The Sorceress

The Sorceress

You were more to me once

than the meal the moon-mad maenad makes,

more than the jewels burning cold on my breast

strung blue-banded on the skin of snakes,

when I laid you out there in the poppy field

in the shape of a star,

in the shape of a wheel

on which we could travel far.

I cared more for you then

than the hummingbird could

for its whip-wire tongue

that loves out in a flash the lily-juice,

than the dead hawk's hen in her nesting roost,
brooding unfed, for life in the shell

till it comes true
for that's her ward,

the yoke of the spell:

to love too much,

to love too well

so when the egg cracks

and the heart goes to hell,

she's grown wind in the feather

for the endless hunt, 

for the sky as brother.

~July 2015

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Challenge: Finding the Poetic Voice

Kerry O'Connor (Skylover, Skywriting) asks us to consider the true melody of one's poetic voice, of how, when, why one addresses the reader, the self, the other, in verse. Fascinating, and truly challenging, reaching for that, though I'm not sure how successfully, here. Thank you, Kerry.

Note: I am not at my best, healthwise atm, but will do my best to visit as I can.

Images: The Magic Circle, 1896, by John William Waterhouse
News, 1906, by Mikalojus Ciurlonis

Public domain via wikiart.org

Modern Times

Modern Times

Fighting for air

 droplets of mist

rich lipids of coagulated moonlight

wax smooth cheeks furrowed against the

assassin blank stare of the moon

in a night given over

to grief's predator jackboots

streaked marks on brainwork pavers

a night black as Lamia's eyes

when no good can be done no thing

left whole no ghost laid

no purpose served 

a night when

the dream will have its way

for nightmare devours down

to what it must have

 nothing left but to wait

weighting hours in wet clothes

for the drowning

man half rescued, blue lips still dripping

the clean chloride kisses

of commodious death.

~July 2015

Process note:" In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia ...was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon..a mistress of the god Zeus, causing Zeus' jealous wife, Hera, to kill all of Lamia's children and transform her into a monster that hunts and devours the children of others...In later stories, Lamia was cursed with the inability to close her eyes [and]Zeus then gave her the ability to remove [them]. ...[some] versions state [this] ability...came with the gift of prophecy."~wikipedia

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Weekend Challenge: The Poetry of Paul Celan 

Grace (everyday amazing) introduces us to the work of the 20th Century Romanian poet and translator, Paul Antschel (whose pen name was Celan.) For full details of his remarkable and harrowing biography, see her post at the link above. His poetry is, perhaps inescapably, quite dark--but brilliant. This is only a shadow of that, as our times seem sometimes only a confused shadow of his.

Images, both Untitled, by Zdislav Beksinski

Fair use via wikiart.org

Appaloosa Moon

Appaloosa Moon

You rode in from Calgary on

the appaloosa moon, all in white

above her speckled flanks;

another cosmic cowboy

looking for a decent rodeo clown.

You took my hand.

put it on your silver buckle.

I felt the corded muscle;

did my best

to dismiss the hat.

You were  sweet as margaritas,

flying god and sinking singer

at stud, a three-time winner

with a kick like

a government mule.

Some (not I)

might think you thicker

than a jug of home-brewed liquor,

but you had your existential

quandaries just the same.

I got it, alright,

you sometimes mumbled

slipping off my bridle, 

whispering in my wind-swished hair,

but it ain't consistent.

Nothing is, I said,

somewhat hampered by

the texture of your

soft-breathed reaching nuzzle,

except

hellfire and this hot-ass summer,

and they're not much use at all. 

And so I held you trembling

till the bell rang, the chute-gate banged, 

and the moon put her head down

while you laughed in the rain:

a horse, you told me, won't buck if it's in pain.

~July 2015

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Ella ( Ella's Edge) 

asks us to reflect on something we will never outgrow--in this case, one's favorite memories. 

Process notes: "...However, while the implied argument ...is that pain is what makes the horse buck, in actual practice, irritants or pain generally interfere with a horse's ability to buck in an energetic and athletic fashion..A horse in pain will become sullen and not buck very well...' ~wikipedia




Images: Tail Swish, by Pretty Petal Studios. on etsy
No Copyright Infringement is intended
The Broncho Buster, 1909, by Frederich Remington
Public domain via wikiart,org

Divine Comedy

Divine Comedy

 

What is said here

is true in the moment

if in itself

the moment is true.

Here before bewitchment and betrayal,

before the spell winds out

before the mind-clot bursts,

the indifferent bile seeps scouring

beyond the skein

of loops and traps; said quick

before our pages become

blackened stalks

pulled naked 

in the wind.

~July 2015

 

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Flash Fiction 55 Plus

Kerry's plus this time is to draw on either the paintings of Rossetti or the writings of Dante; I have used Rossetti's Mnemosyne, the mother of the muses, the goddess of memory,  from whom Hesiod said 'kings and poets receive their powers of authoritative speech...'  You may remember from other process notes that she possesses a pool in the underworld, which when the dead drink from it, restores every memory of past lives, being the opposite of Lethe where all such baggage is allowed to be forgotten.  

Dante contributes the title, and the poets conversing in a limboish Hell..

Images: Mnemosyne, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante;Hell;IVth Canto, Homer and the Ancient Poets, by William Blake 
Public Domain via wikimedia commons

The Mirandacoot

The Mirandacoot

I do not like

this silvery-cold tree,

its tatterdy leaves,

its strangledy shoots,

said the long-tailed mirandacoot.

Its raggedy babies

come in armies and hordes

like All Hallows' ghosts on a graveyard sward;

it has no fruit,

mumbled the bat-eared mirandacoot

So she bared her teeth

to gnaw it down. but a bluefaced

jay abruptly turned clown near

a very important squirrel town, with

a nodding wren on each bent root--

'Oh, let it stay,' said the mirandacoot.

The mirandacoot

is a mythical beast

with four sharp teeth,

with cobweb fur

and spider feet.

She haunts my cellar

shaking her fist,

drawing  her charms

all over  the wall

(up which, need I add,

she knows how to crawl.)

She knows the nine herbs

Odin grew from the dragon.

She knows what Thor's goats

pulled around in their wagon,

but she won't ever tell

what she heard from Hel.

I don't go below

where she lives in her corner,

but I can feel her at night

guarding the border.

~July 2015

"Her name's Miranda. She's a Rudolph Valentino fan/ and she doesn't claim to understand/...she bakes brownies for the boys/in the band.." ~Phil Ochs

Just some fun.  

Image: Sign For A School Of Monsters, 1968, by Max Ernst.

Fair use via wikiart.org