uninitiation
by Shane Rowlands
Lori Lorion, Ghosts of Earth and Sky Kingdoms, 2011-14, acrylic, oil, charcoal on canvas, 48 x 48 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
uninitiation
SHANE ROWLANDS / OCT 2020 / ISSUE 2
Outside the party
in fever-sprung night
blurry with bourbon
and pot-smoke I lie
down with grass under
fretwork of flame tree
Snake-hipped the boy-man
sidles beside me
to point out pale stars
flickers his tongue Hot
breath in my ear-hole
‘home-time’ friends stumble
tug my sleeve Clean-skinned
amateur wisdom
teeth uncut I am
not ready to leave
ripe-lipped girl-woman
sway full with tree flame
charming the snake-man
under the music
Misremembering
Friends leave me slurring
blurry-mouthed about
flamboyant blossoms
born
dirt
soul
time
flash
blank
***
I conjure her clum-
sy with drink uncens-
ored tongue-slung rhapso-
dic strung feisty too
trust-smoke naïve she
believes art changes
lives does not know how
Chapped hands puppet-walk
me boneless skin-bag
to a car I am
booty-tossed across
three laps stiffening
cocks in the back seat
unbuckled Driving
too fast past river
white knuckled five of
them feral with the
smell of me turning
to meat Pulse of street-
lights warning prayer
you belong to sky
Uninitiated
astronaut no time
for countdown blast off
dart
burn
salt
flesh
time
blink
orbit in numb-struck
inky null and void
beyond terror-freeze
exosphere of shame
Subatomic learn
to breathe dark matter
dream in ancient dead
languages eat star-
fire spit hydrogen
spun to alien
no-body-not-home-
no-me means no means
no means she kite high
crow stoned flash blank no
cannot recall how
to make mouth make sounds
she lost bladder and
vowels Barely eighteen
without my consent
my body was changed.
I was not in it.
It was not mythic.
I did not become a flame tree.
No river god, my father could not save me.
***
Sponge-tongued for years My
mouth overcrowded
with blame I misnamed
her shameful Refused
to claim her piecemeal
truths returning-to-
sender One panic
attack at a time
to bear mute witness
***
Each atmospheric
re-entry to earth
uncontrollable
space junk hurtling jaw-
tight she burns orange
blue white collides with
gravitational
collapse into cold-
sweated-teeth-body
wisdom hard-bitten
chews fear grief shame rage
until soft Swallow
to metabolise
how to be inside
darkness to greet light
I skin crawl for hours
shudder and twitch to
unscramble lost codes
I will never know
Who I might have been
undetonated
yet everything sings
if you listen hard
And all that I am
is breath tethering
her to me to us
to earth to here and now
Shane Rowlands is a writer and collage artist who lives in Brisbane, Australia on Yugara-Turrbal country. She has published two poetry chapbooks—rear vision (Spindrift, 1997) and cicatriced histories (Metro Arts, 1995)—and has written for theatre and live performance. Recent exhibitions include fall seven times, stand up eight (PF Studio, 2013) and Royals, Angels & Assassins (WAG, 2015). She has worked as an editor and dramaturge, public policy maker, arts and cultural strategist, and as a researcher, curator and writer for exhibitions and business story-telling.
Lori Lorion earned her MFA at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her work has been exhibited in California, Oregon, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Vermont and Skopje Macedonia. Lori's paintings are dreamlike celebrations of the human body in motion. She creates a reality where imposing, large-scale figures quietly emerge from within a mysterious world. Her brightly colored, often richly textured paintings have a musical feel to them. Unabashedly bold, yet gentle and silent, these robust figures pulsate with life. Lori lives, works, and teaches in North Carolina.