Copyright © 2018 by Jonathan Borden. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
ABLANATHANALBA
A scalding of water follows
her daughters like a funeral’s
family car, tears trailing desolate
skid-marks laid there by squealing wheels
ABLANATHANALB
barreling through abandoned parking lots,
through tired and torn veils of morning
air, crackling choruses of hymens worn
thin by men confusing their talent with
ABLANATHANAL
a gift, sculptors’ hands abusing
beauty, chiseling from pink throats
songs dawn conjures for those whose parched hearts thirst
to know and be shown the way to
ABLANATHANA
where blood of martyrs hits unconquered stone,
to go forth by day until its
hope breaks into shadow, bowing
again in the ancient place pagan earth
ABLANATHAN
and Christian bone twist in embrace,
bodies reverencing nature
where enemies have been kissing ever
since god’s creation to kick up a mist
ABLANATHA
of petrichor, still pungent and
fresh, some common sense coming in
after ending reigns, scenting silence, what
she wants more than the faint consolation
ABLANATH
of its fragrance is to feel how
hard the magnificence of his
column has fallen, to impart to them
what notorious art for too long her
ABLANAT
husband’s reticence kept concealed
from them, a mage’s widow their
matriarch, calling on strange cats clawing
blood pacts into shapeless things she
ABLANA
gives names, unfamiliar shades her
voice trains to raise from indifferent graves
their motorcade traces over as its
mourners pace through veins pulses of
ABLAN
memory carve, arteries crawling up
ladder rungs of centuries, re-purposed
to serve new mistresses for yet
another eternity, curing them
ABLA
first of her little girls’ crippling
malady, the worst part of tragedy
that it plays nurse to babes whose curse
is not to bleed, but weep and worry for
ABL
every crisis or crime otherwise
averted by the magic of
words, charms inverting language, lines turning
tides and heads when those three graces
AB
recite profane phrases belief
makes sacred, sayings a mother knows bring
about changes, foregoing the droning
pall of a palindrome drowning
A
out love’s whispers before they can fill her
home, translation making clearer
for them all the meaning of his leaving:
“You are are our father, protect us from fear.”
Nota bene:
☞ The title is taken from an ancient palindrome often found on several specimens of Greek magical papyri and amulets, where it frequently, although not exclusively, appears written as a diminishing phrase; that is, a spell reduced one-letter-at-a-time per line, resulting in an inverted triangular form of text, reminiscent of an early form of concrete poem. It is almost always accompanied by the depiction of an armed spirit with serpents for legs, similar to its better-known cousin, the famous Abraxas amulets, which were crafted for similar occult purposes. The meaning of the word Ablanathanalba is noted by Claude Lecouteux in his Dictionary of Ancient Magic Words and Spells, translated by Jon E. Graham and published at Rochester, Vermont by Inner Traditions in 2015, on page 6, as: “You are our father.” According to Lecouteux, its purpose then, and whenever written in this form since, is to protect the bearer from fear.
Jono Borden is a Canadian poet, novelist, lyricist, screenwriter, and filmmaker known for transgressive lyricism.
