The Spot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Spot

 

 

The black spot came on a sunny day.

It was small but full as a school for ants

each one learning to swarm, to eat, to

serve the next. Where will I go when they

finish with me, in autumn rain when

I fall like a leaf

from the tree of my life.

 

All my souls will be flying on the wind,

a storm of stories ahead of the wavering night.

I trace with a crow's feather the map

they travel on my skin 

the winding and the blowing away. Which

dark bird dropped it, what ink has dripped it

on time's page, the black spot that came

 

on a sunny day

and will not go away. 

March 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for the Word Garden Word List

at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images:Ants, © Dunja Zubak  via internet   Fair Use

Crows in flight, via internet author unknown    Fair Use

Dream Of Wyverns

 

 

 

 

 

Dream Of Wyverns

 

 

 

The plane of grief is unrelieved

by fence or furrow, tree or cliff. It

stretches out a flight of new moons,

a river of crow's wings

hiding its eyes.

 

In the distance wyverns pace, their

asp-tongues a piercing, their growl-song sharp

as a whispering sting

poisoning dark.

 

To walk this plain

you must step over bones,

speak the language of ravens,

earn the kisses of crows

 

see the colors like bats

flat and profound

forever dependent on wavering sound

as it pours from the red well,

a bucket of misses splashing cold drown.

 

Everything here is

a secret of night. Black

angels drop like char on the snow

in peace as they fall

on the crow's nest below.

 

 

June 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Open Link #8 at desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images are taken from the internet, artists unknown.  Fair Use 

The Scarecrow's Sister

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Scarecrow's Sister

(a 55)

 

 

The scarecrow's sister

feels the breath of November

scans the valentine of Winter

sees her brother surrender

his Eden again to Martinmas weather,

mocked in a cornfield

crestfallen with crows.

Tho his overcoat's empty

as her sentimental replay

of Romeo reborn,

she knows Spring will raise him

high on his stick

alive in the corn.

September, 2022

posted for

Word Garden Word List

and

earthweal's 

Open Link # 137

Images: In The Fields, Evening  © Jules Breton circa 1900   Public Domain

Pumpkinhead--Self Portrait © Jamie Wyeth, 1972  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

 

The Crow-Mother

 

 

The Crow-Mother

 (a triquain)

 

 

As a child

I knew a crow-woman.

She loved shiny things, breathy south wind

and tall corn, green in the field of desire. She

wore onyx feathers grieving the time

when she had real words, not

just for me, 

but for everyone. She

was friend to doves unable to mourn,

a lover of small clouds which could never give rain,

a mother of all misplaced things: keys

coins and rings, strings, lost girls

life passed by.

December 2021

posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

Note: the triquain is a counted syllable form based on threes. It normally consists of seven lines, each line increasing in syllables by three to twelve, then decreasing again by three to the close. This is a triquain swirl, which is slightly different in containing 13 lines. (3 - 6 - 9 - 12 - 9 - 6 - 3 - 6 - 9 - 12 - 9 - 6 - 3).

 

 

Images: Crow Prince Charming, © Rene Magritte   Fair Use

Crow woman cosplay, via Sunday Muse   Fair Use 

Call of the Crow

Call of the Crow

The crow called,

What world is coming?

A world with no ease in the seeing

where the last battle

finds no ending, where gold eats up valor

where no sending of ravens

can swallow the feast.

The crow called,

what world do I see

where summer kills flowers

where kine have no milk

and die eating dust,

where women
gamble their worth,

and old men
bring false judgment;

where each child

is a reaver, each man

a betrayer,

blinding his own eyes;

 

where the sea can feed no one

not even a gull,

where poison is flowing

deep in the well.

The crow called,
I shall, I shall
see it all,

but no more

any world that is dear to me.

~April 2015

Poem 27 for April--unlinked, and a total self-indulgence.
Reposted and lightly re-edited today, December 27, 2019 for Sherry's last prompt
at 
The Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

Process notes: This poem is drawn directly from a 9th century(?) prophecy(below) I happened on that reminded me very strongly of the description of the final days before the Ragnarök in Völuspá. Bleak as these prophecies are, I also see them as vital warnings, informing us so perhaps their dire ends can somehow be averted, foretelling as they do elements of a personal disintegration which leads to the more universal one.

This prophecy is Celtic, and spoken by the goddess Babd, the war goddess aspect of The Morrigan, who often takes the form of a crow:

I  shall not see a world that will be dear to me.

Summer without flowers,
Kine will be without milk,
Women without modesty,
Men without valour,
Captures without a king.

... ... ...

Woods without mast,
Sea without produce,

... ... ...

Wrong judgments of old men,
False precedents of brethren,
Every man a betrayer,
Every boy a reaver.
Son will enter his father's bed,
Father will enter his son's bed,
Everyone will be his brother's brother-in-law.

... ... ...

An evil time!
Son will deceive his father,

Daughter will deceive her mother.

prophecy of the goddess Badb,  from "The Second Battle of Mag Tuired"

~wikipedia








Image: Crow in flight at Isfahan, Iran, 2012, shared under a creative commons license
via wikimedia commons     Manipulated.

Friday 55 December 15 2017

Another Friday swings us around to the writing table where 55 words make up a meal. This time of year I always find complicated; the social pressures, the meretricious and constant blare of exploitative advertisement, and various reefs and shoals of real life often combine to annul the festive, let alone that anticipatory sense of joy the holidays once may have brought to us as children. Nevertheless, it is a rich time, and I hope we can bring some of its fruits to our Friday cornucopia.

The rules remain the same--no rules, except to write 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less, and link in the comments below between Friday and Sunday. Many thanks to Galen Hayes for making this meme the pleasure it is, and a holiday toast to absent friends, in his honor.

The spirits here are not in a particularly seasonal mood...

 The Crow Shaman

The crow-shaman

knows the bones,

knows the fighting dance

where flesh is sweetest;

how to open secret doors

to rich warm ruby

meals beneath tough skin;

how something small, something shiny

can be stolen and made magic

even without hands.

Each death, each face,

each twilight rise

beneath his night-wide wings

he owns forever.

~December 2017

 Factoid: Crows remember and recognize individual human faces.

 Image via internet, author unknown.  Fair use.

Friday 55 November 10 2017

Welcome once again to the Friday journey, a space where we can assemble our word pictures for ourselves and each other, while we remember a fine man who gave of himself to support the best things in others, Galen Hayes. Here we have no social pressures, no strings, no obligation to participate, and no rules other than to allow our words to come together in any way they choose, prose or poetry, as long as there are 55 of them, no more, no less. Leave your link in the comments, and I will be by to see what the muse has dictated to you this week. As always, the prompt is live from Friday through Sunday, but I have turned comment moderation off for this session, as I may be out of pocket at times.

So, let's begin the trip...

Hospital View

Hawks and crows

make a mobile as they fly;

life outside the glass  

holds together trees and sky.

Inside a yellow quiet

blankets thinning legs,

hands withered on the covers

like leaves that Fall has wrecked.

From a night that has no rest

to a day screaming your name;

hawks, crows, and

 cold November rain.

~November 2017

Image via internet, author unknown, manipulated.   Fair use.