Tiger In The Abstract

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Tiger In The Abstract

 ( a 55)

 

 

"Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."

~unknown, attr Mark Twain

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tiger walks a crumbling flow

stippled with blood, scratching scree.

 

Wind is crying in the dead-branched tree

tears of a fatal innocence

while the lamp of moon burns low. 

 

Soft sharp paws in avalanches

are pacing out his pestilence;

rocks fall like raindrop lances

in fragrant inundations,

 

dry waves of murder-dances

upon the crushed carnations. 

 

 

 

July 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Word Garden Word List

at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images:Fifty Abstract Paintings..Three Lenins..Head Of Royal Bengal Tiger,  1963, © Salvador Dali Fair Use

Carnations, 1891, © Joaquin Sorolla  Fair Use 

 

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

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 

Cryptid

 

 

 

source

Cryptid

Was it your lover

you saw in the dream,

a spirit bear on fire,

or perhaps

the chupacabra, a steam

 given off/

absorbed  by

too-hot night?

Some cryptid regardless,

a cambion that comes

when eyelids fall down

before the stare of stars

dropped silent with a burn

from black sky

as morning turns to face you

cobra-hooded.

Fragments of him

of you

litter the lawn.

Meteorite dust

hangs in the air;

the smell of old longings

seeps from the roses

powdery as the skin's

 memory of a hand

that still feels,

of lips that know words

are the dark subsidence

down which you will tumble

to the place of live shadows

where two become one.

~September 2014

  

reposted for desperate poets

Top Image: Untitled by Abode of Chaos on Flick'r

Shared under a Creative Commons License

The Secret

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Secret

 

No one told the owls

still they flew all night through

the moon-radiant snow, claws

cold as promises, to my white crib.

 

We cannot save you, they said.

We can only know you. Bald

blind medusas with all

their snakes hidden

 

behind their lips

will raise you.

All around you

will be

the petty pecking 

of bitter-braided bitches who

never caught a mouse.

 

Who, who, said the owls

will you be then, the dove

who tastes of midnight

 

or the bear who

sleeps the cold away

until the honey flows?

 

 

April 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

Word Garden Wordlist 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Owl at Window, Artist unknown, via internet  Fair Use

Black Magic, 1934, ©Rene Magritte   Fair Use

The Bear, ©Michael Sowa     Fair Use

 

Chimera

 

 

Chimera

When I left all I asked was peace 

of the starry void, that

every shrewish hope be finally silent 

yet after me you sent one white bird

only marsh cloud singing,

too soft, too frail to fly far.

I dreamed of you last night--

did you call me?

No, it was just my broken eyes

wanting to see the old calligraphy

strong and alive on the blank page but

that will never be again.

You were dream's pale clerk

troubled, frowning at the paper

on which many things were written

none of them my name.

I stood by your shoulder;

you turned, walking through me.

Waking, I couldn't say which,

you or I, was the ghost.

The gift of sleep

is taken back and I sit staring

at the wrinkled day, at walls falling

in this helpless place of the dead

where I've washed up,

already chewed by the chimera

stung by the manticore,

wondering what white wings will come

out of the siren darkness, 

what ghost bird is left.

 

 

June 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for earthweal's

Open Link Weekend #143

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image: Chimera, by Gustave Moreau, 1884, watercolor

Public domain, via wikipaintings.org 

Fenrir

 

 

 

 

 

 Fenrir

 

 

"..from where will a sun come into the smooth heaven
when Fenrir has assailed this one?"~Vafþrúðnismál

 

I.

 

They say the basilisk

walks her own wasteland,

each green thing that springs

corrupted by her breath,

 

each life that starts

turned to stone as

she spies it, so that she lives 

with nothing all her days.

 

She knows the sphinx

has long since forgotten

all riddles but the one

whose answer is sand.

 

 

II.

 

The wolf at the door

puts his paw on the child's neck.

His breath smells of tiny lives, 

his eyes are round as the moon.

He waits with her for the Ragnarök

to devour the world, to swallow the gods

to bring a new sun

to the skies we defile

but while waiting he smiles

his dog-smile, his tongue soft on her cheek.

From deep in the shadows 

the basilisk regrets

 

the power of myth, and

 the child

waits to grow

and run with the wolf.

December 2021

 

 

 

 

posted for Fireblossom

at

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: In Norse myth,  ragnarök refers not only to a time when gods and men will fight against monsters and jotuns and be destroyed, but also to the world which will follow, where the earth is purified and gods, nature and man are given a second chance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Odin and Fenris, 1909 © Dorothy Hardy   Public Domain

Wolf and child, via The Sunday Muse  author unknown Fair Use

 

Labyrinth

 

 

 Labyrinth

 

I played in the field of the minotaur's horn.

The rose trees stretched for twenty miles.

His black eye blinked

my slow heart's beat. I danced all day where

the elephant's hip burned blue in the shade,

where I glimpsed the escape the animals made

before the age had been born.

 

The green grey moor 

was soft as a sponge 

on my cheeks where tears

disappeared in the mist.

I wondered if we'd ever kissed

in the halls behind the labyrinth's door

where the beasts blew their breath on the shadow play.

I saw them come at the end of the day

with all to give and nothing to say. 

Their souls each put in a hazelnut

that sank in ripples of earth's wet heart

covered in time from fire and flood,

from our hands that pull the world apart,

that turn his field from grass to chalk

where roses blow for twenty miles

and the animals at last

have begun to talk.

August 2021

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's

Open Link 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Minotaur Caressing A Sleeping Woman, 1933, © Pablo Picasso  Fair Use

Swans Reflecting Elephants, 1937 © Salvador Dali  Fair Use

Ouroboros

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

Spirit Apocolypse

Spirit Apocalypse

Entropy dreams of its Creator

under the burning blanket

of wild horses slaughtered

of eucalyptus torches slow

roasting marsupials,

of its enemies hogtied helpless

if not as yet quite mastered,

all things of beauty bent

to the wheel of avarice

as the spotted pony runs

as the devil drowns

in sympathy

in sycophants

in syncopated strategies

of the smallest minds now

suddenly somehow successful.

We wait for the tide

to rise, the Earth to speak, 

for the wild appaloosa 

with our handprint

on its flank to find us, 

for the ash

to heave up the white buffalo,

the soul we weep for

to race oblivion

of wave and fire, drought and famine

to bear us

where we may buck and strain

to cut the cords that

crack the bone

of this ravaged

rock on fire

calling to the spirits

for the spotted pony

the white buffalo

the avenging angel

as if we know them,

with only the death's head grin

of the four bleached horsemen in sight.

~November, 2019

Images: War Pony II, by Sarah Lyn Richards. All Rights Reserved to Artist
White Buffalo, by Cuzco. All Rights Reserved to Artist