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POETRY BY MICHAEL PERRET

MICHAEL

Michael Perret is a poet and translator from Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in AzonaL, The Decadent Review and Wild Musette. His translation of the short novel Octavia the Quadroon by the 19th century French Louisiana novelist Sidonie de La Houssaye was published in 2021 by Éditions Tintamarre. Most recently, his poetry sequence “The Vampire” was published by HellBound Books in their anthology Beautiful Tragedies 2.

MEDITATIONS ON PAINTING DARKNESS IN COLOR

Purple’s a color that could mean a bruise
It could also be used for a petal
African Violets, Wandering Jew
Purple’s a color that could mean a bruise

The presence of green, of mortality
The color of growth, samplings, life and trees
The color of necrosis, death, disease
The presence of green, of mortality

A gash of bright red, the color of blood
The color of love, expressed in a card
Exposed in a heart-tapped flood of word-shards
A gash of bright red, the color of blood

The sky seems to be infinite and blue
The hue of the heavens and of the sea
It’s black in the end, behind and beneath
The sky seems to be infinite and blue

Orange as the sun, as fire, as heat
The power, a planet’s worth of warm days
A future present, a past up in flames
Orange as the sun, as fire, as heat

Yellow’s the closest primary to light
The color of air, if lightly applied,
The dust brittle pages might try to hide
Yellow’s the closest primary to light

What’s the color…How does one paint a tear?
Nothing? Everything that’s reflected? Clear?
What’s the color of pain? Ecstasy? Fear?
What’s the color…How does one paint a tear?

MANKIND’S SPIDER, OR THE SPIDER WOMAN

after watching Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy
and seeing Gustave Doré’s Arachne

A brown sun rises in a smog-stained sky
The day breaks in a bleak and somber way
As he starts to leave, she begs him to stay—
He turns on her, in horror, asks her why:

“Is your bed a web, Mistress? Did I lie
“In sheets edged with Arachnid’s twisted fray?
“I recall two legs begging me to play,
“Were there more? Like Doré’s? Three from each thigh?”

He grabs his shoe and slams it on the ground,
“Die, Spider!” he laughs and throws back his head—
But when he comes to, her eight legs are spread—

And frozen, sick to his stomach with dread
He thinks he should turn and run but instead
He stands there and stares and takes in the sound

Of a million legs, amassing like hair
And sees all the baby arachnids there
Crawling towards their father, all unaware
They are the fear of man, his worst nightmare—

ALEXANDRINES IN LAFAYETTE CEMETERY

I walked along the wall
of the house of the dead,
And ferns stuck their fingers
out to welcome me in.
I entered by the gates
that read “Lafayette”. Old,
Old air came near me and
said, Bonsoir, mon amour…
Have you come back to me?
                                    Yes… How could you forget?
I was your first mistress,
                                    your first love, your first sin
When you left me I died
                                    and since then I have been
Here… My heart is unchanged,
                                    My heart still beats for you
My breath still breathes, these lips
                                    that refused your adieu
Burn for you still… Over
the tombs and in the trees
I could hear the wind blow
and I recalled the sea,
The storms and the scars all
came back to me, the world
That betrays… endlessly,
All the false ports, the weighs
Of anchor… I’m ready,
I said, this time to stay—
An old, old air took me
And, yes, led me astray
Into a room buried
in the house of the dead—
And now in the stillness
I sense, sometimes I feel,
The walls shake and crack and
the ferns through the stone… They’re
Welcoming the storm-tossed
and the tired back home…