Odin's Day Night

Odin’s day Night

I wrap a poor turn 

of grizzled hope

around the moon

so frayed

I wrap it in the too 
opulent velvet 
of a voice

so dark

singing the

old

sagas of inamoratas

journeys' endings

rhymes of baldur's fall

monks' canted fragments

figments of

gods and demons

queens and fools

past and future

love and death.

The night sky is freckled

with perseid’s white splash,

droplets of star burning

strained through the alembic

of a staring nullity

defining my preterition,

sizzling like the rasp

of some old god’s laugh

rough from a silence

passing paleology.

How their light runs

fleet suns of Perseus

skittering across

night’s spread table

a howl on the ripped nail

of moon splintering

on Odin’s day

night as remote

as the face behind 

a blue electric vow, 

close as

the corvine quark

tumbling sable japes.

That laughter in the air, 

yelling from the beaks of crows   

falls high above 

beyond the circling light;

how the void must ring with it

time out of mind

IN PERPETUUM.

~August 2011








This poem will be included in Gemini/Scorpio/Capricorn, the upcoming poetry collection from ALL CAPS PUBLISHING, which will also feature large delicious slabs of poetry from the inimitable Fireblossom and the always amazing 
Mama Zen
 
Thanks, Shay, for dragging me kicking and screaming into your book, 
and thanks to Marian Kent for helping us make it possible.




If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below:
Odin's Day Night by Hedgewitch O'theWilds



posted for   dVerse Poets open link night

Image: 2005_1011night047, by peadar on flick'r

Shared under a creative commons license

Stormcrow

Stormcrow

Stormcrow

catch me if you can.

Circle and dive as I collapse
in a brick arpeggio,

shattering harpsichord ice bells.

Blow the thaw jazzed as a discord 

down from the burning brass horn

of your craw.
Set your ebonyblue wings acrawl, wind

moonpock shadows on my shoulders, 
your gaze a crackling smoke
of black wildflowers

flamed in the wickered willow

of your yellow eye.

Stormcrow

weep me out another winter

after the fall. I've been waiting,
rebuilding my broken bone box
here in your cold penumbra, 
seen how you 
cock your too cunning head,

pretend to pace on crooked toes, seen

how you love hovering high
showing one crescent feather of

a starbead-bright galaxy, hiding the
brush of full dark; still

I know tomorrow you'll catch me

if you can, my stormcrow

if you can.

~January 2013

If you'd like to hear this poem read by the author, please click below:

stormcrow by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Image: Wheatfield with Crows, Vincent Van Gogh, 1890
Public domain, via wikipaintings.org

Broken Lantern

Broken Lantern
(incanted)

Cricket sing and beat the bat

deaf against a stony post.

Rub your legs that can't be fat;

chase away the sonar ghost.

Broken lantern lost his light

thrown on the rocks of endless night,

snakeskin succubus lost her bite

cast out by a wafer and an old man's fright.

A broken hag saw her mirrored face

plowed up for flowers with a double-bit brace.

Changeling child found a cold embrace

in a boomerang's claw, in a fickle grace.

Light was broken, curse was spoken

though she made no sound. It lay on the ground.

The sun gave a shout, the well gave out

the cow went dry, but the bishop ate trout.

In a hawk heavy sky, when the moon was round

two doves died fast, two sins flew past

the nightingale singing her bloody last

of a lightness broken, a curse soft spoken.

Closed door womb, a raddled room

littered with toys as a baby's tomb

where the curse was spoken, where light lay broken;

where the babe's bound tight and gently lies

in arms of steel where the knife never dies.

Too soon, too soon, for the hard lullabies,

for the waking sleep never meant to keep

where the curse is spoken, the light is broken.

Cricket sing and fool the bat

deaf and blind, lost and found.

Wild wolf howl, wail black cat;

light is broken and lies on the ground.

~November 2012

If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below

broken lantern (incanted) by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub

Image: Light Blue, by Keoni Cabral, on flick'r
Shared under a creative commons license.

Death Of The Doll

  Death of the Doll

I knew when I sold him the doll,

took her from her spellwrought womblight
and felt the hard silver in my hand,

everything changed.

Her soft cloth body wrinkled its rayon ribs,

shuddered all its length.

Her scarab eyes, turquoise beads in black,

stared dead flowers then blinked.

She knew

every secret

and I knew

she'd be made to tell.

They came soon, the droning

gibbering buzzardy crew

full of the code she told

within my bones, the flashing

white sigils of my wrists
the deep bleeding where I hid
the treacherous river in the skullcave
that wheels Leibniz's reversible mill. 

They were there before me

at every hole; behind me as I ran

came the breath, the slap and flap
the assassin's cautious laugh 

muffled

when the blade crossed my throat.
I could not blame her,

she whose stuffing filled the air and drained

down the front 
of my cotton chest.

~November 2012

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub

If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below:

death of the doll by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Some facts about Leibniz:

Header Image, Young Girl with Doll, by Berthe Morrisot
Public domain, via wikipaintings.org
Footer Image: Doll, by Karen O'D, on flick'r
Shared under a creative commons license

Kalypso's Candle

The Desire, by Remedios Vara

Kalypso's Candle

A candle of corpse wax

rum and Chopin

strike through the redacts

of the trembling hand,

where the hum of the sparrowhawk

droning in flight

makes the dream that courses

hunting in darkness

while yesterday's night

strips tomorrow's light,

in the hardwired room

beyond the sun, behind the moon.

The boat was a pea pod   

split while still green

(not a miniscule Pequod

produced by machine,)

rising in weeds, bobbing on acid

of the ceaseless same.

Kalypso castrates the chorus

hunting in darkness

searching the sea fret for an absent name

by runesmoke firelight and candleflame,

singing for deliverance, sinking sleep

under the undertow, nine miles deep.

~November, 2012

 

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub

If you would like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below:

Kalypso's Candle by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Process Notes: Kalypso was a nymph who imprisoned Odysseus on her remote island, enchanting him with her singing. After seven years, Odysseus escaped, desiring to return to his faithful wife Penelope.

The Pequod was the ship of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's Moby Dick 

Header Image: The Desire, by Remedios Varo

All Copyright belongs to the copyright holders

Footer Image: Paul Gauguin's Armchair, by Vincent Van Gogh

Public Domain, both images via wikipaintings.org