To recap our mission here for any new aspirants, we come together every Friday to celebrate the legacy of one of the great original bloggers, Galen Hayes, who gave so many support and a laugh hosting this meme of 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less. Link yours in the comments below between Friday and Sunday morning, and I will be by to read.
A glance to the poles for my 55 this week:
Wendigo
Time shrinks
to shadow-smoke.
Forever-winter drowses
a snowdust
dim darkness of white.
Don't wake her.
Her wendigo's eye shut
dim darkness of white.
Don't wake her.
Her wendigo's eye shut
still hates
the old rose by the fence,
bleeding life
bleeding life
at each finger's end.
Her ice-blanket's twist
Her ice-blanket's twist
shudders out
floods,
dreams of dead fishes
ash from a thousand wildfires.
April
darkens with
the desperation of hummingbirds.
~April 2018
wendigo, also, windigo: (in the folklore of some northern Algonquian peoples) a
cannibalistic giant; a person who has been transformed into a monster by
the consumption of human flesh.
Some facts from the Norwegian Polar Institute on how Arctic warming will affect the rest of the globe, including reduced thermohaline circulation and the albedo effect.
Images: The Enigma, 1871, by Gustave Dore
Dark Roses On Light Background, 1891,Henri Fantin-Latour
Public domain. Manipulated.
Dark Roses On Light Background, 1891,Henri Fantin-Latour
Public domain. Manipulated.
tides rise; Luna co-orbits Sol with Terra always chasing her cold dust.
ReplyDeletehumans are persistent nits intent on rubbing out all the other nits.
after all, if we are what we eat... then we indeed are all wendigo, waiting on the unblinking moon
hope you have a kick-ass weekend, Hedge ~
Nits indeed. We're playing in the gods' toolbox, and wrecking as we go, like a bunch of malicious bored monkeys, but still, the planet abides with a few defenses of her own....or so one hopes. Thanks for the kind words, M, and for the moody and beautiful 55.
DeleteCruel month in grueling Anthropocene. The Beast from the East that froze Europe thie winter also whooped a shillelagh against the Western US as well. Forecast this weekend for the US: wildfires, blizzards, twisters. This wendigo is our own creation, but h/her rampaging here is mythic and personal, and like a bad dream we can't keep from kicking her awake. If the poet's body is the world, her voice cannot but be wrapped in barb wire shagged with ice. The brutal catharsis of an unfolding fusillade. Buckle up. Kicks the ass of my weekend.
ReplyDeleteAnd now, for blue pickle-juice: https://blueoran.wordpress.com/2018/04/13/rapture/
Blue pickle juice..I'm laughin. Rapture is such a glimpsed-and-gone thing, isn't it? Much closer to us when we are younger, shorter and nearer to the depths below us. Thanks for your 55, and thanks for getting mine...not much, but the best I could do this week.
DeleteThe horror of this situation starts creeping into our eyeballs the moment we start reading... By the time we get to the last lines, we are quaking (with outrage, pain, fury, and all sorts of other mind-squeezing emotions) as violently as April in a shroud of bloody hummingbird feathers. Your poetry is so good at making us feel reality's horrors in the bone and brain. Some days (nah, all days), I wish I could transfuse said feelings and understanding into the blood of the ones who have been giving zero damns for much too long.
ReplyDeleteHere is my bit for this week:
http://magalyguerrero.com/thicken-your-skin-with-ink/
Thanks Magaly--so good to see your smiling, tooothy muse back at the 55--and your own piece is as full of foreboding, for sure, yet you manage to inject a bit of hope.
DeleteThat final image is so apt, with its air of frenetic panic. But don't worry, I'm sure the head of the EPA is all over it. *rolleyes*
ReplyDeleteMine is so absurd that you really ought to beat me sensibly.
http://fireblossom-wordgarden.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-social-event-of-season.html
Don't wake her.
ReplyDeleteHer wendigo's eye shut
still hates
the old rose by the fence,
Ignorance is bliss for the mortals who decide to play God. Search and destroy - as opposed to seek and know solace for the wonder in the miraculous.
We take more than we have ever given, certainly now more than ever, yet for the wastelands burning, like wildfire ash, we are impoverished for the loss of the honour - but the old rose habits of divide and conquer are bitterstink for the death of the nurturing sweet - the nourishing.
There is no honour in this dislocation/disassociation. We are fools.
This is such a richly rewarding 55 Hedge - filled with stark, harsh images, so deftly painted, and speaks with a candor that is warning and mourning.
I've been sitting with this for the day - in the absorption of it all.
A deft and swift execution, the Wendigo speaks - be warned for all who think she sleeps.
Thank you, willow. I got this from a scrap on the news, and a long held, deep-seated and genuine terror of the wendigo--the white absence of life, annihilation of temperate life, I should say, is frightening to me anyway, yet it exists for a reason, like death is part of life, necessary and driving all kinds of forces. Thanks very much for your long and insightful comment.
DeleteI love how you have combined myth with the science of global warming.. And were not these monsters embodiments of human dread of environmental forces beyond their control? You have warned of the eminent disruption of one such demon's long sleep.. no one but ourselves to blame.
ReplyDeleteThe best part of the poem was the final image - so unexpected to picture the hummingbird's frantic attempt to stay alive against all odds.
My offering:
Deletehttp://kerryoconnorsother.blogspot.co.za/2018/04/views-of-battlefield-part-i.html
I foresee another poem in several parts, so I thank you for allowing the 55 to be a springboard of more to come.
Thanks for your kind words, Kerry, and I wonder how long the walls of Jericho can hold...
DeleteI can only echo the thoughts of the poetry clan gathered here. We are in one hell of a mess, seen only partially, if you consider the whole human tribe. Blind leading the blind so that even as the Wendigo gorges on us we remain unawares. Kicks major Ass. My tuppenceworth
ReplyDeletehttps://paulscribbles.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/night/
Good to see you here, Paul, and thanks for playing this week.
DeleteMy 55 for this week, worked, pared, stripped, bitten, I don't know how many times - gah! it will have to be what it is ....
ReplyDeletebut thanks Hedge, for the points of inspiration and the time
http://papertiger88.blogspot.ca/2018/04/hooded-river-pearspairs.html
and to "conserve" energy ~ glad you enjoyed the blue skin flesh of the juniper, gin - and all the richness of your comment ~ truly appreciated
and may you kick ass this weekend - I'm getting my licks in before the weather turns right nasty ...
I know you say you sweated blood over this, but it reads --or rather streams into the brain--so smoothly that one might think it just feel out of the sky into your pen--you did an excellent job of making every word rich,tasty, descriptive *and* meaningful. So glad to have you at the party, willow.
Deletethanks Hedge - sometimes, it's just what needs to be done ... separating pith from bone, and driving oneself insane in the process ;)
Deletehttps://kanzensakura.wordpress.com/2018/04/13/6968/ Here is my 55. Not much to blow about. But your 55 - how I love that last image you leave with us. I hope everyone has a big huge fricking kick ass weekend.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all who stopped by to contribute to the kickass quality of the weekend. See you next week.
ReplyDelete