Devil's Dictionary

Devil’s Dictionary

It’s good

to shut the red

book and be

myself again

after the delirium,

to no longer be

a vade mecum

for obstreperous

demons, tauntingly

misquoted,

a dictionary

for devils;

to see the colors

unprismed from

your illusive illustrations,

random wind ruffling pages

not your spirit’s soft

secret fingers;

to feel my hair

an animal’s satiny pelt

and not a misprinted

text of memories

written across

your hands.

It’s good,

this stillness, good

even to grow old

reading my

next words 

from a

blank sheet.

July 2011

A little nostalgia. This was originally posted for the Grand Opening at dVerse Poet's Pub on their  first Open Link Night, (and for the concurrent closing of the inimitable One Stop Poetry) back when I had the privilege of working with Brian Miller, Claudia Schoenfeld, Natasha Head, Joe Hesch, and the rest of the original staffers. It was an exciting and memorable time. Due to various life and health issues, I've been unable to keep up with the ever-growing community at dVerse, but I wish everyone, new and old, all the best tonight, on the first OLN of the pub's third year.

Posted for OpenLinkNight at dVerse Poet's Pub

Also posted for the Last OneShotWednesday at One Stop Poetry

which closed its doors with this final event.

The original Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, was a collection of satirical definitions posing as an actual dictionary, and contains some of the sharpest wit in the English Language. I have used the term here in what I intend as a completely different context, but felt I ought to reference Bierce's work. You can read it online here at Project Gutenberg.

Image: Still Life with Rarities, Jan van der Heyden, 1712, oil on canvas

Jan van der Heyden [Public domain], via  wikimedia commons

Ragnarök

Brothers will fight and kill each other,

sisters' children will defile kinship.

It is harsh in the world, whoredom rife

—an axe age, a sword age

—shields are riven—

a wind age, a wolf age—

before the world goes headlong.

No man will have

mercy on another.

~from Völuspá (Prophecy of the Seeress) the Poetic Edda,

trans Ursula Dronke

Ragnarök

Death runs on the wild wind

a wolf, a black dog

biting the throat

Changeling child

sleep while you can

Those who do wrong

eat those who do right

flesh is crackling

Changeling child

learn while you can

Brother’s arms

a snare for your raping
bile and black bruises

Changeling child

fight while you can

Mother’s arms

your last bed making

soft under swampgrass

Changeling child

run while you can

Death calls from the wild wind

none will have

mercy 

Changeling child

live while you can

July 2011

Posted for the final   Form Monday  at the inimitable and irreplaceable 

One Stop Poetry

Today's prompt is by Brendan MacOdrum of Oran's Well, to write to a mythic reference. Thanks to Brendan for an exceptionally lucid and living article on myth and poetry, his own particular blue ocean of poetic endeavor.

Thanks also to Gay Cannon, for hosting this series so ably since its inception.

****

Ragnarök, often called the twilight of the gods, more aptly translated as the fate or final destiny of the gods, is the moment in Norse Mythology ordained since time's beginning when the divine Aesir will fight, slay yet ultimately be defeated by supernatural embodiments of evil such as Fenrir the Wolf, and the world as we know it will perish in a great cataclysm, to be reborn purged and new. 

The times preceding it are said to be extremely ill-omened, and so, this poem.

Image: Ragnarök (motive from the Heysham hogback) by W.G.Collingwood, appearing in the 1908 English translation of  The Elder or Poetic Edda, by Olive Bray

courtesy wikimedia commons

Brigid's Song

 

Brigid's Song

Run with me where the moon

wavers in the gloaming

when the spears of the last seed sown

begin to bend their golden heads,

heavy and full in the pod.

Run with me in the dawn's mist,

then lay your head

where it belongs to be

so fine so weary

on the breasts that call it home.

Let the seed untie, let it blow in the wind

between the worlds.

Let your hands pass where

the skin is thin. Let the kite

give her harsh cry unheard.

In the space of a night the field is turned,

sown, and the crop fallen to the sickle moon.

The unchancy cailleach is full stoned.

The fires  flare and  smoke fills the deep woods

from the blaze of the heartwood that falls

but when the snow bites, and thought

and  memory lead the wild hunt

and what's green falls to the white sword,

remember the promise of all things

born to die and watch me go.

June 2011

 Posted for   OneLastShootSunday   at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

This is posted with sadness for the last One Shoot Sunday as One Stop Poetry disbands. Thanks to all who have made the place what it was, and especially to Chris Galford for these always challenging Sunday photo prompts.

Process Notes:

Brigid was the Celtic goddess associated with poetry, healing, and 'all things of high dimension.' She was Christianized as St Bridgit. I have taken liberties with her here and made her a summer goddess. The cailleach is the hag of winter, whom those familiar with my writing have met many times before. Thought and Memory were Odin's two ravens, and the wild hunt is an ancient folk myth prevalent across many cultures, of a spectral group of hunters. You can find more info on it here

Photo by Rosie Hardy

Summer Night Dyad

In honor of the last One Shot Wednesday hosted by the team that has brought so much encouragement and growth to so many writers, myself most of all, I'd like to dedicate this entry with the thanks of a full heart to 

Brian Miller, Adam Dustus, Pete Marshall, Chris Galford, Claudia Schoenfeld  

& Gay Cannon.

You will be missed.

Summer Night Dyad

I.

The Night, The Moon and The Lovers

Up and above in the swinging night,

far from red walls and flying knives,

the kestrel flies with a mouse in her mouth.

The scorpion wags her tail in the south.

The firedrake sleeps in his sulphurous cave

spooned in the high cliff above the wave.

A flickering lantern orange and brief

still fights the moon in her silver sheath;

two lovers sail in a boat of breath

and love till they have nothing left.

When the heart is spent and hollowed like clay,

it becomes a lamp to light the way

Skybluepink lips of deepest night

cup the moon in an overbite;

she’s a melting scoop of vanilla ice cream

 tipped in a cone of clouded dream.

The flame persists though the wind is sharp;

The faeries come out to dance to the harp.

II.

Shooting Star

The beating heart of night rocks

the star cradle on her breast gently gently

in the warm southern wind,

but still every so often a star falls out

bright and sudden, a streak thin as a broom straw

scratched off against purple floor,

a white chip on black china

a match that lights

and is blown out.

Oh to be in that cradle rocking, lulled

with the whistling of constellations,

the voice of a mother, vast and mild

caring as much as she can

for her brood of legion,

at the edge of

the ear

humming

lullabies;

to rock

and sleep

then

to fall,

a

brief

light

in the

dark

to 

wish 

on.

July 2011

Posted for   OneLastShotWednesday   at  OneStopPoetry

Process Note: Sky blue pink is a color my grandparents used to tease me with as a child. If I complained about wearing something, they would always say, "What do you want, a sky blue pink dress?"

Photo: Blue Moon with Skybluepink Clouds, by joy ann jones, july 2011

Words

Words

Write your soul a blanket on the page

with black wrinkled stripes on pure white,

in any tongue on earth. Throw

your zebra quilt over

every shivering   

heart and offer

refuge there,

wrapped in

words.

July 2011

Posted for       Form Monday   at  OneStopPoetry

This poem is in the Nonet form, a nine line single stanza poem where the first line contains nine syllables, and each succeeding line one less, with the last line a single syllable. Thanks to  Corbie Sinclair for this great look at the form, with sincere regrets that this is Gay Cannon's penultimate appearance hosting Form Monday.Thanks for everything, Gay.

 

Madness in the Harem

Madness in the Harem

Up in the alabaster tower of carved

stone, the harem is restless.

The girls still chatter and giggle, but they

fidget. They can’t seem to settle to

the morning’s gossip or enjoy the sweets

because of the madwoman

locked up and raving

down the hall.

Once she was fair as a yellow rosebud,

but she was never right and she grew thorny wild.

She cast her prickly brambles across the old walls, trying

to wrap up the girls for trellis, make them long to

speak of her, braid her grey hair with flowers,

sit rapt to listen to her re-tell them tales

of her many imaginary sons, her unequaled

echinate beauty, her exploits and conquests

that now were ghosts reflected in a foxed mirror.

One day, when they once again embarrassed

bent their heads away, she climbed out the window, 

high on the white piercework balcony,

and began to scream and spit the foulest curses, all day 

all night, setting the monkeys howling, till they came

and locked her away, where her cries muted

behind the heavy door to only a far murmur, serene

as the sibilant calling of birds at dusk.

The girls are already forgetting her, lips parted to sing again

the gypsy lovesongs, rippling notes of laughter and desire,

fingers painting blue globes speckled with brown freckles,

boxed in a circle of silk, hatching chicks to fly where

they never can. At night, they watch the white fireflies

embroider the jungle air with needles of lightning,

splash all morning in their scented baths,

and wind their arms together like an arbor.

July 2011

Posted for   OneShootSunday  at   OneStopPoetry

Photo by Neil Alexander, this week's featured photographer

Work of Art

Work of Art

I hung myself, quite a piece

of work, in the museum

a long time ago. Like

most serious art,

I aged well.

You’d changed so much

the guard had to look twice to

let  you in, with that
light frost of dust

on your smile.

I gazed at you gazing at me

from my frame, then blinked,

reflecting the abundance
I thought I saw

in your eyes.

Easy as time passing I could

see my desire tapestried,

digitally enhanced, imposed on

what’s plain, from behind

shuttered glass.

The closing bell rang.

To my surprise you

turned away your grey

glazed eyes, and never

came back.

Impossible as time stopping to see

the truth with eyes widest,

when two silvery rippled

accommodating mirrors

hang face to face.

You knew, it seems,

the only way

to foil a mirror

is to turn off

the light.

July 2011

Posted for   Friday Poetically   at  OneStopPoetry 

Today Brian's (almost final) prompt is to write a poem inspired by the art of Bonnie, at Original Art Studio. Thanks, Brian, for all the poems you've encouraged me to write with your Friday Poetically series, sadly to end next week.

Image: art by Bonnie, of Original Art Studio

Witch's Candle

Witch’s Candle

I sent my heart, a candle in a paper boat,

sailing out on a white-rimed onyx sea

by the witchlight of a failing auburn moon.

At morning’s crackling burn she returned to me,

finding nowhere any berth or port of rest,

and this is all the tale that she confessed:

“I sailed at first quite blind," her low voice murmured,

“Nothing moved on the silent water’s face

except for my own shadow cast before me.

Then towards midnight, waves began to race.

The paper boat leaned to the blackened sea

as if the circling atoms sang beneath me.

"A  basilisk blue, a serpentine ocean's child

brought its face upturned to split the waters,

slicked with scales of turquoise demi-moons,

natron flame for eyes, black doves for daughters.

It seemed to want to eat me, piping tunes

on an easy azure tongue that danced the dawn,

but it tired of my taste, and I sailed on.

“Then,” said my heart, “ I came to a speck of land.

The paper boat shook out its weary folds,

for what’s so white and thin’s not meant to last,

not nearly last as long as what it holds,

and I was growing heavier with the tides,

but lava lapped the land's membranous sides.

“My own flame paled, lightning of a blinking insect

beside the heat that island caused to flood.

Red rock ran incandescent from the puncture,

a  hissing mouth that spit the worldcore’s blood

and brought its floating lips to my boat’s height,

kissing its creases crisp in the fire’s bite.

“The eagle of four corners stooped above me,

and pierced me on his running ruby claws.

He carried me for twenty leagues untiring.

I watched the obsidian sea and learned its laws.

I saw a million such as I, chained frozen, alone,

or sailing still but dead as a fossil's bone.

“I begged the bird to teach me how to fly.

Instead, he dipped his wing on a downward turn.

He loosed his grip; I dropped, my flame blown out.

So three times turned away, here I return.”

There bottomed in the bright aurora of dawn,

I took her back, so broken and so sore,

called her my one candle, light and life,

and swore to send her sailing out no more.

July 2011

Posted for    OneShotWednesday   at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

Image: The Repentant Magdelen, by Georges de la Tour, ca 1628-45, oil on canvas

posted on flickr by mpt1607

Epistemology: Demons

Epistemology:Demons

What do we know 

about demons? Angels may

float the sky in a white penumbra 

of  cloud, but you know 

where you are with a demon.

We know demons are god’s

black ops, sent to

do his wetwork, to keep

the wings of the angels

always clean.

We know they have radiant

faces of fire, red eyes

of ember, a split singing tongue,

tails that thrash like pythons

and a foot divided,

that if they speak

then they are lying, that

they play us like dulcimers,

sucking the music straight

down to hell.

We know they’ve come to

burn down the heart, but first

pull up the flowers on the doorstep

to scent the flames that

cover the smell of blood.

They are not distant

but near beside us, the better to catch

a lungful of loss and smoky grief

from  feelings clean as diamonds

they‘ve turned against us in the blaze.

We know they are as we are,

damned or dancing to the tune

of the universe, which says

some things must die

so that others can live.

Yes, you know

where you are

with a demon.

 

June 2011

Note: This is a companion piece to Epistemology:Angels, found here.

 

 

posted for   OneShotWednesday   at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

This is the one year anniversary for One Stop Poetry. Happy Birthday! and thanks to all the One Stop Team for their fine work and the many hours they spend in visiting and commenting on a huge number of participating sites.

Image: Stone Gargoyle Face, by Digital Wallpaper on flick'r

Digital Wallpaper's photostream

The Starving Bear

The Starving Bear

The starving bear

turns over trash cans, tips the dumpsters,

learns how to eat away their lids

like scooping out a honey tree.

For one who’s used to

excavating logs and eating the results

a limp french fry is only

a slower kind of worm.

Dancing with debris,

dodging the tranquilizer dart,

he makes chaos out of order,

scavenge out of substance.

No berries, no salmon; he tears the soft

white sacks, scatters maggots like rosebuds

in the famine processional  of maniac summer

at the feet of his  bridesmaid crows.

Sometimes he screws the pooch.

but she knows better than to growl;

it’s an easy mistake to make

after all, and better screwed than food.

She will get

her dinner tonight.

But the  starving bear

must feed himself.

June 2011

Posted for     Form Monday    at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

Image: courtesy google image search  
originating site

 

Lost in the Woods

Moonrise, Alison Jardine

Lost in the Woods

Shadow

and clamor

running through the black boles of elm;

there’s no green at night

no light

only noise to see by.

I played with

the crazy ones

the blue and tatooed ones,

the ones I couldn’t keep

so deep

in the woods.

I thought

I was a wild thing

smelling blood and water

coming to me on the air

my hair

tangled with promises of nettle.

But I was already

tamed, a fallow patch

danced bare

out where

music’s ghost hunts the ear.

And when they

left me

in the clearing

under the masked moon

too soon

I saw the cage.

June  2011

Posted for Poets United Thursday Think Tank #58, prompt: nighttime.

was also posted for  Friday Poetically   at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

Brian's prompt this week is to write from the intricate and surprising visual art of Alison Jardine. I chose an oil on canvas work entitled Moonrise

In addition to Ms Jardine's work,  this poem also owes something to the below song:

Hedgerider's Lament~Part III

Note: This is the third in what will hopefully be a set of  four sestinas on the pagan holidays which mark the turn of the year, and of the human heart. Hedgerider's Lament, Part I, (Yule) is here, and Part II, (Candlemas), is here.

The Hedgerider's Lament

Part III: Beltane Sestina

It’s been a killing winter here circled deep in the hedgerow’s walls.

I hear the hungry crying, birdsong and brisk bee buzz drowned out.

Wrapped in the scorpion’s tail of drought the new sun builds no fires

and seeds fester as they’re planted in a darkness shorn of green.

Somewhere a heartwound hides itself, seeping dully under the moon

and all are made to feel that pain till the fires outburn the curse.

Things are coming through that shouldn’t, tangled with the curse

It strengthens dark and brings them kicking out at the charmbuilt walls.

The faery lights are spectral blue, dim and distant in bowls of moon.

The tongue cleaves to the mouthpiece and the song will not come out.

The world hangs on the coming of the one who brings the green.

Behind locked doors barbed evils thicken, old flesh no longer fires.

So out we go to find the nine woods needed to build the fires,

twin pyres to burn nine murders and nine times nine despairs, curse

fright that sets the handle slipping stripping deadwood from the green

fuel and future even mixed in the razorsharp hedgerow’s walls.

Babes are counted, a white horse passes vast as the veils thin out;

pale hands grip tight the reins of light that pull the quickening moon.

In the darkness that is absence floating in night’s red eye, the moon

looks down on fractals, throbbing temples, cold heart fires.

The weasel eating her young, the blighted seed that won’t sprout out

grim her pocked sad face and set her calling to lift the curse,

to begin the windsigh song the harpist brings to raise the walls

so all in the hedgerow’s circle know the lover’s kiss of green.

The flower bride she walks in May, all cup in search of filling, green

her gown, breadbrown her hands, face limpid as a slice of moon,

summer’s lord for her arms, green man of the land that knows no walls.

She carries her basket of wishes to make the spark for the high balefires

and all that dances through them comes out sound and free of curse,

for every spite of winterlong will be ashed and trampled out.

No more shelter for the fiddling tongue ravaged by betrayal, thrust out

black bloated at all comers in pours of poison bitter and green.

No more room for winter’s old man’s rage or hag’s hardbitten curse

when the summer lord and the lady come to dance beneath the moon.

There the skin is thin and the maypole thick by the heartwood’s fires:

stop, reverse and turn, as its green ward weaves the hedgerow’s walls.

Re-spin the curse to blessing, crossweave sun with braids of  moon.

Pull up the dead. Sins' tinder flares to burn out on the green.

All seen, all felt is new again. Life fires light, singing up the walls.

June 2011

Posted for    OneShotWednesday  at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

Process Notes:

I’ve been working off and on on this for several months and  meant to have it ready for the true date of Beltane, which falls at the beginning of May and marks the midpoint of the sun’s equinox in progress towards today, the summer solstice, but the demands of a poem a day in April shunted it to the back burner.

There are too many legends, myths and archetypes associated with Beltane and the coming of summer to list, but I’ll just touch on a few I’ve incorporated here. Balefires are bonfires of purification that symbolically burn away the winter and its ills, marking the goddess of fertility’s arrival and celebrating her wedding with the sun god, when birth and growth of crops and livestock replace the death grip of winter. As always, I've taken a lot of liberty with historical detail and only loosely follow the pagan canon.

You can find a bit more general info here at wikipedia

Image: Summer Solstice Sunrise over Stonehenge, 
Photograph by Andrew Dunn, 21 June 2005 courtesy wikimedia commons

Spring and The Fool

Spring and The Fool

Spring loves a fool,

throwing her sticky caltrop

 blossoms under his dancing toes,

laughing with him as the cold white

blood of January turns blue,

brims the river

and slides his fool’s shack

off the bank.

Spring cares for a fool,

washing his winter soiled

questions of living, tumbling them

in her dryer to be folded away

neat as a fallen leaf sorted back

into earth,

sucking him up her pressure hose

for a lark, blowing him out the nozzle

or percolating him down from his cloud

as he juggles hail in the wild storm,

morning coffee for the

first grasshoppers.

Even this spring

hot as any summer

where the flatbread plains crisp

under her sudden yellow eye; where running

before the distant blur of the moon the south wind

exhales with the used heat

of dragon breath.

Spring loves a fool

as the fool loves the dance.

 Blistered feet soon summerheal,

distrained harvests soon reseed.

Thrice denied before dawn,

the sun’s judas kiss burning

on his cheek, still he sheds his skin

and dons his pointy hat

one more time.

June 2011

Posted for   Form Monday   at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

Continuing One Stop Poetry's June focus on Free Verse, this week Shay (aka Fireblossom) gives her views on the differences between prose, doggerel and poetry. Stop by and get her unique perspective on just what exactly makes for effective Free Verse.

Image: Michael the Juggler, 1981, by Michael Parkes

Wings ~ Deal With It

Wings~
Deal with it

No one remembers Icarus flying

Any fool on the street can say how he fell,  

tasting the burn, laughing and crying.

No one remembers Icarus flying.

Heaven’s the place you'll go after dying.

Everyone knows I'm going to hell.

No one remembers Icarus flying

Any fool on the street can say how he fell.

June 2011

*Thanks to Fireblossom for the inspiration for this title.

Posted for   OneShootSunday  at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

Photo: of Graffiti by Chris Galford, courtesy of OneStopPoetry