F. J. Bergmann

Poetry

Gallery by Kelli Hoppmann

 

 

 

Amaranthine

After Black-Ribboned Misanthrope, oil on panel, Kelli Hoppmann, 2008

 

You think of the chrysanthemum-leaf pattern

as camouflage for military black ops so secret

that their funding comes from pirate casinos

built atop crumbling coral atolls. On your fingers

 

you count— not blessings, exactly. Your hands

were made to hold fasces, to contain raw power.

Snake-shaped temptations stroke the warm air

by your thighs, long to entwine your bloodied spear.

 

You infuse yourself, a pale sac of poisonous herbs,

in bands of golden light while waiting for the oceans

to rise again. The price is steepening, but somebody

has to pay it. You can't imagine why anyone's horn

 

would contain the grain or grapes of a harvest, why

anyone would give their ill-gotten wealth away.

 

 

 

Fatal Mistakes

After The Jack of Diamonds Is a Hard Card to Play, Kelli Hoppman,

oil on panel, 2008

 

You drifted out of your trees and reformed

into human bodies—a tactic you had found

to be effective in the past with lost wanderers

in the dark woods. But he had other shapes

 

beside a man's. While you were still becoming

maidens, he was already a dragon; you burned

for him. As you became hunters, he was a wolf

tearing out your throats before the transformation

 

was complete. You bled out on the forest floor,

and he made himself a satin smoking-jacket

from the wet sheen of your hearts’ blood. Then

he was a man again, or something like a man,

 

and you both clung to him, cleaving to each

of his shoulders like heavy, glistening wings.

 

 

 

Give and Take

from Whisper II, oil on panel, Kelli Hoppmann, 2007

 

We fell from the sky like rain nourishing

grateful flowers. Except it wasn't like that,

exactly. Nature finds a balance, setting off

one phenomenon or entity against another,

 

and we complemented each other's subtleties

or vices to perfection: we were flora, fauna,

predator, prey in turn. We blossomed in sun

or in the shade beneath the weeping willows,

 

I, with the flexed javelin of my tail coiled

around my arm like a tactful escort; you,

wearing your foliage well. Pity about that …

let's call it an asset rather than a deformity.

 

What disturbs us can be weaponized. The dark

stain is crawling up your body like a disease.

 

 

 

Unsinkable

from The Scene, Kelli Hoppmann, oil on panel, 2012

 

Everyone inhales, holding in the fumes as long as

they are able. The ballroom is a river of glowing

smoke. You can barely hear the music anymore,

barely keep your ash-gray gown from slipping

 

below your breasts (though no one would notice

if it did, you think). Even a fan held up to the face

casts a transformation. From its shadow, you whisper

the few unrepeatable secrets you can remember.

 

The instruments strike up again, and a clear voice,

coloratura, begins to sing, "Nearer my …" something

you can't make out through your hair. You're floating

by now, and almost no one is watching you. Outside,

 

the sea is inching up the brass-bolted porthole.

Some masks, you would not want to look beneath.

 

 

 

What Has Been Summoned

from an untitled oil on panel, Kelli Hoppmann, 2008

 

What you bring out of your dark red dreams,

generated from sheer loneliness, cannot be

so easily put back. Don't call it an incubus;

call it by whatever name rises to your lips.

 

In your stark bedchamber, as it clambers

painfully out of the acanthus-patterned carpet,

a pink glow suffuses your landlord-white skin.

Vermilion sheets billow in a warm wind

 

with the faint smell of sulfur. The ancient name

you gave this entity stains it with antecedents:

you stroke it with language, remember just how

you were able to use your tongue, watch it flinch.

 

Your hand is already reaching toward the familiar

buttons; you know just what you will say next.

 

 

 

F.J. Bergmann writes poetry and speculative fiction, often simultaneously, appearing in DM, Black Treacle, Lakeside Circus, On Spec, Right Hand Pointing, Silver Blade, and elsewhere. Editor of Star*Line and poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change; recent awards include the 2012 Rannu Prize for speculative poetry and the 2013 SFPA Elgin chapbook award.