The Paladin

The Paladin

I rose from my trial and testing vigil

now a knight, God’s holy knight.

His fire was a flame I held within

a tremulous but incandescent light.

I set out from my high stone

seat, now a threatened tower

answering my sovereign's call

to break the Old Ones' power.

For the land was soured with the

bile of evil, bled by a heresy, sharp

as my father’s Damascus blade,

that cut and left its soulless mark

upon their faces, or their limbs, that

scarlet scrawl of Satan’s passing wing

shadowed, then tatooed blue with sin. We

found and burned them in their faerie ring.

We burned them in the towns, with ease. Our

horses drove them to the village square;

flames kissed the magic in them black

as pitch, and let it out with a hissing flare.

Their smell, their cries, they pierced and split

the misty air, deep red-edged as any sword

but we stopped our ears with writ, while in the

crowd, grey monks intoned the Blessed Word.

We watched the Godfires burn ten days

and nights, bright hot and ever brighter still

till I wondered why I felt in me such pain

to see the luminous working of His will.

When all was colorless smolder, ashen silence

I knelt in humbled fear before the priest

who called God's glory down to cleanse my soul;

from all misplaced regret he gave release.

But later at the inn when she brought meat,

somehow it had a smell too wrong to eat.

October 2011

Posted for   Poetics   at dVerse Poet's Pub

Mark Kerstetter is hosting today, and  has given us the fascinating prompt of entering into another persona, and writing a poem from another's point of view, from inside their skin, as it were. I don't know how successful I've been at completely escaping my own point of view here, but I have made a stab at it.

The Rat Wars of 2084

The Rat Wars of 2084

for the ratling

It started simply

when the food ran out.

It became a lifetest for

meat between the small rats

and the bigger rats.

The talking rats attempted to

convince the others they could eat words.

This was clever, but

unsuccessful.

Then things began

to escalate.

Bombs and air raids

made the night sky uneasy

as a pudding in an earthquake.

Bodies decorated the street in streamers

hanging red tinsel from the bending lights

dark blood came down like rain

blood enough to drown in

to float the enterobacterial rodships of every plague

ever seen on a globe of filth and plague.

Anthropophaginian shapes scrabbled for hiding,

dissolved in the shadows of ruin

gnawing on last year's bones, drinking vintage sewage

welling from craters in crazystone runways.

Exterminate the plague bearers,

came the panic cry on the black wind, exterminate

before it’s too late!

But the humans are much

much tougher 

than they look.

October 2011

 Straying from the gothic to the post apocalyptic, but clinging still, hopefully, to the October miasma for your Halloween pleasure.

To see the image I originally had reproduced here to illustrate this poem, follow this link to  Untitled Work by ZDZISŁAW BEKSIŃSKI to a copyrighted site where his entire opus is on view. It's worth it.

Beksinski's bio on wikipedia

The Sad But Instructive Tale of The Anchoress Who Threw Her Panties Over The Moon

 

The Sad But Instructive Tale of The Anchoress

Who Threw Her Panties Over The Moon

She’d found a place

where being stopped,

where mind surrendered,

all emotions rendered

primal slop, no drop of life

to another tendered.

Any quip could be slipped

glib as bishop's tongue,

but he made her care;

now the bell’s unrung.

No salvation’s in

the anchoress cell

since he taught her again

what she knew so well

October 2011

Posted for   Friday Flash 55   at the G-Man's

anchorite(or anchoress) one who "...who lives in seclusion, esp a religious recluse; hermit"

via World English Dictionary @dictionary.com 

Image: Enclosing an Anchoress, medieval manuscript for which I can find no credits

Repost~Winespeak

WineSpeak

Playing at love poured out in a twist stem crystal glass

clear ruby,with notes of cherry and madagascar vanilla bean,

I’m here to sing them straight from your lips, drinking in a kiss

heavier than the outlaw tang of saddle, earth and tobacco,

far sweeter, sunnier than cranberry, red current, ripe raspberry

chambered blackberry, or clamoring, astringent key lime.

I'll crush the garnet red fruit and bitter black together

tilt back my head and toss them down, the taste

teasing to a lingering earthy finish

(tangerine and nectarine)

with just a bit of pepper and

restrained use of oak.

It’s all nuanced

fragrantly

integrated

with

waxy

apricot

spice

bright green

apple

acidity

(and pears)

dusty

fruit

on the nose

of living

with a round

lush

mouthfeel

against

a mossy

background,

(no kiwi)

aged

to finish

short and dry

with perhaps a little heat,leaving behind

a fleeting hint of licorice and clove over wet stone.

A vintage year for pinot noir, chenin blanc and the occasional lover.

January 2011

Reposted October 2011 for  FormForAll   at dVerse Poet's Pub

Disclaimer: all these analogies and terms are commonly used in the world of wine critique. I simply rearranged them a bit in a silly shape to entertain myself (and hopefully the reader) on a very dull day.

Doll's House

“Dolls with no little girls around to mind them 

were sort of creepy under any conditions.”
― Stephen King, Desperation

Doll’s House

I.

The doll has found

a child.

It took many years

patient in the dark

basement, 
behind the furnace

blue eye unblinking, little smile

cut like a curved salmon tail

on her faded plastic face.

No one comes

but spiders.

II.

The girl has found

a doll.

Bored with rainy days

exploring in the dark

basement, 
behind the furnace

where the whispering was

she looked, blue eye unblinking

little smile, where she shouldn't.

No one comes

but flies.

III.

The doll and child together 

find forever

in the basement

behind the furnace

with the buzzing

the 
crawling

till in the dark

they make themselves

darker 

darker still,

dark enough to

finally

dis

      appear...

No one comes.

October 2011

Posted for    Kerry's Wednesday Word Challenge   at with Real Toads

which, in the spirit of this my favorite season, was to take a quote from Stephen King and write a poem with an emphasis on psychological terror. I think I may have strayed a bit into the supernatural, but I've  tried to remain true to my chosen quote.

Image Creepy Doll, by ~Sleeping Samurai on deviantArt

The Kitten and the Witch

The Kitten and the Witch

a fable for Halloween

The casement windows

fitted with lead

meant to keep evil out

kept it in instead

the rowan tree with berry red

died by the door,

then all was dead

save the witch and the kitten Mandragore

His jade green glance

saw through the floor

where the dead were put

that came before

His bright black paw was

soft and sure

as he paced the pentagram back and fore

The witch was caught

with ashen mouth

frozen in limb

and deep in doubt

but Mandragore

danced the charm full out.

The runes shimmered on the floor

No demon came but a child was born

where the dead held sway.

The witch jumped up

and fought that day

until the shadows were no more,

and now they play

by the open door,

the witch, the boy and Mandragore.

October 2011

With thanks to Brendan for his many celebrations of the feline, 
such as this one in Octoberal,

 at Oran's Well

Header image: courtesy google image search
Footer image: Witch and kitten, 1988 (c) joy ann jones

Old

Old

When I was a girl
I raced my lines
            over the paper,
                                      words skipped

                                                           like stones across

                                                                       the aqua vita of the page

in a most provocative way.
Now, of course I'm old and
write quatrains that rhyme

or at the very least

free verse in numbered lines,

serious in an unserious world.

Old.

Oh there are benefits.
You can smile at many more things 
that over time 

have proved

to be ridiculous

like yourself.

You can go to the hiking 
trail in the park and 
walk backwards, waving

your arms like a windmill

and feel 

no embarrassment.

Or have your dinner
of buttered toast and 
lightly scrambled

eggs at four o'clock

because you can.

All is measuring out, so

that the hard part about

getting old isn’t the ache,
the dizzy, the suddenly 

       

exhausted 

moment standing in a void,

the knife breaking in the bone,

but the ceasing
to care about things

that once were important

such as being hip,

and what you

look like.

The new jokes don’t seem as reliable
as the old. The new people seem
a consciously constructed alien race

and the cold comes up

from the very bottom of you

the bottom of all being.

Warmth pools tiny in the center, shrinking;

the fingers are stiff with ice

for marrow

and the heart is just 

another abandoned thing

raddled with years and miles

the whole rusty as winter bones

the fox leaves for a child in spring to uncover 

with dreadful curiosity

jumping

                                         back

                           startling at a
                                                       sound;

a sharp crackle,

something in the air

the fire of laughter

the smell of smoke

the shadow of a melody

faint and distant 

as a falling star

then into the pocket with it 

and going on home

before the darkness falls.

October 2011

Posted For   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub

Process Notes: I haven't played around with lines like this for many years but over the last few weeks I've been reading poetry before bed from people who do and have been corrupted. Oh well.

aqua vita, or aqua vitae, Latin for 'water of life'  "..is an archaic name for a concentrated aqueous solution of ethanol. The term was in wide use during the Middle Ages, although its origin is undoubtedly much earlier having been used by Saint Patrick and his fellow monks to refer to both the alcohol and the waters of baptism..." ~wikipedia

Header image: Ghost Car in Big Bend, 
Big Bend National Park, Texas by joy ann jones, 1986

City of the Mind

City of the Mind

Give me

a  page of night's

black stardazzle,  splash

across some buttermilk moon, and

you win.

Boxes  

physical, imaginary;

so messy carving off

parts so people 

will fit.

October 2011

Posted for    Sunday Mini-Challenge     at with Real Toads

This is my attempt at a mirror cinquain. (one cinquain of lines of 2,4,6,8 and 2 syllables  and its reverse.) Kerry O'Connor will explain it all to you at the link above.

Image: Photo of The Museum Magritte, Brussels, By Michel wal 
(Own work) via Wikimedia Commons