nectar poetry

XUAN NGUYEN

Title: THE DIVINE DO NOT LIVE ON THE FIRST FLOOR Poem: I. But from here, I can see the door. I can see the floor of the first divide before the heavens’ demise, I will be the snake that swallows heaven wholly, I will swallow it holy, I will swallow it: Holy.) II. But from here, there is no more than the gild that surrounds me. Starling in a cage, who will you be? What will you sing? (Can you hear the fairies sing, each to each? Seed to futile seed?) They will never find the green. III. I have seen it. But I am a star in a cage. A house in the fen, IF, WHERE, AND WHEN. I grew up in this swamp, a boy watching silken tree breeding silken moth, cocoons unraveling in clever fey-fingers, who sold their silks with bells and dead-ringers. IV. In the Silverwood of the Crescent Court banking the swamp, I first saw red. I first raw fed. (continues)
(When I rose from the remnants of viscera, my belly full of roses, The way the fairies looked at me was the way birds look at birds of a feather.) V. One day, I heard the fairies sing, A bird is a bird is a worm, upon the firmament of the kingdom of heaven. I held firm: I will be a serpent, if I must be a worm. VI. Unlike the fey, I have seen. I have found the green. Severin, oh, Severin. You know that the heavens will not win. I will be Ouroboros me. VII. Chevalier Lacandola, Will you do more than-- plead. When you know. When you know what I am. Inimitable, unforgivable, and everlastingly destined to be forgotten. The world will not remember me. I have made art: I have a legacy of ripe blood, milk petal, and star scale. But there have been others before me. And there will be others after me. None the same, but the same. (continues)
VIII. I may die forgotten, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, as long as I am seen by Holy. Holy is a mirror. Holy is what I will become. Holy is what I have won, and which you were given from the heavens, SEVEN, SEVEN, SEVERIN. IX. In Holy, I will find: the shed-gold of gilt cage, the silver-eye of silk pearl, a mouth of venomous design, And a fate to match mine. X. A fate to match mine-- we shall see in time who becomes Divine.

Xuan Nguyen is a disabled, transgender, and Vietnamese-American writer and artist who does music as FEYXUAN. They focus on the intersections between transgender identity, divinity + monstrosity, and stigmatized mental and physical health. Their work has appeared in Prismatica Magazine, Rogue Agent, and beestung. They have two upcoming chapbooks: LUNG, CROWN, AND STAR (Dec 2020, Lazy Adventurer) and THE FAIRIES SING EACH TO EACH (Nov/Dec 2020, Flower Press). Xuan can be reached through their website at feyxuan.com or on Twitter @feyxuan.

2 thoughts on “XUAN NGUYEN”

  1. Pingback: PiP 108 Featuring Xuan Nguyen | Poets in Pajamas Reading Series
  2. Pingback: Xuan Nguyen || FEYXUAN – ANMLY

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