The Ring-bolted Sword

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "..Lay between us the ring-bolted sword

the sharp-edged iron as it lay before

when we two together lay in one bed

when we had the name of man and wife...

Much have I said. I would say more

if more time for speech were granted me

but my voice fails my wounds are throbbing

I said what was true and now must depart.."

~Sigurdarkvida in skamma, Poetic Edda

trans Carolyne Larrington

 

 

 

 

The Ring-bolted Sword

(a 55)

 

 You brought iron into our unquiet bed

when you saw I wasn't the mask you'd paid for.

On battlefields only the dead

sleep easy.

Now you're gone

but the death-chill won't leave

these nights where my dreams

grow hyenas and serpents.

What lies tangle

truth can only mutilate.

I say what is true

and depart.

 

 

 

September 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Desperate Oracles at

desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images via wikimedia commons shared by Creative Commons license, full attribution at links: 

Cultural History Museum Oslo. Norwegian Viking-Age Exhibition 12 The Broken Sword  from Vold, Hedmark, deliberately bent and destroyed before buried as grave gift, 10th c

X-ray of the reconstructed sword from the Viking boat burial at Ardnamurchan[scotland], by Pieta Greaves of AOC Archaeology {10th c.}

 

 

Earthbound Fish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earthbound Fish

 

 

It wants to fly

it does

or at least swim

but melancholy never made 

a path to waves or sky

any more than 

Escher's tessellations made

a living

school of fish. They only made

wallpaper

or a fish-dance of replicated cells

that might be somehow the

mute components

of a self-eating brain.

 

It needs wings

that want to be brushes,

that will refresh the distempered

canvas from black

to floating clouds.

Feathers are only clouds, after all,

air things clipped and pressed

into Icarus-wax, 

so why not?

But the paint is caked and dry,

feather-breaking,

and the staggered beating

 like an old heart

that stumbles itself into silence.

Meanwhile ten thousand starlings

live in their moving mosaic, 

a matrix of cloud,

a canvas

of pure flight

from earthdark to light;

 

it wants it wants

 so much

to fly.

September 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Fish wallpaper by M.C. Escher, courtesy of  Etoffe

Starling murmuration over Scotland, no attribution given. Via internet  Fair Use 

Mask Of Aphrodite

 

 

 

 

 

Mask Of Aphrodite

 

"There is no cure for love other than marriage." 

~Irish proverb 

 

 

Love's an old wolf who howls when she pleases,

her black lips drawn back in mock of a grin.

She's made me her meat for chancers and losers,

to open the locks and let anyone in.

 

Her yellow teeth are blunted with winters

but her fevers burn hot as melted brass.

Her eyes are flat-white as Attic marble

rolling behind Aphrodite's mask.

Her promises drift like leaves in October.

Her vows of fidelity make the stones laugh.

There's never been one she ever was true to

except the ones who died too fast.

Since I was that child who was used as a woman

since I was that woman who thinks like a child

I've run with her pack. The crows find my dinner;

there's a price to pay for being born wild.

I never whore for playthings or money

but three times it saved my life.

I never lie for the sake of loving,

only to play at being a wife.

I never was called to be a drunkard,

but I've been every drunkard's best friend,

to drop the mask when I see it coming;

 

the black-lipped

bitter end.

September 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Illicit Encounters

at desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Wolves, © Andrew Wyeth

Head of Aphrodite, via Brittanica

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Silver Song

 

 

 

 

 The Silver Song

(a 55)

I don't remember when

the Black Fear came; it seems

it's always been here, a broken

rotted smell under the floor,

invisible but disruptive

as catching on fire.

Bright-piercing in the night-oak,

a bird too small to see

sings quicksilver notes.

 

Which more unexpected,

that it sings at all,

or that I hearing it

rejoice?

September 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Fireblossom's Desperately Different (the unexpected)

at desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Untitled (Blurred Figure) ©Zdzisław Beksiński   Fair Use

Blue Tit, ©Karl Martens  Fair Use