the taut throttled tram rocks to and fro,   84. Her head heavy, but clear enough to think,   85. Her breath the smell of onion bagels,   86. She reaches down, retrieving a ciggy…   I. All along an alley, as an adder,   II. Bubbling beer, boiling bones, bleeding breaths bare,   III. Caught clueless, can’t concentrate, could call Cass?   IV. Damned, drunk, downed, drowned, deprived, desolate dog,   V. Everything ends eventually, eh?   VI. Forgoing formal feelings, fobbed forces,   VII. Good gosh! Gadzooks! Gasping, gaping, grinning,   VIII. Hell-hot. Here holds Hades’ habitation.   IX. Intelligence isn’t insidious.   X. Jerry! Jacob! Just jump, jibberjabber.   XI. Kid, keen killer. Kicking, keeling. Ken. Keep.   XII. Love. Longing. Lips, lingering. Lazy lives.   XIII. Maybe my mother might miss me. Mayhap.   XIV. Nah. Nobody needs noisome nincompoops.   XV. Oh! Opportunity. Old owl-eyed oaf.   XVI. Punch? Pickpocket? Pfft, prepare plan! Perfect.   XVII. Queerly queasy. Quivering. Quest quickly!   XVIII. Really reachable. Ready, rude robber?   XIX. Snatched sneakily. Some seventies. Super.   XX. Time to try tacos. Thirsty, too. Truly.   XXI. Untouched, uncaught, unseen, unheard. Unloved.   XXII. ‘Valiant vacuous vapid vixen.’   XXIII. What wooden wisdom, wanderer. What words.   XXIV. Xylograph xenurine xylophagans.   XXV. You yahoo! Your yackety-yack yammers.   XXVI. Zigzagging, zany, zooming, zombified.   113. Ah, that trip was nasty. Bad aftertaste.   114. She has to crawl out of that alleyway,   115. Like a revenant coming from Sheol,   116. Steal a wallet. Nice red one, smooth velvet.   117. Took some cash for food. When desperate, huh?   118. Bit hazy, perhaps she’ll call Cassandra.   119. Cassie isn’t real. Cass is her street name.   120. Too many foul substances for one day.   121. She decides to quit, stick to weaker banes.   122. That was about seven slow days ago.   123. She works selling her burden-forged artwork,   124. Paintings, urban masterpieces, cheap bucks.   125. It’s how the muse pays for her stacked-up bills.   126. The pup needs to eat. Her furry baby.   127. And the crow, of course. His name is Jacob.   128. He’s five years old, with seventeen to go.   129. Taking the tram to the inner city,   130. Where roads crisscross like veins in a forehead,   131. The skyscrapers forming a horrid face   132. Gazing up grimly at the smoke-filled sky,   133. Dull bovine eyes looking, but not seeing.   134. Touching, but not yet feeling. Choked with fumes.   135. Here lie the bones of Roxanne Trismegist.   136. Hands are numb. But her fingers are lightning.   137. Paintings are the substance of things hoped for,   138. Sketches the evidence of things not seen.   139. Her demons trouble her less now. Chained up   140. By a strong struggling soul who just won’t yield.   141. ‘One day at a time,’ she says. She’s not wrong.   142. She has dreams, you know. Such things must remain.   143. Ah, she yearns to be favoured. Desired.   144. People are empty to her. None complete.          

II. TATRA SHREER VIJAYO BHOOTIR DHRUVAA NEETIR MATIR MAMA

    145. Lovers she’s had, vain names without number.   146. Yet still unfilled that Void within lingers.   147. Ciggies never take her heart and break it.   148. Ciggies never win her trust and shake it.   149. And ciggies never expect something back.   150. Her ‘friends’ are miserable comforters.   151. When she tries to change, they are quick to say:   152. ‘You’re not strong enough. Just give in, dudette!   153. You’re a lost cause, the drugs have you. Sorry,   154. But it’s true. Sometimes it’s too late. You should   155. Live a fun life, not a long one. Come on!   156. Stop being self-righteous. Take a swig, man.   157. We’re candles, quickly snuffed out. You know, it’s   158. Better to burn out than to fade away.’   159. She has refrained her sore feet from these paths,   160. But the cruel vice will sometimes slip in,   161. A stolen purse, or a clenched bloodied fist.   162. But the city is still so beautiful.   163. Its sounds linger within her like a fount   164. Spewing into the cracks of a desert,   165. That dark dim wasteland of drab drained concrete,   166. And the lazy lively lights at midnight,   167. Bright taxis and herds of pedestrians,   168. Bakeries and rustic pizzerias,   169. The spiralling parks and basketball courts,   170. The hustle and bustle of city life   171. Acting as the cool churning life support   172. Keeping her self going, ever onward.   173. One night she has a vagrant visitor,   174. An image conjured up in her psyche   175. Whom she imagines as a cunning dwarf.   176. Like a wisp he enters, calculating,   177. Prowling the edges of her room like a   178. Ravening wolf, hungry for her conscience.   179. He stands by her bedpost, eyes like candles   180. That burn into her mind vivid flashbacks.   181. ‘Leave me be, Alberich. I have no gold.’   182. ‘But you need me, fair Raukhshnaa. I’m your Voice.   183. I am your only true friend. Your comfort.’   184. ‘You are not the first. So leave me alone.’   185. ‘True. There was Ariel and Belinda,   186. Bianca, Caliban, Cordelia,   187. Cressida, Cupid, and Desdemona,   188. Ferdinand, Francisco, and Juliet,   189. Mab, Margaret, and comely Miranda,   190. Ophelia, Perdita, and Portia,   191. Prospero, Puck, Rosalind, Setebos,   192. Stephano, Sycorax, Titania,   193. Trinculo, Umbriel, and now me. Your   194. Final moon, your unshakeable shadow.’   195. She sighs, shuts her eyes, and tries to remove   196. Him from her sight. But it just doesn’t work.   197. ‘Some day I will be rid of you. Some day.’   198. ‘We are bound so long as you are in bonds.   199. When you try to quit, you only relapse.   200. I am the voice of reason, reminding   201. You that your efforts are hopeless. Futile.’   202. ‘You are nothing but a bad dream in flesh.’   203. This night she feels brave. Maybe even strong.   204. She stands, her legs shaking. She moves her foot.   205. Inch by inch she approaches him, wary   206. But not afraid. She reaches out and strikes   207. His bearded face. He recoils with surprise.   208. ‘How dare you! I am Oberon, the King   209. Of the Dwarrows! The Lord of Faerieland!   210. And you dare strike me, you petulant child?’   211. She laughs. For once, she feels free. Hope ignites.   212. ‘You are a figment of my tired head.   213. Nothing more. Tonight I decide to be   214. Rid of you. Of all of you. So be gone!’   215. Alberich quakes. Disbelief shakes his boots.   216. He vanishes wordlessly, fades, dissolves.   217. The next day Rocky visits the subway,   218. The webbed tunnels like severed aortas,   219. Crowds of people flock in and out, pulsing,   220. And she stands, ready to sell her products.   221. Some buy, some pass her by. Some coldly stare.   222. She earns enough money to get some food,   223. Wad of cash in her pocket, day complete,   224. She packs up her things, taking her paintings.   225. ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ she assures herself.   226. At night she is less tense. Alberich’s gone.   227. Only her familiars are awake.   228. The voices are silent, no need for booze.   229. A paintbrush in her left hand, she dances   230. With her puppy, waltzing, the tyke under   231. Her left armpit. Jacob caws in rhythm.   232. The night is short but sacred. They dance for   233. Hours. She can be honest about her   234. Feelings, if only to her animals.   235. And the artworks hung across her bedroom,   236. Which smells of bleach and malevolent grass,   237. She reclines on her couch, as Upulvan   238. Reclines on Anath, pulls up her duvet,   239. And ons the telly, a soap opera,   240. Snuggled up with her dog, his heart on hers.   241. His name’s Jerry. He is seven months old.   242. The night is cold, but somehow comforting.   243. The horned Moon understands. She’s lonely, too.   244. Rocky has shut off communications.   245. She hasn’t seen her family in years,   246. But she is content. She has her two kids,   247. She has a warm creaky bed to sleep in,   248. And she has her vices if she needs them.   249. On weekends she makes art, staying up late,   250. Building worlds with paint like a demiurge.   251. Some nights she brings home a stranger or two   252. To make her feel human again, but it’s   253. Temporary. Like most things in life are.   254. She sleeps, slumber seizing her with swiftness.   255. She dreams of her old home. Her old sad cage.   256. Her mother cleans her wounds after her dad’s   257. Done with her. She’s not allowed to wear shirts   258. With short sleeves. Might show the belt-marks, you see.   259. One night she has enough. She grabs from the   260. Shelf a statuette of Zoroaster.   261. Her father’s in the nearby room, passed out.   262. She raises the image above his head,   263. And soon Zarathushtra’s ripped robes are red.   264. She changes her name and runs far away.   265. From Roxanne to Rocky. That was three years   266. Ago. April is the cruellest month.   267. Her brother tried to contact her. He was   268. The last family member she spoke to.   269. Sometimes hopelessness possesses her, and   270. She dreams of extinguishment. But good thoughts   271. Push her forward, like Siegfried scaling the   272. Dragon’s dark pyre to find Bruennhilde.   273. She must remain strong because she knows her   274. Life is worth that struggle. She believes that   275. She can conquer her vices like Siegwart   276. Conquered Fafner and put Wotan to shame.   277. Sometimes darkness covers her like a pelt.   278. No, Prometheus. You must live! Today   279. Is always a new day. Keep moving on.   280. And so she is borne by life’s waves, lost in   281. Darkness and distance. But never hopeless.   282. She brushes her teeth, cleans out her nostrils,   283. Cuts her nails, washes her finger joints, plucks   284. Her eyebrow hair, rinses her mouth, and takes   285. A shower. Her daily routine. She makes   286. Some toast, fishes some old milk from the fridge,   287. Feeds her raven and her brown-furred bubba,   288. Puts some clothes on, eats, dances a bit, picks   289. Some paintings for today’s sale, and leaves for   290. The tram. Her paints are cheap but she makes them   291. Priceless. Her skill is in her pain, which gives   292. Her insights into Art’s vast world. She takes   293. In details no one else sees, like the lines   294. On an ageing forehead, the smile of a   295. Fallen leaf, the jade eyes of a duck pond.                   296. She misses home sometimes, but this gives her   297. Joy, more joy than she had at her old house.   298. There are things she wishes for. A true friend,   299. A bigger home, an altruistic kiss.   300. But you can’t have everything, and she knows   301. That she might be alone for a long time.   302. At least, alone once her bird dies and her   303. Dog bites the dust. She remembers when she   304. First got them. She found Jacob in a dark   305. Alley, his wings charred from a live wire.   306. Barely alive, she nursed him back to health.   307. She saved Jerry from a gang of goons who   308. Tossed the pup into a river for fun.   309. She’s a bad swimmer, but it was worth it.   310. Rocky decides to paint something brand new.   311. She paints a Walkuere with blood-red hair.   312. Sometimes she dreams of Alberich again,   313. His wily serpent’s jaws snapping at her   314. In disappointment. But now she is a   315. Walkirie with fiery arms and sword,   316. Ready to slay dragons and ghosts alike.   317. On her next birthday, the fourth of April,   318. She plans to turn her life around. Make change.   319. Do something about her situation.   320. She wakes up, a toothy grin on her face.   321. ‘Well, it’s time to make some preparations.’   322. Soon comes the fourth of April. Dun, dun, dun!   323. She takes Jerry and Jacob with her, the   324. Old apartment left to itself for now.   325. They take the journey on foot, like Donner   326. With mischievous Loge fighting ettins.   327. Once in a while they take the tram or bus,   328. Making their way steady, a walkirie   329. And her noble beasts, the hound at her heel   330. And raven on her shoulder like Hugin   331. And Munin, spies of Wotan and Fricka.   332. They enter the raw heart of the city,   333. Commuters like bugs in its nose canals,   334. Old men and young, kids with eyes glued to screens,   335. Lovers fingering in the dark corners,   336. Drunks sottishly reading the newspaper,   337. Priests and nuns in pious contemplation,   338. Leather-clad bikers with scarred sinewed arms,   339. Teenagers with neck tattoos and piercings,   340. Rich bankers and well-dressed salarymen,   341. Exotic dancers and old ladies, saints   342. And sinners all caught up, if only for   343. A moment, in the same place and same time.   344. The bowels of the tram empty out as   345. The passengers enter their own stories,   346. Eventually they get off and start   347. Walking to a small town in a small land.   348. ‘We’re close,’ she says, with some uncertainty.   349. She feels like the seventh planet from the   350. Sun’s warmth. But even Ouranos has friends.   351. In this moment her pets are just her pets.   352. There are three types of friends in this vast world:   353. Friends of utility will give you things   354. You need, but they are fleeting like dried leaves.   355. Friends for pleasure will sometimes give you things   356. You may want, but they are branches that snap.   357. Then there are friends that seek the good with you:   358. They are like the roots in the tree of life,   359. And they will not leave you when the wind blows.   360. Time under tension breeds strength, and right now   361. She is incredibly tense. The wind blows.   362. She tries to think of happy things. The feel   363. Of cold glass on a winter’s day. The smell   364. Of freshly baked bagels at the café.   365. The sound of her ceiling fan whirring like   366. The music of the spheres, the Planets’ Dance.   367. She whistles the tune of the Daemmerung,   368. And decides that if she had a new name   369. It would be Siegtreiba, leader of the   370. Walkueren. Her bronze hair swings in the gusts.   371. They finally make it. The prodigal   372. Has made it back. Rocky scouts out the place.   373. Her emerald eyes catch it. Her old house.   374. The land is long abandoned, the garden   375. Unkempt and wild for months, the grass like snakes.   376. The fence, once white, is now a sackcloth grey.   377. The mailbox is still there, the words on it:   378. ‘Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum.’   379. She approaches the decrepit domus,   380. Enters the garden, the gate kept ajar,   381. And takes a seat on the porch. Shutting eyes,   382. She weeps, burying her face in her hands,   383. The tears rocking her, shaking her stiff bones,   384. As she releases the hurt of her past,   385. Letting go of so many long burdens,   386. So much deep pain from those she had trusted,   387. Her cruel father, her silent mother.   388. Even her brother refused to save her.   389. When she is done, she wipes her bloodshot eyes,   390. And speaks to her mother, if she can hear:   391. ‘Hi, mummy. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?   392. I turn eighteen today. A woman now.   393. I’m sorry we couldn’t meet up. I don’t   394. Know where you are, where any of you went.   395. But I want you to know I forgive you.   396. All of you. I’ve been clean for ten months now.   397. No booze or ciggies, just the drug of Life.   398. I paint and sketch for money. You always   399. Said I had a gift. I’m happy, I think.   400. Actually, I’m sure I’m happy. I   401. Choose joy, not fear. I am living my life.   402. I hope, where you are, that you’re living yours.’   403. She rises, takes her dog and her jackdaw,   404. Leaves the house behind, and makes her way back.   405. That night she orders pizza. Anchovies,   406. Pepperoni, pineapple, capsicum.   407. Grabbing a custom slice, she feeds her dog   408. Some chunks of stuffed crust. Her crow gets some too.   409. She feels like a weight’s been lifted off her.   410. Tears can heal tears, especially torn souls.   411. The telly’s on, monochromatic buzz.   412. In the sky is Diana’s eye, her face   413. Smiling on Rocky’s form at the window.   414. After dinner she puts Jake in his cage.   415. Jerry sleeps on his spittle-stained cushion.   416. She sleeps to the soft sound of the telly,   417. Till the next day calls upon her, and she   418. Rises once more, as a phoenix reborn,   419. To wash, dress, eat and live, in Life’s cycle.   420. The maker of paintings, Artificer   421. Of the beauty of simplicity, hop   422. In her swift steps and brushes in her hand.   423. She’s filled with love, joy, peace, longsuffering,   424. Gentleness, and goodness, faith, and meekness,   425. And temperance, thrusting her feet forward   426. In the steps of a new day. She is far   427. From complete, but on her way to healing.   428. She’s Dionysos der Gekreuzigte,   429. Friedrich’s dream, bedight with every star of   430. The universe. The Sun’s in her hair, Moon   431. In her green eyes, and hope in her bosom.   432. Ready to take on the trials of life,   433. The great Rocky Trismegist, they called her,   434. Siegtreiba rides with the wings of the wind.