Earthsong

Earthsong

A triolet on the death of
Chantel Moore

The Mother has come to cover her bones

and Owl to call when the wind blows stars.

White fire, black blood, grey plague of stones;

flowers grow colors over her own.

Drums make a heart, peace makes a throne;

burn for her now and melt the scars.

Flowers will know to cover her bones.

Owl flies tonight to the wind-blown stars.

June 2020

posted for earthweal's

Love Songs For Mother Earth

Apologies to those with certain newer word press sites. Their handling of spam puts my comments in the spam folder. I have commented on everyone's poem at this prompt, so if you don't see me, check there. I keep waiting for this problem to be resolved but it seems like it never will be. Again, sorry.

owl and moon by A.Perry

Process note: The owl is a potent symbol in many Native American cultures, including:

•  "Ojibwe tribes, as well as their Aboriginal Canadian counterparts, used an owl as a symbol for both evil and death. In addition, they used owls as a symbol of very high..[spirituality in their spiritual]..leaders..
• Pawnee tribes viewed owls as the symbol of protection from any danger within their realms.
• Pueblo people associated owls with Skeleton Man, the god of death and spirit of fertility.
• Yakama tribes use an owl as a powerful totem, often to guide where and how forests and natural resources..[can be used]with management...."  ~wikipedia

Images: Borage, Crocus, © joyannjones

Ouroboros

Ouroboros

The girl who grew old

in her sleep keeps her eyes

on a chain, afraid to let them loose

from the fingerwork of dreams,

stringing the beads of her sanity.

The machinery must turn, not

roam across every face

of cruelty, of beauty, that

comes now in the crowd

whose Fahrenheit flies

towards the boiling heart of the sun.

Voices with stones, medicine hands

 on eyes seared blind in acid clouds;

gunshot, brickbat and burning

sweep our shuddering house.

Tiny assassins make up

the bed where we fear to lie down

with our dusty farewells.

The crone bleeds hidden

gold watering her marigolds,

sees again in the glinting blue stream

 the great ouroboros return; 

Jörmungandr opens his mouth

to lash his tail and break oceans.

Now is the time for devouring 

 as Fenris howls

for the gods to come out and die.

June 2020

posted for The Sunday Muse

and Kerry O'Connor's Skylover Word List

Process note: "In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr.. is a sea serpent, the middle child of the giantess Angrboða and Loki. According to the Prose Edda, Odin took Loki's three children by Angrboða—the wolf Fenrir, Hel, and Jörmungandr—and tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircles Midgard[our human world.]The serpent grew so large that it was able to surround the earth and grasp its own tail. .. When it releases its tail, Ragnarök [the last destroying battle of the old world, translated as Twilight or Doom of the Gods] will begin.  Jörmungandr is an example of an ouroboros,...an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail..The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth..." ~wikipedia, condensed.

Images: Title unknown, by Alexandra Dillon  Fair Use

Alchemical drawing of an ouroboros by Theodorus Pelecanos, 1478  Public Domain

Storm Rocket

Storm Rocket

The big storm comes, rattles

the latch of night, batters twilight

with its troll voice and god hands,

throws soil from a thousand raped fields

at my face, dry earth's stripped debris,

melted smell of dirt-charged void

electric as the ghost of your lips in the dark.

I'd wear it like a rocket, follow it, fly with it

to that other land where wheat sings to

the living earth, lightning is a dreamer's

 dance and storms sigh down

a cobweb of emerald rain;

but seventy years of hot wind

have made me small as dust,

a pygmy trapped in

this unbreakable

walnut-shell

of pain.

May 2020

posted for The Sunday Muse

Images: Sky in Saskatchewan, author unknown, via internet  Fair Use

Rocket, by Brad Phillips   Fair Use

Friday Flash 55 for May 2020

Welcome all to this month's edition of the Friday 55. 

 The rules are unchanged; write a poem, piece of prose poetry or flash fiction on any subject, in exactly 55 words, no more, no less. Paste your link in the comments section, and I will be by to read what you have come up with.

The prompt will be live

from Thursday at midnight to Sunday at 4 PM.

~*~

Here's my 55:

Black Dog


The moon stopped talking

when you came

walking through catastrophes,

black dog that wouldn't mind

at your heel.

You couldn't stay;

I never stayed myself.

They thought they knew our best

but best's a savor
saved

for shot-silk touch

the war of wills

the game without rules;

reserved 

for those who meet breathing

and leave singing.

May 2020

Images: The Dog, 1819,  © Francisco Goya    Public Domain

Self portrait with a Black Dog, 1841,  © Gustave Corbet (manipulated) Public Domain