Doll Street

Here they made and sold the dolls
That would be made to dance, bow,

Act, write, fight, flirt, and run off.
A still face of fixed bright paint

Could seem to weep in a sleeve,
Howl at the sky in a rage,

Or give a face much like it
A deep, kind look. We know how

To make our dolls seem like us,
At least to us. We don’t fool

Our scent-ruled dogs. We don’t fool
The dolls who don’t live for us

In spite of all the loved tales
In which they spring to pleased life,

A life we make them act out.
Some dolls play our ghosts and gods,

Some us, some beasts, some our fears.
Then we put them in a box,

Or stand them up by the hearth,
Or in a shrine, or on shelves.

Some we hide or keep as charms.
Some we use to try to hurt,

To curse, to cast spells, to harm.
Like us, the more old and worn

They are, the less they seem sweet.
Time to head back to Doll Street.

Tied to a Sledge

We all live like Scott
In sight of the Pole,
A black flag in it.

We are not the first.
Great God, what a hard
Place to reach and find

Not so much as hope
Of a boast in it.
We’re none of us first,

And Earth is the worst—
Great for life, of course,
But death for life’s lives.

In a few weeks, Scott
And those with him
Had died in the ice.

Well, it will be more
Than a few weeks yet
For most of us. Still,

We clutch our good-luck
Gods and charms and hope
Our bones, hides, and clothes

Will speak well for us
To those who lurch past
To glimpse that black flag.

The Truth Is Just a Hearth God for Your Soul

That truth was but that it was
Made known to none in this world,

Was a thought that crossed the mind.
And that’s what you have to love

Of a mind built out of thoughts
Half-housed in words and half smoke

That pours out as the house bursts—
That the mind can make up dolls

And gods, all sorts of small toys
Out of what the mind can’t know.

Think of a thing that can’t be.
Think that it is. There you go.

What Comes from Pipe End

There’s no rock to be built on here,
Where spews the pipe from god knows where

Grey muck in a ditch. Let’s watch it
And see what comes out of it next

And feel the rush we get when strange
Things that should not come from the ground,

Should not swim in the light of day,
Not be viewed by the likes of us,

Gush out in full view. Now look here,
Is that a hand-carved, DIY

God of the hearth sunk in ditch muck?
Let’s wipe off the dreck, have a look.

Wash well. Mind that you don’t get sick.
It is! But whose hearth god is this?

A hob with no clothes on? Frigg’s ghost
Cut in oak? Does it have a face?

Is it half a beast? A tossed doll?
Why is it all the things we make

Hint to us of what we wish not
To say or see the light of day?

It’s too late to put it back now.
Bad luck to drop it and walk off;

Worse luck to chuck it off a cliff.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Don’t Learn How to Live in This World

Pay no mind to what
Your gods and dolls say,
The poems and the charms.

You made them, found them,
Picked them from the dirt,
Cut them from trees, carved

Them out of calm rocks.
They talk to you, but
We talk to you, too.

We who were formed, formed
You, and formed who was
Not you to talk, too.

We’re here to tell you,
There are no charms worth
The prayers. You will go.

We will stay. We will
Stay for a while, for
You. Then we’ll go, too.