Other Altars - Curious Duke Gallery, London, UK, 2016
With Kristin Gaudio-Endsley and Florence Devereux

Muškarac
    born from the stones
a    g    a    i    n    
a    n    d         
a    l    w    a    y    s,

                                    that his mothers gave him.

The stone itself
came from a cliff,
the thigh
of a woman laying, spreading her legs along the sea,
as if she was birthing the ocean.
her body made of dirt and grass, pines and worms.

she was waiting for her man’s return
in vain.
In her lassitude, she spread her legs along the sea,
as if she was birthing the ocean
letting the water take her womb, go where the long gone man couldn’t go
tides between her thighs

the waves licking cliffs
carving out stories
drawing a thousand portraits of the long gone man
secret caves swelling loudly.

From her cliff, her thigh
a stone escaped
escaped the woman’s lassitude
and rolled to the bottom of the ocean.
It sat there for thousands of years
becoming thousands of faces

until a woman, having decided to touch the bottom of the ocean
found the stone.

Her wombs were parched by the memory of a murder,
the kiss of a dead man.
She fell in love with the stone
and let it in.

She swam for a thousand years
the stone sitting in her belly.
She thought of a thousand faces
and finally chose Muškarac.

She took her new born
to the dry land
let him by a tree.

There lived a snake who ruled all the others.

He embraced
Muškarac, the boy.
With the snake who ruled all the others
Muškarac saw all the faces his rock had been
And melted his soul into a nebulous question -
What had been engraved?
What was his to transform, what was his to release?

Sticks of iron, forgotten fires
Muškarac dived inside himself.

He saw the abandoned woman
He saw the thigh, the blood rushing through
He felt the lassitude of the cliff
Her heart as heavy as a mountain
He felt the long gone man’s shame
His back as heavy as a mountain
He saw the ocean
The colored fish eating the seaweeds sleeping on his skin of stone

He saw the sadness of a womb parched by the memory of a murder.
With her hands she had taken a throat
She had kissed lips
Desperately birthing again
From the murder of the one
Who had owned her soul

Muškarac saw her face face and her swimming dreams
She was hoping for a savior
And thought she had found the perfect one
When she saw his face in her swimming dreams.
But the wombs parched by the memory of a murder
Were emptied of love
Swallowed a long time ago
By the man who had owned her soul.
And so she left Muškarac by the tree.

Muškarac saw the snake
Embracing each one of his veins
Showing him all that was hiding in the depths of his blood
And all this and much more.
He felt in each of his molecules
breathing in his cells
from his bones to his blood
shivering through his nerves and muscles,
all the way up to his pores
Thousands and Thousands of mouths
singing out his ancient memories,
the powerful language of his body.
And from his heart he sent peace throughout his land
he visited his waters, his lakes, his rivers and cliffs
offering peaceful tears to fill up a new ocean.

The snake embraced Mushkarac
To make him a man

fed him venom and birds
told him secrets only snakes know.

fed him branches and birds
told him the secrets only snakes know.

fed him bark and birds
told him secrets only snakes know

fed him mud and birds
told him secrets only snakes know

fed him worms and birds
told him secrets only snakes know

fed him bones and birds
told him secrets only snakes know

fed him a porcupine sleeping in a wale’s guts
told him to listen to birds’ secrets.

One day finally, Muškarac
turned to the snake and said:

I have many mothers
but you have fathered me.
Before I became
I was thousands and thousands of faces
I was the tide, the lassitude,
The Mother’s cave and the Father’s sand
I was the deep waters, the stones
I was all at once
thousands of years standing still in a drop of ocean.

I will make songs from the secrets you’ve taught me to hear -

I will move slowly when I hunt
swiftly when I kill
stand still when I am
I will grow when I love
plant trees for the birds
and give my body to the seas
when I die.

The snake embraced Muškarac
and pushed him from the tree.