Travels With John Barleycorn

Travels With John Barleycorn

A Nonsense Song

We took a trip

around the Horn

with Sweet Mary Jane

and John Barleycorn.

Some got sleep

and some got rest;

we found out who

could dance the best

under the table

and over the bed

in gold bright dark

in slippers of lead,

with arms upflung

with hair swung low,

sliding where only

the lost ones go,

with stars in our bellies,

too new to mourn

Sweet Mary Jane

and John Barleycorn.

~May 2013

 posted for   the 100th Open Link Night    at dVerse Poets
Congratulations to the Pub, and all her Patrons and Staff, past and present.

"...oh my my, oh hell yes/ you got to put on that party dress.."

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Image: Author unknown, via Facebook. 
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Incubus VIII

Untitled, by Zdzisław Beksiński

Incubus VIII
(Bloody Hell)

Hell is lonely without my demon--

my personal one, I mean, because

there's no shortage here of devils.

Basting on the liquid lava's lips,
I'm alone in brimstone sunscreen,

no ruby pitchfork's flip

when one side gets too burnt,

no serpent sapient tail to scale me,

just the brisk popping of my cookery.

I thought my demon knew there's no

vaccine for the maenad's bite, that

nothing says forever like damnation.

I was killing more than willing

to lie griddled on bloodred coals

and call it love; but I missed his

listening kiss in the hissing steam.

Hell is lonely, bloody
empty without my demon.

I thought this blistered blaze might hold
his blade-heart's forge, and a hammer pain to

twin us bright as living never did

yet after the first in-twisting, after

first blood spilled

he disappeared

and that is Hell for you.

~June 2013

posted for       dVerse Poets

Karin Gustafson (Manicddaily) challenges us today to deal with the great splitting gemini within us all, to write of twins, twining, combining or uncombining. Though I thought I'd finished with him, as I've written many little scribbles about my twin the Incubus, still he seems to linger somewhere at the back of Hell's waiting room.

  If you'd like to read the others in this series, you can find them  here.

Image: Untitled, by the great Polish surrealist Zdzisław Beksiński may be under copyright. All copyright belongs to the copyright holders.

Blackberries

Blackberries

Wild blackberries
on the tongue

all sweet stain
and full of stones,

black as blood

among the thorns.

 I came to worship

but I stayed to think.

I came to eat

but you had only drink:

a river of salt

to wash the sweet away,

and a flood of ink

to black out the day.

~June 2013

55  wild ripe berries of Rubus fruticosus for    the g-man

Hover mouse for image attribution or click on pic to visit photographer's flick'r page.

Sailor's Nocturne

Sailor's Nocturne

I.

The nights were ours and ours alone

when I was your salt sister

when my skin was wet with love

and the tide of moonlight lashed the grassy beach

to the beat of ebbing hearts, the tall storm whistler

splitting the elegance of sky's black satin sheets.

II.

 

As the petrel thrown far out to sea 

beats to rest its wings on wreck's debris;

as Pandora's jewel was shoulder-deep

in weeping, you come back to me in sleep

braiding sulphur ribbons in my hair

sinking me in the port of your warlock stare.

III.

 Brother you're lost cold in the undertow, 

pain your pilot and your puzzle-gift,

but we speak again where the moon lights up the runes,

 all ours and ours alone;

I still am your salt sister sailing

in the sea of night dreams neverending.

~June 2013

posted for     real toads

Kerry's Wednesday Challenge: Nocturne

 Kerry O'Connor asks us to emulate, in verbal form, the musical nuance of the compositional form known as nocturne. The poem should be lyrical rather than narrative, might suggest the religious symbology of a triune service, and can be form or free verse--I tried to do a bit of all of this here.

For further, and much more lucid, details of the challenge, see above link.

Header image: Moonlit Landscape, by Camille Corot, 1874

Footer image: Boat with Two Figures, by Odilon Redon, 1902

Public Domain, via wikipaintings.org