Out-and-Out Liars, part 2; Swen Gnillor, Swen Gnikaerb and other Monsters, Chapter 2, part 10

                                                                  10.

It is said that Mary Mary spoke her poems for the giant for two hours, for three hours, for four hours, in hunger not thinking of herself but the beautiful green-eyed man who sat beside her; the giant wanting her, aching for her, the dark troubles within his mind fell silent with each deepening line. The giant would lean forward and reach out to her with a hand the size of an anvil then draw back lest he snap the instrument from which the words flowed.

Seven times the strength of seven men; to push the door

Seven goddesses in gowns of seasonal hues; waiting to take you back again,

Away from summer’s window; to the watery pools of grey clouds

A howling that is heard off shore; like the raider’s plunder,

Instilling fear in the heart; still the world is ringed in darkness.

Larvae trapped in dew, a teardrop of the morning sun; on a blade of grass;

A new-born foal rises; in its dewy eyes a circling,

Up here the land has drained of pools of sky; young to feed and to be fed upon,

“Loverley, loverly loverly” sighs Moira MacManara,

“Grandmothers teach their little darlings; how to make daisy chains...”

Followed through the door; skipping into summer,

“Take your pick”, says the designer

“I can’t see the wood for the trees”. The young man said.

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?  Clear your head”.

Time to hunt the feast, defend the land, there is work to be done.

At day’s end after battle’s approach and sunlit slaughter, all is shared,

In poet’s glow of poet’s fire, a hill of the finest praise into the long night

Through the knot-weed of envy,wise old age watches, it is time to return

Stepping off the shore to catch the wind; they have landed.

What’s that roar?

 Oh, that?”, she says her eyes well versed in misdirection

.“A storm in a tea cup”.

Numb with poetry Mary Mary fell into Chovihani’s arms; Chovihani, too numb to touch, his spirit so filled they did not need to. The giant sat transfixed upon a faraway point, a halcyon time long before his aloneness, in a spell-like trance. And that is how they finally found themselves at table, filling their stomachs with the giant's fair of cured meats, seaweed and kelp salads, eggs the size of paper-weights, water from the purest snow.

They had been tipped gently onto the edge of a wide and firm expanse of polar ice-shelf just before the narwhals dove the 5000 feet depths to their feeding ground, and just after a dozen surfaced from those very fathoms each with a horn which each again nudged towards Chovihani . The length of each tusk, far longer than any in the schools of narwhals fanning out of the bottle-necked leads into open sea- betokened both the seniority and kingship of the deceased ancestor. As Chovihani gathered the rendered horns he inadvertently ‘heard’ the words, “Levelled vale”.

Snow-blind and exhausted they walked over the tundra insignificant captives of the vast  jet-stream. Mary Mary’s particular set of mirages were not visual; she was hearing snippets of show tunes.

Halleluja Cum On get happy

We’re going to the promised land...

It was not clear whether Judy Garland was in Mary Mary's head or if the troubled star was shadowing her at a distance close enough to project through a blizzard.

Halleluja, Come on...!

Were not in Kansas any more!

“You can say that again”, replied Mary Mary.

“What’s that?” Asked Chovihani

Somewhere over the rainbow!

Way up high..Were off to see the wizard..!

Follow the yellow brick road!

“Can I borrow you fur dear?”

“What fur?” queried Chovihani adjusting the bundle of horn tied to his back.

“Don’t rain on my parade..!

Mary Mary lagged behind, the carousel of musical hits momentarily distracting her; she could no longer see her own hand in front of her face, Chovihani was nowhere to be seen.

People, people who need people,

Are the luckiest people in the world, 

Barbara Streisand from a ghostly limousine.  Mary Mary had turned into one of her stage alter-egos West-End Wendy and was channelling more hits, and a few flops, than her slender mind could...well, channel.

We’re having a heatwave...put your lips together and blow...,

The words returned to her like a volley of slaps. No, they were actual slaps; when Chovihani finally traced his steps back to Mary Mary she was locked in an hysteria of Hollywood vamps; Mitzy Gaynor, Rita Hayworth, Marylyn Monroe among others all vied for centre-stage within her in a half naked and potentially lethal mash-up.

Chovihani was adjusting Mary Mary’s knit-ware when the blizzard suddenly abated, his beloved was coming to her senses. Directly beneath them a half-opened frozen hand protruded through the snow. A hundred yards away another half-open hand, then the same distance again, another, forming a perfect circle; unbeknown to them they had arrived at the Vale of Dead Explorers, otherwise known as The North Pole. 

Chovihani instinctively knew what he had to do. His actions would have nothing to do with his new family on an immediate and personal level for the words’ I love humanity, its people I can’t stand,’ rang unaccountably in his head, and his gift of clear-sight-through-touch had taught him to look on the obvious as sign-posts for the hidden. Striding forward drawing each twenty foot tusk from his bundle like broadswords he placed the thick base of each through the half-opened grasp of each explorer; it was a perfect fit and before long twelve spiralling golden staffs stood erect, gleaming like slender menhirs against the blue sky.

“Nothings happening !” Exclaimed Mary Mary after a short time contemplating the polar art installation.

Chovihanis stepped within the giant circle and closed his eyes. Mary Mary and Mitzy watched as the Roma gypsy walked to each tusk and placed a hand upon it. He appeared to be listening intently. Mitzy, however was seeing something entirely different; in a circle stood twelve perfectly restored, if somewhat holographically formed men in formless black cloaks and equally black pointy hats the sides of which covered the face. To Mitzy each apparition was reciting something Mitzy thought sounded like the constant drone of human activity in the city. Mitzy also saw the shape of the whole, the etheric shape. She had seen this once before, somewhere in London when she was a puppy and Mary Mary stood at a doorway in summer arguing with a red faced man, with a neck like a blood-hound who would not let Mary Mary enter; a vast circular library, a dark statue set in its own alcove, a library somewhere near a grove of tress where the other dogs' markings smelt of fresh salmon.  

It was not that Mary Mary did not want to enter the circle, she had the vague feeling that she was neither ready nor entitled to, but she nevertheless understood, deep within her that a change was taking place through her connexion with the man to whom knowledge of some kind was being imparted.  At this point Chovihani looked up into the sky.

From all directions the great climatic cincture that is the jet stream was being drawn into, first, the horizon, then, into the rim of the circle, a haloed reflection, outside of which Mary Mary felt warmer but also realized she was standing in melt-water. Four seasons a second raged with the perimeter of the golden horns like the pastel images of street painting in a down-pour. At the circle’s centre the stone monument engraved with explorer's names disintegrated, its bricks carrying off national flags and slamming them into the ice a great distance away. Whatever force was behind this phenomenon it was not British, American or Scandinavian.The tumultuous Circle narrowed until Mary Mary feared for Chovihani’s life. It came to a dark point directly above the base laid bare by the storm. There was a flash of lightening and a slowing down of time, the air heaved with anticipation; it was as if Moses would appear, or the Arch of the Covenant. Suddenly the dark funnel above the North Pole collapsed in on itself; as suddenly a greyish lintel fell out of the sky landing on the plinth of the former monument to claimants of the northern axis of the planet.

The jet-stream expanded and like a flock of migrating swans, first black then white then silver, disappeared out to every horizon; the air chilled once more and the melt-water icicled over.The twelve hands disappeared under the ice with the abruptness of twelve Ladies of the Lake. Mitzy was left wondering why one of the cloaked figures had given him a knowing wink before vanishing.

In the relative calm Mary Mary embraced Chovihani, mindful not to crush her pet, she was staring over her lovers shoulder at the new monument when it began to dawned on her that she had seen it somewhere before. Yes, she remembered, 8 kilometers from the City of Cork, County Cork, Ireland.

“The Blarney Stone.!”