The Libation Bearers

Kathryn McGinty
Nov 1, 2015
2 min read

I wrote this poem as part of a book I'm working on, Nightmare Iris, Nightmare Sara (working title, don't judge me too much just yet), and it was supposed to be one of the posts set for November. Obviously, it was not posted during that month because of seizure fun and games, but I kept the date anyway. This poem draws from Milton's Paradise Lost and Aeschylus's Oresteia, with some of Le Fanu's Carmilla for spice.

I was listening to Lana Del Rey while I wrote it. You can probably tell. Anyway, here it is.

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It’s time to go. It’s time to leave this pantheon of strangers, to steal on and away. The musician steps down from the stage and gives his hat a tip, gives you a smile. This night circus is a whirlwind. Can I share a word, freak to fellow freak? Let us whisper. The fair actress rises from the stage, shakes the hands of her admirers and smiles with all her teeth. Have you ever imagined paradise?

I, now, I turn away from the stage, I am a doll disjointed and unmade. The great room pales and fades from focus. Let us whisper, you and I, let’s go. Brief scenes flicker on and off and on, the smoking woman, the hidden gun. Just out of the corner of my eye the chanteuse holds the femme fatale close, strokes her hair and sigh-sings cheek to cheek.

Oh, the rhythm of rocking branches calligraphic, inked across a sky of deepening indigo, dream-thick quiet, dream-thick drowning blue, blue, blue.

The libation bearers lie in wait. Their lips drip with blood, their ragged nails dig into the ground. Just imagine paradise. Last night’s playbills fall. They join your famed disappearing act, new paper companions for the road.

Dark young man, you, you, you, shadow-sweet and tender as the ocean. The night is black water waiting for my breath. I have no lungs, no throat, no teeth, just these panicked pins and needles splintered all throughout my silhouette.

I thrash and thrash. The road is empty. I have no tongue to bite. Let the wind whistle high and sorrowing, let it keen its bean sídhe keen. This air is scorched and sharp and so, so, so jealous of our bones.

The libation bearers lie in wait, feeding in the dark. Their soil beds stink of spilled cabernet sauvignon, stink of offerings poured out for worms.

Do you remember the quicksilver? The shattered sparkle, the hunter’s eyes gleaming like the moon? It’s time to go! The trees drip mercury. Everyone shies from poison. The stone bridge echoes but the graffiti has never heard a voice. In the rain the streets have that famous film noir shimmer. Time to go. The devil took my skin. Time to go! We’re at a deadlock, deadlock, deadlock, yes, you and I and all the others. Time to go! Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock! Do the vengeful gods remember you?

She is a glittering assembly, all light and colored glass, rock and roll from lips to fingertips. Talented heartbeats come on cue and beat, beat, beat. You worship fire opal starlight with all your champagne soul.