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.}

 

 

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

 

The Feather Seed

 

 

 

 

 The Feather Seed

(a 55)

There was a feather;

it grew from my eye until

it was my eye.

There was a word.

It grew from my quill until

it was a wing.

There was a seed;

it grew from the soil of

every word decaying, until

it was a tree where 

quilled birds sang

like candles in the dark.

August 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for 

The Sunday Muse

hosted by Carrie Thackery Van Horn

and 

 

 

Sherry Marr's 

Rewilding challenge at earthweal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eyes Of A Sailor

 

 

 

 

 

Eyes Of A Sailor

(a 55)

 

 My eyes grow rheumy

swimming in moonblur

but witnessing still

light's cut, color's fill,

shadow's indigo blot.

Light the blade, color the cloth,

blue shadow stitching together what's lost.

Old cells' ramparts

falling unfixed; 

wind pulls their dust,

time washes waves

over mitochondrial graves,

but memory sails its unsinkable boat

holding afloat

my far-sighted ghost.

 

 

July 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's

Open Link #129

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: The Boatman, and Boat of the Mermaid, © Sabin Balasa  Fair Use

Crow Call

 

 

 

 

Crow Call

(a 55)

 

We always wear black

the crows and I,

call our skies

with a half-born crack,

shadow nests where our treasures lie,

 eat skeleton suppers with glass-star eyes.

 

Never look back.

Never look back

 

at bones we've picked

bleaching dry,

at red we've beaked

with black tails high,

dead in the darkwood

with summer's sigh.

June 2022

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poet's Pub

Open Link

Images: Satellite 2014 ©Bryan Holland, via internet, Fair Use

Antlers, author unknown, via internet, Fair Use

 

Warfire

 

 

 

 

Warfire

In the killing fine fabric

of inflorescent flame

we walk, we burn,

dwindling from kindling

to bullet-bruised smut

alone in a dark

our dying lights up.

  

Murderers in red

boil a soup from the dead

in our hollowed heads

hidden hired thugs move,

their inhalation our blood,

their exhale the air

where the fire fed.

~May 2016

rewritten and reposted for DVerse Poets Pub

OLN March 2022

Image: Ukrainian State Border Guard Service site damaged by shelling in Kyiv region, Ukraine,  handout picture released February 24, 2022. (Press service of the Ukrainian State Border Guardvia Reuters)   Fair Use

The Night Dancers

 

 

The Night Dancers

 (a 55)

 

The song dreaming night

  is a film over the world

hiding a thousand dancers

painted with

the blood of the moon.

 

They hum

as they spin, but

I never hear them speak.

Dawn's claw-hammer

beats them to dust

 

leaving a flicker

of chamomile and orange,

 ghost breath of a

performance

seen best

 

through

mist-green glass.

 

 

 

 

January 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Blond Nude With Orange,Blue Couch, 1925 © John French Sloan   Fair Use

Glasses, author unknown, via Sunday Muse   Fair Use 

Kowboy Katzenjammer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Kowboy Katzenjammer

When Kowboy Katzenjammer

comes to Kittycon

he always brings his religion.

Sixgun and spurs

forecast high-noon confessions

and lavish donations.

He preaches tomcat gospel

to green-eyed kittens

in sharp ears and lazy ribbons,

offers his cardboard box

in the church of broken locks

to a fury of furries

 trading their fur

for a two-second purr.

 

 

 

 

December 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note:This 55 uses the following words from Shay's Word List (Laura Nyro), which I did not include in my previous poem for that prompt: confession,forecast,fury,lazy,religion,tomcat

Image via Sunday Muse   Fair use

 

 

 

Starlorn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Starlorn

(a 55)

 

 

 

The black dog runs

on the wind that

reaps the world.

 

He bites starlorn

at the moon who knows

his teeth will find marrow.

 

Behind him comes

the scythe that cuts tomorrow

down to bone.

 

Moon must learn to bleed,

monkeys to eat snow,

man to live on tears

where the black dog runs.

 

December 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Dverse Poets

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Moonrise, 1884, © Stanislaw Maslowski   Public Domain

Wolf-Dog, manipulated, 1976 © Jamie Wyeth  Public Domain

Winter's Ship

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter's Ship

 (a 55)

 

 Oaks on the hillside

know wind's desire

fear nothing but fire

become ships in harbor

to ride the waves' wire.

 

In winter without color

midnights without number

sun  cold as axe-snarl

even passion must freeze

or build a way out.

Wind-eater, wave-runner

dragon-faced prowler

king's-welcome coffin;

last home like her first,

the earth roots remember.

 

 

 

December 2021

 

 

 

 

 posted for dVerse Poets Poetics:

Passions Stamped on Lifeless Things

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historical Note: "The Gokstad ship is a 9th-century Viking ship found in a burial mound at Gokstad ..Vestfold, Norway It is the largest preserved Viking ship in Norway. It is also the largest Viking ship ever found...During the excavations, a human skeleton was found in a bed inside a timber-built burial chamber. The skeleton was that of a man aged approximately forty to fifty years old, of powerful build..; his identity is unknown. The bones of twelve horses, six dogs, and one peacock were found laid out around the man's body.." ~wikiedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Gokstadskipet, Vikingskipmuseet, Oslo, 2005, Karamell, shared under a Creative Commons License via wikimedia commons

Danish Winter Landscape, detail, 1838 © Johan Christian Dahl

Gratitude

 

 

 

Gratitude

is a kind of ash

that blows in volcano wind,

falling opal feather-scales hissed

off by fire-snakes that coil

their islands in the sea,

all we have left perhaps

of rocky miles of ore and gold

stacked heavy in earth's shadowbox

melting in pressured flux

spit out to lift a mountain

from the core. 

~November 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reposted from 2012 for Thanksgiving 2021

Open Link

at DVerse Poets 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving to All 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 55 serpent feathers for  the absent g-man; grateful always

 

Header Image: Mayon Volcano, Philippines, by Alan Flowers, on flick'r

Shared under a creative commons license

Footer Image: rendering of Yaxchilan Feathered Serpent Diety, byEl Commandante

public domain, via wikimedia commons