The Yule Goat

 

 

 

For some continuity in a chaotic time, I repost this Yule poem from 2011 and wish all the happiest of Yuletides, while we leave the New Year to fend for itself. 

Happy Yule to All!

Yule Goat

In December’s dark descent

across crackled breaking sky ice

slivered with dagger snow,

bells ring in whitened night, sharp

hooves stamp on the cloudcloth

shaking pearl dust stripes on

emerald spruces' candelabra arms,

turquoise and white pinwheels

circling their wands

of bitter bark raven haunted.

The god of thunders 

pulls the sun's shadow,

flickering hammer tucked

in his brace of clouds,

drives his twin goats

toward the time when day

and night are strait, equals at last

as Odin's wild hunt 

passes damned, mad,

howling overhead

The Snarler and the Grinder

fleet of foot, heedless of fate
run on; tonight's feast, tomorrow’s

feat, killed for meat this starveling
night, raised at dawn.
Spread the skins and 
let each bone 

fall with care so

those here reborn 

race again on the solar wind.

O bright black eye

split with too much knowledge

devil’s mask, canting voice

of the abyss, god's bearer, hunger's enemy

come bless us this Yule with your
yellow stare, ignite yourself

against the hag’s winter storm,

flute your flames through a straw ribcage. 

Watch us make the old dance new again

under the reckless stars.

 

 

The Gävle goat

December 2011

In Norse myth, Thor was not only provided with his mountain-shattering hammer Mjölnir, his magical, strength doubling belt Megingjörð, but a chariot in which he traveled through the sky pulled by two goats, Tanngrisnir (Old Norse "teeth-barer, snarler") and Tanngnjóstr (Old Norse "teeth grinder") spoken of in the Prose Edda, who could be slain for food at Thor's discretion then resurrected with the power of Mjölnir and returned to the traces.~ from wikipedia: 'The Yule Goat is one of the oldest Scandinavian and Northern European Yule and Christmas symbols and traditions. Originally denoting the goat that was slaughtered during the Germanic pagan festival of Yule, "Yule Goat" now typically refers to a goat-figure made of straw. It is also associated with the custom of wassailing, sometimes referred to as "going Yule Goat" in Scandinavia.' As always, I've taken a few liberties with the letter of the myths.You can read more about the folklore of the Yule Goat here  and the Wild Hunt here.





Images:
Header Photo: Goat watching, by DAV.es,  on flick'r
Shared under a Creative Commons License 
Footer Photo: The Gävle goat burning, author unknown
All copyright belongs to the copyright holder

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.

Down Below

Down Below

A long run last night

under the Silver Eye

Blood on my hide

but not my own.

Here I lie

where the Red Eye

cannot come, where nothing comes

but Death and the turquoise tide.

Here no sound

of song or voice, no hand, alone;

coppery tongue, asleep on bones

and no one comes.

The longhouse winks

its Yellow Eyes, cruel firelight

alive inside, so many smells

a sound like bells

I cannot make

but feel its form

like dust in my throat,

conceived but unborn.

They screamed to see me,

long tongues to greet me slipped

their sharpened iron; I broke them

then, the rafters dripped---

why shouldn't they die?

Soon someone will come.

~April 2015

a monster-waiting-for-his-hero poem, reposted for
Brendan's Hero on the Road

(originally written for National Poetry Month 2015 with Magaly Guerrero

I Hear Fictional Poets:

Create a poem written from the point of view of a fictional character.)

This poem is written in the voice of Grendel,  the 'shadow-walker,'  monster from Beowulf, 

".. an Old English epic poem..[and].. possibly the oldest surviving long poem in Old English..It was written in England some time between the 8th and the early 11th century^..."  "... Beowulf leaves [his kingdom in Sweden or Norway] to destroy Grendel, who has several times killed those asleep in the mead-hall of [the king of the Danes] after having been disturbed by the noise of the drunken revelers. After a long battle, Beowulf mortally wounds Grendel, and Grendel dies in his marsh-den..."~wikipedia

 

A favorite tale of mine, retold and filmed many many times.This is my favorite indie movie version.  

Beowulf and Grendel

Images:Untitled, by Zdislav Beksinski     Fair use

Primitive Man Seated In Shadow, by Odilon Redon    Public domain               

Fool's Box

Fool's Box

From its box of cloud

the lightning howled

to find the trap

of the fool's grey walls,

crack'd them with a fitful fire,

rocked the cradle hard and higher.

Wild, wild, it played within

the morephemes of his box of skin;

burning hot as rain was cold,

too bright to lose, too quick to hold;

 til, sun-collapsed and blue air-bled,

it left him with a pen instead.

~April 2017

for      Brendan's Fools

(a tongue in cheek take for the theme of  April's 30/30)

Images: Untitled, © Zdizlaw Beksinski Fair use via wikiart.org

Fatal Charm

Fatal Charm

Untie the leaf and let it drop.

Shrivel each wing of the stuttering moth.

Shrink the sun, let loose the dark

to stripe the sky-beast's paneled heart

heavy with more than it can hold;

let the rain come hard and cold,

each death's-head drop a memoir told

of summer's wasting, long-winded decline.

Freeze the fruit and kill the vine

that can't be mine. 

~September 2016

posted for     real toads

Weekend Challenge

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Image: Untitled, by Zdislav Beksinkski  Fair Use
Fall Fade   ©joyannjones 2014

Broken

 

Broken

They were married by the moon

on the Pyramid of the Sun,

best man from the Society of Jaguars,

for bridesmaid a flower boy

who loved her yellow hair,

who thought he spoke English,

words lava reefs cooling

in the Pacific of his Español.

They walked, a sun-specked

collection of curiosities, laughing 

along the Avenue of the Dead,

asked the moon, the sun, the stars,

the snarl of the watching Jaguars

for a child

but none came. Broke,

they went back to the States.

He threw the I Ching; the marriage

was annulled. In the neon-long after,

she lost the feel of his deer's eye

startling wild in the dark, the dazzled

pink walls, azure doors, stone streets 

and jade palms of Mexico

where her heart was emptied

on the altar of the Sun.

~May 2016

posted for   real toads

Weekend Challenge

 You can read about the setting of this story, Teotihuacan, Mexico,   here.

Image; by Saiko: Terracotta figures from Teotihuacan in the Louvre, via wikimedia commons

Manipulated.

The Dark House

The Dark House

"Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, 

deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do;..."

As you like it

so it will be.

So we said in cadence each to each,

dark and deep our eyes' forsaken night,

smoky our sighed, incited, worn insights,

and yet nothing was; indeed

nothing could be,

for we were whips alone, and well

deserving of the darkest home.

Now the sixth age flips

its skeletal slippery pantomime,

the mirror's jest, the frankly fumbled lines;

never jealous enough

in honor or enough bold,

sans heart, sans mind, 

sans everything but role.

(Do you not know 

I was a woman?)

So I speak to myself in this room of the voided cheek,

as false as the vows made in wine I used to seek.

 “Men have died from time to time, 

and worms have eaten them, but not for love.” 

 ~April 2016

Posted for    real toads

Challenge: Hat Tip To The Bard

Both quotes from As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, as well as several other lines extrapolated here, including the ones concerning the sixth age, the woman remark, and of course, the last lines.


Image: So Long As You Like It,  ©  Liz Huston via internet. No copyright infringement intended