Ouroboros
The girl who grew old
in her sleep keeps
her eyes
on a chain, afraid to let them loose
from the fingerwork
of dreams,
stringing the beads of her sanity.
The machinery must turn, not
roam across every face
of cruelty, of beauty, that
comes now in the crowd
whose Fahrenheit flies
towards the boiling heart of the sun.
Voices with stones, medicine hands
on eyes seared blind in acid clouds;
gunshot, brickbat and burning
sweep our shuddering house.
Tiny assassins make up
the bed where we fear
to lie down
with our dusty farewells.
The crone bleeds hidden
gold watering her marigolds,
sees again in the glinting blue stream
the great ouroboros return;
Jörmungandr opens his mouth
to lash his tail and break oceans.
Now is the time for devouring
as Fenris howls
for the gods to come out and die.
June 2020
posted for The Sunday Muse
and Kerry O'Connor's Skylover Word List
Process note: "In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr.. is a sea serpent,
the middle child of the giantess Angrboða and Loki. According to the Prose
Edda, Odin took Loki's three children by Angrboða—the wolf Fenrir, Hel, and
Jörmungandr—and tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircles Midgard[our
human world.]The serpent grew so large that it was able to surround the earth
and grasp its own tail. .. When it releases its tail, Ragnarök [the last destroying battle of the old world, translated as Twilight or Doom of the Gods]
will begin. Jörmungandr is an example of
an ouroboros,...an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating
its own tail..The ouroboros is often interpreted as
a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth..." ~wikipedia, condensed.
Images: Title unknown, by Alexandra Dillon Fair Use
Alchemical drawing of an ouroboros by Theodorus Pelecanos, 1478 Public Domain
