Empty House

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Empty House

 

 

 

The Parisienne within

sits gracefully bent at a small cafe not

three blocks from the Louvre.

The square is an old negative, each color

quenched in its reverse, as she sighs,

 

regards the croissant moon, a dangling puff pastry

pinned to a papier-mache sky some

rabid surrealist has daubed flat black, faintly

tinted by the violet blood of stars. She waits here

for her assignation: l'etranger dangereux

 

encountered by chance on le Metro. She savors again

the fragrance of strong dark tobacco

caught in his hair as they swayed far too close.

She waits many hours since her house is empty and

waiting seems better than that.

'And what is an empty house,' she muses

over her fifth vin de pays, 'but a cupped palm

dripping the bright constant stigmata of 

your own imperfections?' No amount of pancakes can

fill its hollow stomach. No birds will nest in

 

its unkindled chimney. There is only dust white

as milk, silence and dead flowers,

a dog that barks a heartbeat somewhere in the distance,

abandoned without music like the deserted cafe

the Parisienne has just left.

 

As the rackety clap of her stilettos

fades around the corner,

a tall shadow drifts over her table,

but there's only a thin thread of ghost-smoke

twining up from a stubbed-out Gauloise.

March 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for 

WGWL 3/4/24 at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hungry Ghosts And Thirsty Spirits

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hungry Ghosts And Thirsty Spirits

 

 

 

 

Nine snow-white candles to ward my bed

as the Hunter's Moon glares against my door.

 

Rowan and hyperion at foot and head

but your fetch is strong. I need much more.

Last night I could tell it would need to be fed.

I felt its cold lips that the flames couldn't kill

 

pressed on my skin like a waxen seal,

saw its stubbled neck scrawny, stretched and too real

as thirsting you came, crawling over the sill,

but the gods in their mercy allowed me one grace:

 

to never again have to see your face.

 

 

 

 

October 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

Open Link Weekend at desperate poets

 (inspired by Night of the Desperate Dead)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process note: Rowan and Hyperion(St John's Wort) were said to be protective against evil spirits and witches and were often hung indoors or planted at the doorways of houses:

 

"The European rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) has a long tradition in European mythology and folklore. It was thought to be a magical tree and [to]give protection against malevolent beings.. It was said in England that this was the tree on which the Devil hanged his mother..British folklorists of the Victorian era reported the folk belief in apotropaic powers of the rowan-tree, in particular in the warding off of witches...Sir James Frazer (1890) reported such a tradition in Scotland, where the tree was often planted near a gate or front door. ~wikipedia

 

"The common name St John's wort comes from the fact that its flowers and buds were commonly harvested at the time of the Midsummer festival, which was later Christianized as St John's Feast Day on 24 June. It was believed that harvesting the flower at this time made its healing and magical powers more potent. The herb would be hung on house and stall doors on St John's Feast Day to ward off evil spirits and to safeguard against harm and sickness to people and livestock. ..Because of its supposed potency in warding off spirits, the plant was also known as fuga daemonum (loosely "demon-flight").."~wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Title unknown,  ©@coven of ceridwen via internet  Fair Use

La Mort: Mon ironie depasse toutes les autres! 1889 ©Odilon Redon   Public Domain

The Myrðaling

 

 

The Myrðaling
A Ghost Story

Cold across the portal

through the shadow of the veil

the child shivers before me,

wild-walking the mirk.

She's thin as she'd never been

when she lay there, left,
tiny feet kicking in a stiff skin wrap,
taller too than when her kicking stopped

alone in the bramble where the broken light fell

as the snow wound blue around her like smoke.

Now she can walk miles

through the night from the black

back corners of the winter that rides

before and after all things,
for she's passed the doored rock

to the slaughtering shadow

that splits the soft loam, where

she blows like a seed that won't be sown

but must be milled on the stone of years

with a river of bones floating on tears.

She opens her mouth

and sings like the plague

for a name of her own to give her a grave.

Take mine I say--it's all I have

for a night sister here in the dying year,
where we've gone too far

to turn around, where too soon
we'll eat the bread of the dead,
where spirit can weigh
as heavy as flesh when the veil thins away.

Then the moon-girl came out of her pale disguise;

I saw my twin smile, and close her eyes.

~October 2014

revised and reposted October 2023 for Night of the Desperate Dead

at desperate poets

Process notes: In Scandanavian folklore, a myrðaling, (from Old Norse, 'myrða,' murder) or more properly, myling, was the ghost of a child killed by its mother in infancy, usually  the child of an unmarried woman, or of a poor family unable to provide for it, abandoned in some unfrequented place and forced to walk the earth seeking burial. The myling might appear and reveal the acts of its killer in a song, or call out for a name, when the hearer could save the spirit by saying "take mine' so that it might then rest in consecrated ground, (as in this poem) or it might vengefully possess the living, jumping on their backs and forcing the victim to carry them to a graveyard, growing heavier with each step. You can read more in this wikipedia article.

Image: The Strawberry Girl, 1777, by Joshua Reynolds

Public domain via wikiart.org

I have manipulated this image.

 

Brujeria

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brujeria

 

I don't know what fetch

was living in his hair

but there was always something

 

when it blew back in the hot breath

of the redtangled hills; new-hatched snakes perhaps

curling from the small broken shells of his words,

 

tendrilous avatars in those nights that hid

the color of blood so well;

or soft rain-threads each sweet as a sugarfall

 

on my open face as we made love,

for the medicine painting, not la brujeria,

skintalking the Healing Way.

 

Whatever it was, it

wasn't the mild dog in his eyes,

not fur, not a tail-wag.

 

It was syllogistic, sensate, restless;

hungry as a hopping flea.

whose tiny itch is only felt later.

Perhaps it even had Buddha nature,

or something else

 borrowed from Kali.

 

It was one of those things about him

that taught me to look away.

I saw only its soft brown habitat

as I slipped my fingers through

felt its satin dance

against my touch

but what lived there never left

like all the other things I tried to disappear.

I could feel them breathing

though they never made a sound

not even now when

they ghost him back to my dreams.

August 2023

posted for Odd Little Things

at desperate poets

 

Art nouveau lithograph poster 1903 ©Alphonse Mucha  Public Domain

Man with Long Hair, ©Odd Nedrum    Fair Use

 

Fantômes de Versailles

 

 

 

 

Fantômes de Versailles

(a 55) 

 

 Ghosts go hungry

at Versailles. 'Let them

eat cake,' the custodian mumbles.

Marie-Antoinette tries to bake

but flour falls through her fingers

dust to milky dust.

Marie starts the minuet.

Diamonds drop off the

Shepherdess like old flesh.

'Les riches, she murmurs,

are not quitters.'

In the Labyrinthe,

fables dehydrate.

The custodian

watches World Cup.

 

 

 

November 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a little historical nonsense

 posted for

Word Garden Word List:Ghost Eaters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes: Marie-Antoinette and her waiting women often dressed as Shepherdesses and played at being country peasants in the elaborate gardens of Versailles. 

 

Regarding the Labryrinthe, or Bosquet de la Reine at Versailles: 

"In 1665, André Le Nôtre planned a hedge maze of unadorned paths in an area south of the Latona Fountain near the Orangerie.. In 1669, Charles Perrault – author of the Mother Goose Tales – advised Louis XIV to remodel the Labyrinthe in such a way as to serve the Dauphin's education..Le Nôtre redesigned the Labyrinthe to feature thirty-nine fountains that depicted stories from Aesop's Fables..accompanied by a plaque on which the fable was printed..in verse..; from these plaques, Louis XIV's son learned to read..[C]ompleted in 1677, the Labyrinthe contained thirty-nine fountains with 333 painted metal animal sculptures. The water for the elaborate waterworks was conveyed from the Seine..[and used by].. fourteen water-wheels driving 253 pumps.. Citing repair and maintenance costs, Louis XVI ordered the Labyrinthe demolished in 1778. In its place, an arboretum of exotic trees was planted as an English-styled garden. Rechristened Bosquet de la Reine, it would be in this part of the garden that an episode of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which compromised Marie-Antoinette, transpired in 1785..."~wikipedia

 

France is defending champion for the 2022 World Cup. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images:  L'Entrée du bosquet du Labyrinthe, © Jean Cotelle le Jeune (1642-1708) Public Domain

Marie-Antoinette Queen of France 1775 ©Jean Baptiste Gautier Dagoty

The Myrðaling

 

The Myrðaling
A Ghost Story

Cold across the portal

through the shadow of the veil

the child shivers at me

wild-walking the mirk.

She's thin as she'd never been

when she lay as she was left,
tiny feet kicking in a stiff skin wrap,
taller too than when her kicking stopped

alone in the bramble where the light broke

as the snow wound blue

around her like smoke.

Now she can walk miles

through the night from the black

back corners of the winter before

and after all things
for she's passed the rock door.

On the slaughtering shadow

that splits the soft loam

she blows like a seed that won't be sown

but must be milled on
the stone of years

with a river of bones.

She opens her mouth

and sings like the plague

for a name of her own

to give her a grave.

Take mine I say--it's all I have

for a night sister here in the dying year,
where we've gone too far

to turn around, where too soon
we eat the bread of the dead,
where spirit can weigh
as heavy as flesh when the veil falls away.

Then the moon-girl came out of her lost disguise;

I saw my twin smile, and close her eyes.

~October 2014

reposted October 2021 for Spooktacular Weekend

at earthweal Open Link

Process notes: In Scandanavian folklore, a myrðaling, (from Old Norse, 'myrða,' murder) or more properly, myling, was the ghost of a child killed by its mother in infancy, usually  the child of an unmarried woman, or of a poor family unable to provide for it, abandoned in some unfrequented place and forced to walk the earth seeking burial. The myling might appear and reveal the acts of its killer in a song, or call out for a name, when the hearer could save the spirit by saying "take mine' so that it might then rest in consecrated ground, (as in this poem) or it might vengefully possess the living, jumping on their backs and forcing the victim to carry them to a graveyard, growing heavier with each step. You can read more in this wikipedia article.

Image: The Strawberry Girl, 1777, by Joshua Reynolds

Public domain via wikiart.org

I have manipulated this image.

Red And Gold

 

 

 

 

 Red And Gold

I.

Under my feet bright bodies

of leaves, mast from the oak, crunch

of all the discards of summer, fire's coming

crackle; percussion accompaniment

to sweet smoke of raked heaps burning

where you stand smiling,

match in hand.

II.

Peridot green under amethyst clouds

the after-storm sun bent the grass back

with sudden heat, as you bent my bones

with one touch, onyx eyes

closing on summer's fire

while the last light left brushed the waterfall's

singing to red steam.

III.

Around my skin a white pelt of

frozen water, my remembering numbing as wind,

 howling hard as a cast-out wolf ten states

from its pack, too old to fight

too full not to cry,

 under a sharp sickle moon

that sees nothing at all.

IV.

Rolling wheels on warm red dirt

over the creek, around the bends where 

trees hide the climb, mask the descent,

 shaking their gravid buds in the rage of air

pushing me, pulling me,

past the point where words

could make me stop.

V.

Every season dies around me,

every leaf, every white-muzzled wolf

in my wilderness, each golden October

burning red under the match

til nothing is left but the journey

I reverse night

after night in my sleep.

October 2021

posted for Meet the Bar: Cadralor plus Nobel

at dVerse Poets

Images: Autumn Leaves, Lake George, NY, 1924 ©Georgia O'Keefe   Fair Use

Red Dirt Road After Spring Rain, author unknown, via internet.    Fair Use

 

Ruins

Ruins

"...I have let time pass, which..helps more than reasoning.”

~Queen Elizabeth I

I.

I wake in the night

thinking of ruins;

not the makers

but their leavings: fort,

church, graveyard,

house, each

with no tomorrow of its own, yet

a casket full

of glass for magpies,

scroungers' stones,

writers' plots,

lovers' verses, shadow beds

for weary ghosts

and so must be content

to watch the walls fall down.

 

II.

These rainy ruins

where ravens ride wrinkled sky

where nightfall black-backs silver-mirror moons

however weak you are,

you can stroll forever, 

muscular past for a walking-stick,

hearing a hundred private jokes

the ghosts still tell/will tell

to you or the next one

for nothing's

as constant as a ghost

or more hopeful

than a ruin.

~December 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two old 55's, reposted for 

 earthweal's Open Link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Image: Carpathian castle ruins, author unknown, via internet. Fair use.

 

 

 

Haunt's Road

Haunt's Road

You resurrect

on the long road rolling,

with your homeless soul a

prairie schooner full of dull copper

 blood and moonshine, nightmares wild in 

the harness, their snaffled tongues slipping

into dreams with a slow-steeped poison, 

changing sun to eclipse, good to bad, 

alive to dead in a bone-shaking shock,

down along the wheel ruts

 where the wagons 

used to pass.

By 4:00 a.m. 

you're in the house.

The sound of your last rasping

 breaths liquid with suffering still

floating your medicine show, barking

on the mattress-midway the subtle

vibration of your restless shifts,

 a moan and a gasp on the empty

 crater of our bed, hawking

a snake-oil brewed 

for love, or

death.

I put 

your ashes 

out on the hill by

 the dog who loved us

so you may leave

 this haunt's road,

this dead-end.

 Run with 

her 

beloved, 

painless, free,

 green in cloudy  forest,

prairie wind to wrap

you in a place of

 naked stars.

If you 

knew who I am

you'd never
have come.

 August 2020

posted for

The Sunday Muse

*This poem has been edited since publishing

Images via internet, artists unknown     Fair Use