A Talk with Tyto alba

A Talk with Tyto alba

To the garden overwatered

by my tears

the Barn Owl came one night.

He sat on a branch,

swiveling his round-windowed head

to ask me why

I cried.

“Are you lonely

here, in this place

you built yourself? Do the wolves

draw in at evening,

slipping their howls in the papery sigh

of free wind I sail?”

I looked in his eyes

globed as peaches, golden

lamps pulling light

from dark.
I shook my head.

“Then is it the stone

you can't drop, the ugly one

held so hard on your lungs,

heavy with years,

sharp with fear

of  tomorrow?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t cry for what I’ve lost,

for what I am or what will be.

 I cry for what I’ve broken

and what has broken me.”

“But that's all three,”

said the owl
leaving me there

with a shrug of his wing, 

smooth as music on the air,

chasing his soft

personal rustlings

in the grass.

June 2011

An old poem, repurposed for 
The Sunday Muse

Image: Lechuza (Tyto alba) by macha.cl posted on flick'r 

Vessel

Vessel

When the moon

is winking

like the Grey Sisters’ eye

passed from housetop

to housetop, glassy bright

and wide as a fawn’s,

I feel your touch;

wind in the night

cool on fever’s summer.

Your kisses taste of a rain

that breaks the drought,

your look slips over skin

wet and terra cotta slick

as the clay on the wheel.

Run your potter's hand

across my back,

reshape my days, my nights

with a maker's fingers
then fire me 
where the blaze

burns morning white.

Paint my curving sides with a

bard’s young colors: jet and gold,

blue as the wandering sky,

jade, yellow, crimson

with every flower;

then take me to the well

where thirst is quenched.

September 2011, mildly revised February 2020

re-posted for earthweal's 

Open Link

(Scroll down one for the Friday 55)

The Graeae: old women", "grey ones", "grey sisters", or "grey witches"; alternatively spelled Graiai (Γραῖαι), Graiae, Graii), were three sisters who shared one eye and one tooth among them. They are one of several trios of archaic goddesses in Greek mythology.....~wikipedia






Header Image: Explore #360, ©  slokaa Fair Use

Totem

Totem

Spirit Eater

White Waltzer

secret inside my skin

snailcurled in snowdrift

sleeping, black lips closed over

teeth big as carrots, dark poppy-pod eyes
shut, REM flutter stilled

silent as the melting flake;

in dreams you

come to eat the gold yolk

from the half-egg moon called

winter’s sun.

Wake when the hunter comes,

lift your chainsaw paws,

show him your ivory-yellow teeth

scrimshawed by the obduracy 

of your kills; shake 
his bones from your throat
with a growl.

Ice Orphan
White Diver
my only protection now.

All winter you reaped

sleek black bodies of grief,

turning the ice

salty red with your patience,
and when the dark time came

and there was nowhere else, you wooed me

 with garnets and alabaster, freshcut from
the sorrows you'd slain for me.
So I gave you

sleep in the black heartcave

content to barter away

all yesterday’s skins

for the talisman necklace

of your ebony claws.

~January 2011

Originally Posted for   Fireblossom Friday   at real toads


(Hannah has a very similar prompt up at real toads today so I resurrected this but did not link.)

Header image: Post card. Bear totem on grave. Ketchikan, Alaska.

Source: US National Archives, series: Photographs of the Inhabitants of Metlakatla, British Columbia and Metlakatla, Alaska, compiled ca. 1856 - 1936
Public Domain via wikimedia commons

The Cambion's Tale

Dear  Readers: I had intended to take this month off anyway, but after some setbacks in the lumbar department, it really looks like it may be some time before I am well enough to manage much here. Please bear with me as I mend, and eventually I'm sure I shall return. I'll leave you with this little favorite of mine to chew on, and thanks, as always for everyone's concern and support. It means a great deal to me.

The Cambion's Tale

The wind rolls in the wildwood

tonight, teasing the last 

specklings of summer’s regret

from the moon-dripping trees,

fragmented friable tongues of 

henna and ochre milled to a dusty haze

that blots future and past, dead voices

rustling the leafsong that calls me to you

my hell born babe, heart’s delight

soul’s inquisitor.

Changeling and demiurge,

furred with frosted moss and mist

horned with bone, poised always 

to run; you regard me blinkless,

hermetic as a wild thing, gaze of

opals burning through the veil where

I pretend to be protected invisible

as Niniane, everlost instead

fate-tangled and resistless to 

the beckon of that blue unicorn eye.

So I come out of the night

for your lichen'd kiss, rain

cold, a drenching draft of rust

yet sweeter than any vintage

pressed from the sun's full flaunt. We're

as fallen as Rome remembered, love,

all my smooth green weight leaning

on the colonnade of whispers

you pull from some pocket in
the heart’s shallow grave.

My breath is gone again;

you’ve whistled for it. Lost

dog of my hollowed lungs,
it lopes at your heel, leashed 

tighter than the strangled chest

that knows its next gasp for last.

The night wind blows brimstone

around us, where the idol burns a

fading sandalwood smoke

bolted with blood, spiced with loss.

O there’s nothing wrong with us, love

that reincarnation won’t cure.

~October 2011

revised, February 2016

cambion: According to the Malleus Maleficarum, the offspring of a human male and a succubus, or a human female and an incubus. Caliban and Merlin are both assigned this dubious distinction.

*The last two lines are extrapolated from an anonymous saying passed around in the 60's.

Image: The Bathers, 1904, by Odillon Redon    Public domain. Manipulated.

The Cat in the Well~A Halloween Fantasia

It's here at last! Halloween, All Hallows, All Souls Day, The Day of the Dead, whatever you care to call it; my favorite holiday. To commemorate it, I repost this nice cozy horror poem, as I have every Halloween since it was first written, a little Verse Escape tradition. Enjoy!

The Cat in the Well

My name is not Odin (I forget my name) but I’ve lived

in the well for a mad moon’s making, alone with the roots,

the deep water oozing and lapping the bones’ sweet arch

that lifts my home, my tumulus a wet black mouth, alone

till the cat fell. My dying was long, my strength nearly gone

till the cat fell, till the cat came down the well.

Odin was a god (so I heard before this spell.) Death gave him back,
yet a well took him in, his eye for a drink from the frost giant’s blood

below Yggdrasil. I am not he, but a shrunken spriggan,

devil’s daughter, giants’ kin, hung here stranded in small skin

to guard what I can't spend when the faith gave way gave out gave in.

Even the dark forgets my names, forgets my games,

even the dark, till the one I played at with the fallen cat.

For when the cat fell, the light (so remote, so white) blazed

sudden, sure it could end the dead dream that crawls my veins

of a land where we once loomed large long gone;

because of that I let him live, alone of them all. He took my hands,

he took my tongue. He gave his eyes, I loth to stop what he’d begun.

He took my tongue the cat that fell, the cat come down the well.

So we climbed mossy walls (my cat tail lashing) dank with the muck

of an ancient thralling, slippery with uneaten grief, treasure slid wry,

each stone a stele for a life thrown away, each drop in the bucket red

until we came to the rim, and his amber eyes set in mine

began to shine, began to glow so all should know

the spirit cat was up from the well, with many another tale to tell;

the spirit cat that fell, the cat that came up from the well.

~October 26,2011

reposted October 31, 2015, slightly revised

Original notes:

I've mingled (or perhaps mangled) several different archetypes here: 

Odin, god of war, poetry,prophecy and magic in Norse myth traded his eye for a drink from Mimir's well, where the ancient wisdom of the frost giants was said to flow up from beneath the world tree Yggdrasil from the primordial void of Chaos. 

A spriggan is a mostly malevolent spirit from Cornish folklore, generally found guarding treasure in burial mounds or the like, believed to be small ghosts of an earlier race of giants. 

Cats, of course, were thought to be malignant, and often said to be familiars of witches or demons in medieval belief. Other cultures, such as the Ancient Egyptians, have held them sacred, and believed they possessed various magical qualities.

Special thanks to my son for the video he sent, which set me off on this particular trip, and to Brendan, for his input on the one-eyed god of the hanged.

Image: Cat on a Roof, by Ferdnando Botero, fair use via wikiart.org

The Cambion's Tale

Dear  Readers and Blogging Friends: I had intended to take this month off anyway, but after some setbacks in the lumbar department, it really looks like it may be some time before I am well enough to manage much here. Please bear with me as I mend, and eventually I'm sure I shall return. I will leave you with this little favorite of mine to chew on, and thanks, as always for everyone's concern and support. It means a great deal to me.

The Cambion's Tale

The north wind is in the wildwood

tonight, calling the last 

specklings of summer’s regret

from the moon-dripping trees,

fragmented friable tongues of 

henna and ochre milled to a dusty haze

that blots future and past, dead voices

rustling the song that calls me to you

my hell born babe, heart’s delight

soul’s inquistor.

Changeling and demiurge,

furred with frosted moss and mist

horned with bone, poised always 

to run; you regard me blinkless,

hermetic as a wild thing, gaze of

opals burning through the veil where

I pretend to be protected invisible

as Niniane, everlost instead

fate-tangled and resistless to 

the beckon of that blue unicorn eye.

So I come out of the night

for your lichen'd kiss, rain

cold, full of the taste of rust

yet sweeter than any vintage

pressed from the sun's full flaunt. We're

as fallen as Rome remembered, love,

all my smooth green weight leaning

on the colonnade of whispers

you pull from some pocket in
the heart’s shallow grave.

My breath is gone again;

you’ve whistled for it; lost

dog of my hollowed lungs it lopes,

at your heel, leashed 
with your brimstone binding

tighter than the chest that

knows the next gasp is last.

The night wind blows hellfire

around us where the idol burns

our fading sandalwood smoke

bolted with blood, spiced with loss.

O there’s nothing wrong with us

that reincarnation won’t cure.

~October 2011

revised, February 2016

cambion: According to the Malleus Maleficarum, the offspring of a human male and a succubus, or a human female and an incubus. Caliban and Merlin are both assigned this dubious distinction.

*The last two lines are extrapolated from an anonymous saying passed around in the 60's.

Image: Tamara and the Demon, by Mikhail Vrubel, watercolor, 1891

Public Domain, via Wikipaintings.org

House On The Hill

Image (c)  Erik Johansson

House on the Hill

I’ve built a  fine house on top of my head, grey

dormer windows, tall stories, preaching chimneys,

heavy boards of years across the door. 

It’s easier now, not going in and out,

and I needed a way to keep out the dead.

The time it's taken you'd never guess, to 

trim my ears into topiary frogs, meticulous sentinels here

by the door, crouched comical, listening and green

on the hair I’ve mowed smooth as a fog. Totems

well placed can help keep out the dead.

Of course, my eyes still stay outside, blind ovals in

the wild blow of storm, hit by each unseen coldslap surprise,

while inside my house, white incense smoke takes 

the sweetened song of a bird in a cage from attic

to hall, to ward the doors that keep out the dead.

There's the child in her room, lining treasures up.

See her bone beads of grace in a plastic cup gleam

rich red in an eyeglow turned in, flicker 

and spark giving light where there is

neither fire nor candle to keep out the dead.

She wears my mist necklace of disappearing jewels

clothes of umber leaves, shoes from old squirrel tracks

left on the lawn, paints my face with the scent 

of rosemary rubbed on the dark skin of dawn,

come climbing up over the living and dead.

And the view is good from the slanting roof,

laid on the summit of my growth, looking out

where my own eyes ever go, beyond my topiary ear

to the walled horizon of clouds and fear

the dead must cross to get to here.

~May 2011

A little Octoberish music from the past, which I was inspired to dig out of mothballs by a post at Oran's Well. I haven't revised it much.

The artist for the image at top, Revelation Fields, is Swedish photographer Erik Johansson. All rights belong to him. His website of amazing art is here, and his print store, here

Reposts for Christmas, Finale

Yule Goat

In December’s dark descent

across crackled breaking sky ice

slivered with dagger snow,

bells ring in whitened night, sharp

hooves stamp on the cloudcloth

shaking pearl dust stripes on

viridian spruces, candelabra arms

turquoise and white pinwheels

circling their wands

of bitter bark raven haunted.

The god of thunders 

pulls the sun's shadow,

flickering hammer tucked

in his brace of clouds,

drives his twin goats

toward the time when day

and night are strait, equals at last

as Odin's wild hunt 

passes damned, mad,

howling overhead

the Snarler and the Grinder

fleet of foot, heedless of fate
run on; tonight's feast, tomorrow’s

feat, killed for meat this starveling
night, raised at dawn.
Spread the skins and 
let each bone 

fall with care so

those here reborn may

race again on the solar wind.

O bright black eye

split with too much knowledge

devil’s mask, canting voice

of the abyss, god's bearer, hunger's enemy

come bless us this Yule with your
yellow stare, ignite yourself

against the hag’s winter storm,

flute your flames through a straw ribcage. 

Watch us make the old dance new again

under the reckless stars.

The Gävle goat

~December 2011

I have reposted this little Yule tale for Christmas the last few years, and don't see any reason to stop now. ;_) 

A very happy Yuletide to all my readers, and a bright and beautiful New Year.

Notes: In Norse myth, Thor was not only provided with his mountain-shattering hammer Mjölnir, his magical, strength doubling belt Megingjörð, but a chariot in which he traveled through the sky pulled by two goats, Tanngrisnir (Old Norse "teeth-barer, snarler") and Tanngnjóstr (Old Norse "teeth grinder") spoken of in the Prose Edda, who could be slain for food at Thor's discretion then resurrected with the power of Mjölnir and returned to the traces.

~ from wikipedia: 'The Yule Goat is one of the oldest Scandinavian and Northern European Yule and Christmas symbols and traditions. Originally denoting the goat that was slaughtered during the Germanic pagan festival of Yule, "Yule Goat" now typically refers to a goat-figure made of straw. It is also associated with the custom of wassailing, sometimes referred to as "going Yule Goat" in Scandinavia.' As always, I've taken a few liberties with the letter of the myths.You can read more about the folklore of the Yule Goat here  and the Wild Hunt here.

Fallow

Fallow

So many times

you’ve been the field where

storms hailed the crops flat,

your task to regrow them--

the cold eroded shingle

where fire died,

you with numb fingers

in a night of frost and ghosts,

the rekindler. 

So 

let me warm you now 
for that brief time

that I’m permitted

as darkness presses.

Turn the cup upside down,

let your hard hours spill out

to pool in a bottomless green.

Sleep for a season with all life unborn

you the fallow field this once

over which the placid plough horse

passes unhindered, breaking clods of years'

compaction, earth's old demands arable

and dropping open under a citrine sun.

Lightly, surely the harrow passes

in the long afternoons, a music

on those plains where ever they sing

of planting, of the green to come,

not freezes, not blight, not backs bent,

where my rain falls like ocean. Let

every tall crop there be your own.

Let me in you at last give back

seed for root

right for wrong

life for death

and make life enough

so

when time is done with us

in the dusk of a long coming gleaning,

there'll be love in the last look back

before we blow away.

~November 2011

A repost to welcome the slanting light of Fall,  and the fallow time to come

for    real toads

Open Link Monday

Images: The Plough and The Harrow, after Millet, 1890, by Vincent Van Gigh

The Old Tower in The Fields, 1884, by Vincent Van Gogh

Public domain via wikiart.org

Repost: The Yule Goat

Thanks to  jane davitt hewey   for reminding me of this poem.

Happy Yule to All!

Yule Goat

In December’s dark descent

across crackled breaking sky ice

slivered with dagger snow,

bells ring in whitened night, sharp

hooves stamp on the cloudcloth

shaking pearl dust stripes on

viridian spruces, candelabra arms

turquoise and white pinwheels

circling their wands

of bitter bark raven haunted.

The god of thunders 

pulls the sun's shadow,

flickering hammer tucked

in his brace of clouds,

drives his twin goats

toward the time when day

and night are strait, equals at last

as Odin's wild hunt 

passes damned, mad,

howling overhead

The Snarler and the Grinder

fleet of foot, heedless of fate
run on; tonight's feast, tomorrow’s

feat, killed for meat this starveling
night, raised at dawn.
Spread the skins and 
let each bone 

fall with care so

those here reborn 

race again on the solar wind.

O bright black eye

split with too much knowledge

devil’s mask, canting voice

of the abyss, god's bearer, hunger's enemy

come bless us this Yule with your
yellow stare, ignite yourself

against the hag’s winter storm,

flute your flames through a straw ribcage. 

Watch us make the old dance new again

under the reckless stars.

The Gävle goat

December 2011

In Norse myth, Thor was not only provided with his mountain-shattering hammer Mjölnir, his magical, strength doubling belt Megingjörð, but a chariot in which he traveled through the sky pulled by two goats, Tanngrisnir (Old Norse "teeth-barer, snarler") and Tanngnjóstr (Old Norse "teeth grinder") spoken of in the Prose Edda, who could be slain for food at Thor's discretion then resurrected with the power of Mjölnir and returned to the traces.~ from wikipedia: 'The Yule Goat is one of the oldest Scandinavian and Northern European Yule and Christmas symbols and traditions. Originally denoting the goat that was slaughtered during the Germanic pagan festival of Yule, "Yule Goat" now typically refers to a goat-figure made of straw. It is also associated with the custom of wassailing, sometimes referred to as "going Yule Goat" in Scandinavia.' As always, I've taken a few liberties with the letter of the myths.You can read more about the folklore of the Yule Goat here  and the Wild Hunt here.





Images:
Header Photo: Goat watching, by DAV.es,  on flick'r
Shared under a Creative Commons License 
Footer Photo: The Gävle goat burning, author unknown
All copyright belongs to the copyright holder

Repost: Puzzle in the Language of Flowers

Puzzle in the Language of Flowers

(translation below)

I dump the puzzle box

out on the ground

each piece becomes a

flower in yesterday’s bouquet,

bone of the skeleton to come.

I cup concave paper polygons

knobbed cardboard segments

that seem to be part of an eyelash,

but are really sprigs of acacia

lacy as midnight's winking, biting as memory’s stems,

then a misshapen lump of astringent

yellow sun, the witch hazel beginning.

That obstinate wedge of inverted azure sky

must be the muted trumpet of a

morning glory, heavenly blue still.

There, an end piece,

frame that hangs the whole,

surprises the hand by jumping up

a striped carnation pinwheeled 

with monotonous grief

 

that makes me recoil

throwing it

far across the muddy ground,

lost on the moss where it

comes to rest just bones, 

tiny, articulated phalanges,

the frontal and parietal

temporal, occipital, mandible

white as frost; out of the cardboard jaw

perhaps you see a few daisies growing

among the marigolds, rosemary and rue

there for a century’s moment till

the next wildfire passes through.

~October 2011

revised October 2013

Process Notes:

acacia = secret love

witch hazel=magic spell

morning glory=love in vain

striped carnation=refusal

marigold=pain and grief 

rosemary=remembrance

rue=regret     

daisy=innocence, simplicity, cheer, true love 

 Posted for     real toads

Kerry's Wednesday Challenge: The Language of Flowers

Please forgive the repost, dear toads and readers. I am still able to get online for short times, but am unable to upload or access anything on my hard drive. The temptation to respond was too great, however, so I just raided my online photo storage for an old pic and cut and pasted this piece for Kerry's wonderful prompt. I'm not able to do much writing atm, but I felt that this one suited the challenge, and it's been out of circulation a long time.  I will visit back as I can. Thanks for reading.

Photo: Heirloom rose 'The Fairy' growing wild on the old barn (c) joyannjones 2010 

Devil's Dictionary

Devil’s Dictionary

It’s good

to shut the red

book and be

myself again

after the delirium,

to no longer be

a vade mecum

for obstreperous

demons, tauntingly

misquoted,

a dictionary

for devils;

to see the colors

unprismed from

your illusive illustrations,

random wind ruffling pages

not your spirit’s soft

secret fingers;

to feel my hair

an animal’s satiny pelt

and not a misprinted

text of memories

written across

your hands.

It’s good,

this stillness, good

even to grow old

reading my

next words 

from a

blank sheet.

July 2011

A little nostalgia. This was originally posted for the Grand Opening at dVerse Poet's Pub on their  first Open Link Night, (and for the concurrent closing of the inimitable One Stop Poetry) back when I had the privilege of working with Brian Miller, Claudia Schoenfeld, Natasha Head, Joe Hesch, and the rest of the original staffers. It was an exciting and memorable time. Due to various life and health issues, I've been unable to keep up with the ever-growing community at dVerse, but I wish everyone, new and old, all the best tonight, on the first OLN of the pub's third year.

Posted for OpenLinkNight at dVerse Poet's Pub

Also posted for the Last OneShotWednesday at One Stop Poetry

which closed its doors with this final event.

The original Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, was a collection of satirical definitions posing as an actual dictionary, and contains some of the sharpest wit in the English Language. I have used the term here in what I intend as a completely different context, but felt I ought to reference Bierce's work. You can read it online here at Project Gutenberg.

Image: Still Life with Rarities, Jan van der Heyden, 1712, oil on canvas

Jan van der Heyden [Public domain], via  wikimedia commons