Mask of Aphrodite (Repost)

 

 

 

Wolves, © Andrew Wyeth

 

 

 

Mask Of Aphrodite

 

"There is no cure for love other than marriage." 

~Irish proverb 

 

 

Love's an old wolf who howls when she pleases,

her black lips drawn back in mock of a grin.

She's made me her meat for chancers and losers,

to open the locks and let anyone in.

 

Her yellow teeth are blunted with winters

but her fevers burn bright as melted brass.

Her eyes are flat-white as Attic marble

rolling behind Aphrodite's mask.

Her promises drift like leaves in October.

Her vows of fidelity make the stones laugh.

There's never been one she ever was true to,

only the lucky who died too fast.

Since I was that child who was used as a woman

since I was that woman who thinks like a child

I've run with her pack. The crows find my dinner,

set the price we pay for being born wild.

I've never whored for playthings or money

but three times three it saved my life.

I've never lied for the sake of loving,

only to play at being a wife.

I never was called to be a drunkard,

but ever I've been every drunkard's best friend;

and I drop the mask when I see it coming,

 

the black-lipped snarling

bitter end.

September 2023

Lightly edited for repostng

July 2026 

 

 

 

Head of Aphrodite, via Brittanica

 

 

 

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

Tears Of The Moon

 

 

 

Tears Of The Moon

"La mar no tiene naranjas, ni Sevilla tiene amor..."

(The sea has no oranges, nor Seville any love...)

from Adelina de Paseo, by Federico Garcia Lorca

I.

The sea is made

from the tears of the moon.

They fall like meteorites

to build the splash of azure rivers.

They fall like rocks

the air has set on fire in

a coliseum of dust, an iron mist

burning with the blue taste of salt.

The sea is cold, incalculable

as the heart of my beloved,

changeful, infinite, self-satisfied

and blind. This is why

the moon cries. She knows she lays

her silver face for nothing

across the drenched toss of the

erasing waves. The sea

is too busy,

tonight, and every night.

II.

The sea has far to travel

to kiss the dun lips of Spain, to fondle 

Gibraltar like a primitive doll,

to curl the sand under

on the Costa del Sol,

guitaring sweet lovesongs

to women with eyes like summer figs

who walk with the chiming of rice in the wind

whose hips round as oranges

call night after night

for the men who don't come; nuns

of blue rivers, learning to understand

the tears of the moon

that drip from the lids of

an extinguished rock, while on the

ruined plains of a waterless country

an old woman reads Lorca at midnight,

with the tears of the moon on her cheeks.

~January 2020

originally posted for earthweal

Open Link

 

 

 

 

reposted for Desperate Crossings at

desperate poets

Images: Orange Trees on the Road to Seville, 1903 © Joaquin Sorolla Public Domain

The Font, 1930 © Salvador Dali Public Domain

The Music Of Birds And Lions

 

 

 

The Music of Birds and Lions

If I had to say something about it

I would just mention

the way your eyes

moved through me
like fever through a lion,

like the brown-soled boots

 

of a Victorian explorer

walking lightly

with ownership, a dominion

powered by steam

careful always to
keep an echo-

map of the outback

in beige buckram binding

firmly gripped in your mind,

 

referencing pages dogeared

recording the reasons

not to fall behind on

a dangerous journey;

or that your hands

were always sliding in

a slipstream of tasks, were

water, embracing stones smooth

in their blue satin beds,

leaving behind a geologic

 

Alexandrian library

of lithic messages, codes

in languages of a few extinct

species of birds, envoys and diplomats;

that your long fingers on the stops

were your flight feathers,

playing a recital at nightfall

of calling macaws that come to color

the shadow-fronds of sunset palms

with their bright rest;

 

but there's no need to

talk about what you stored
under my skin, or tattoos in birdsong

that can't be forgotten,

so I only strum the music of it

where the lions rise

in the mauve gauze of
the jungle dark.

~December 2014

(minor revisions, 2022)

posted for earthweal's

Open Link Weekend #144

(Nothing bubbling up from the cauldron this week, so posting another oldie, one originally written for Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads)

Images: The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897, Henri Rousseau

The Moment of Truth, 1892, Paul Gauguin

Public domain

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 

Warfire

 

 

 

 

Warfire

In the killing fine fabric

of inflorescent flame

we walk, we burn,

dwindling from kindling

to bullet-bruised smut

alone in a dark

our dying lights up.

  

Murderers in red

boil a soup from the dead

in our hollowed heads

hidden hired thugs move,

their inhalation our blood,

their exhale the air

where the fire fed.

~May 2016

rewritten and reposted for DVerse Poets Pub

OLN March 2022

Image: Ukrainian State Border Guard Service site damaged by shelling in Kyiv region, Ukraine,  handout picture released February 24, 2022. (Press service of the Ukrainian State Border Guardvia Reuters)   Fair Use

The Yule Goat

 

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

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.