the garden

Savannah Brown's second collection, in three parts, set against a London on the edge of apocalypse — weighing the largest questions of being against the smallest private wants. Death, chaos, vulnerability and pleasure, and the sweetness that keeps surfacing in the same breath as the dark.

the collection ↗

There's a bluebird in my heart
that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there,
I'm not going to let anybody see you.

There's a bluebird in my heart
that wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him
and inhale cigarette smoke
and the whores
and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that he's in there.

There's a bluebird in my heart
that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay down,
do you want to mess me up?
You want to screw up the works?
You want to blow my book sales in Europe?

There's a bluebird in my heart
that wants to get out
but I'm too clever,
I only let him out at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.

I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be sad.
Then I put him back,
but he's singing a little in there,
I haven't quite let him die
and we sleep together like that
with our secret pact
and it's nice enough
to make a man weep,
but I don't weep...

Do you?

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Why don't people leave off being lovable
Or thinking they are lovable, or wanting to be lovable,
And be a bit elemental instead?

Since man is made up of the elements
Fire, and rain, and air, and live loam
And none of these is lovable
But elemental,
Man is lop-sided on the side of the angels.

I wish men would get back their balance among the elements
And be a bit more fiery, as incapable of telling lies
As fire is.
I wish they'd be true to their own variation, as water is,
Which goes through all the stages of steam and stream and ice
Without losing its head.

I am sick of lovable people,
Somehow they are a lie.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.