Summer Flowers, Winter Snow

I am going to be absent for awhile, friends and readers, due to some minor health issues. Nothing to worry about, but it's just not possible for me to spend a lot of time on the computer at the moment. I hope to be back soon, but till then, here are some garden pictures to look at. Thanks to everyone for their readership and support, and may summer flowers always bloom through your winter snows...

Rosa meidiland "Magic Meidiland' also known as Cthulu

Canna 'Dawn Pink' and Daylily 'Destined To See'

Zinnia 'Violet Queen'

Canna 'Richard Wallace'

photos (c) joyannjones

Moon Song

Moon Song

The moon sang the sun out

but not for long.

You spread my hair over

fever chills like a paisley shawl.

Your tears ran down my face

a spirit veil, wet lace.

Your lips walked

from one corner of my town

to the river's edge

while your broker's eyes

asked always for 

the goods I didn’t have.

Your hands stamped

the passport of my spine,

chased silver the leaves of

dove occluded sky. Dawn placed

the rose grey seal. And so we boarded; 

one life parted from the next,

in fire, then ash, blown across

the guarded border, where

whistles shrilled and every flag blew out.

On a planet where rocks dreamed

the sun sang out the moon,

but not for long. 

~January 2013





If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below:

moon song by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Image: Salagou by moonlight, by Petteri Sulonen, on flick'r
Petteri's photostream
Shared under a Creative Commons License

Thank you, Petteri,  for the use of your work, illustration and inspiration, as always.

Xmas At The Xroads

Xmas at the Xroads

From the roof,

the stone kicked over the edge

falling 

   falling

is invisible.

You should never have made the mistake

of putting me in such

a shallow grave,

where I could still hear the goatman

blow blues sax in the christmas cards,

see the monster truck, 

dirtyred with primer,

smeared with tiny reindeer

towed from the wreck of a seventy-six sleigh

pileup on the lost highway.

You should have taken

the time to speak the words

to keep me from walking (or

at least buried me

at the Xroads)

because when Miss X (the prickly Virgin)

slammed metal door number nine on

the announcer's chickeny neck

rather than pick which one might open to glory,

the building got ugly-empty.

Your Xmas lights

just made it look cheap.

All the tinsel stuck to

all the hard work you stole,

all the blueprints gone toxic;

no one could save it,

so that the roof 

falling

was

invisible as a stone.

~January 2013

Posted for   Poetics   at dVerse Poet's Pub

Brian's grabbed the mic today to get us to tackle the topic of mass media, mass communication, etc. I think all my regular readers know just how much I love the Xmas season, so that was where I went. 

Images: Same to You, by lalawren, posted on flick'r

Christmas Stable Decration, by rockbadger on flick'r

 shared under a Creative Commons License

In Hel's Hall

In Hel's Hall

It was white-ice morning in Hel's Hall

in the ninth of the Nine Worlds, when

Odin donned the Hel-shoes, cast the runes

and rode to ask his questions of 

the dead. 

Because he was a god, twisted she rose 

from her ashen bed

and by force began to speak  

of what she knew:

So I found, said the blackened lips,

that cold is a serpent that holds, pushing its

ribbon-chest deep into mountain,

slow-cracking the heads of the spirits within

for gold to brighten its rippling scales.

Will you hear more?

So I saw, moved the fleshless jaw,

cold grow wide and thicken,

putting on its grey-white armor,

that its dead mouth kisses every shoulder, 

that the tree it circles

will shake down a harvest of lives

to grind out all you love.

So I found, rattled the dustdry throat,

that cold will make red daggers, hanging

scarlet borrowed blood to temper

oblivion's poppy snowflakes,

to pierce the heart of hearts

till red and white alike

vanish from sight.

So I saw, whispered the husk of Hel,

that snow will cover fire, 

that the white wolf no sword can kill

will eat desire, that you

are a basket of bones made for wildflowers

withering in a wind of empty hours.

Will you hear more?

Then the One-Eyed shucked his Hel-shoes

jumped back in Sleipnir's saddle,

and fled the Ninth World, 

where the wisdom he begged

had frozen on his tongue.

~January 2013

 posted for   real toads

Kerry's Wednesday Challenge: Worldbuilding

Kerry O'Connor has asked us to write around the subject of alternative worlds. Here I've reached into the the realm of Norse myth, and as usual, taken a few liberties with the tales of the Old Gods.

Process notes: In Norse mythology, Hel was the realm of those dead who had not died in battle, and also the name of the female figure who ruled it. It was where Odin the One-eyed, first of the Aesir and god of poetry, war, death, wisdom and wandering, journeyed to raise a dead Seeress to tell him of the future. She prophesies the events of Ragnarök,* the twilight, or perhaps re-making, of the gods, where the children of the antagonistic god of disorder and mischief, Loki, the Midgard Serpent and Fenrir the Wolf, will battle the gods, and the World Tree will 'shake and groan.' 

Hel-shoes (helskór) were put on the Norse dead to walk the road to the Otherworld.

Sleipnir is Odin's magical eight-legged horse.

* I probably ought to add that following the events of Ragnarök, the  völva also prophesies that a beautiful new world will emerge, where men and gods live in peace and plenty. Some believe that this a post-Christian introduction, but regardless, it satisfies the happily ever after need we humans have.

Image: Odin Rides to Hel, by W.G. Collingwood 
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons