Dream Of Wyverns

 

 

 

 

 

Dream Of Wyverns

 

 

 

The plane of grief is unrelieved

by fence or furrow, tree or cliff. It

stretches out a flight of new moons,

a river of crow's wings

hiding its eyes.

 

In the distance wyverns pace, their

asp-tongues a piercing, their growl-song sharp

as a whispering sting

poisoning dark.

 

To walk this plain

you must step over bones,

speak the language of ravens,

earn the kisses of crows

 

see the colors like bats

flat and profound

forever dependent on wavering sound

as it pours from the red well,

a bucket of misses splashing cold drown.

 

Everything here is

a secret of night. Black

angels drop like char on the snow

in peace as they fall

on the crow's nest below.

 

 

June 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Open Link #8 at desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images are taken from the internet, artists unknown.  Fair Use 

Cryptid

 

 

 

source

Cryptid

Was it your lover

you saw in the dream,

a spirit bear on fire,

or perhaps

the chupacabra, a steam

 given off/

absorbed  by

too-hot night?

Some cryptid regardless,

a cambion that comes

when eyelids fall down

before the stare of stars

dropped silent with a burn

from black sky

as morning turns to face you

cobra-hooded.

Fragments of him

of you

litter the lawn.

Meteorite dust

hangs in the air;

the smell of old longings

seeps from the roses

powdery as the skin's

 memory of a hand

that still feels,

of lips that know words

are the dark subsidence

down which you will tumble

to the place of live shadows

where two become one.

~September 2014

  

reposted for desperate poets

Top Image: Untitled by Abode of Chaos on Flick'r

Shared under a Creative Commons License

Lion And Ravens With Unsettled Sun

 

 

 

 

 

 "..It is a wheel, the rays /around the sun. The wheel survives the myths/The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods.."

~Wallace Stevens

 

~  *  ~

 

Lion and Ravens With Unsettled Sun

 

Two ravens circling in a spotless sky

on a warning wind with fire on its breath

soft but dangerous as a lion's hiss,

in dead grass gathered to burn a phantom's past

that now in turn burns us.

A feast of the senses is just

another place to die among strangers

hearing the hiss of lions trapped

in a body devouring itself

in camera, the dark heart.

Best to fall to the sudden sharp sword

of the god's divine panic, danced to dust

under his dusky foot, his pipes hissing like a lion,

a screech and flutter of ravens at the window.

Light is sliced to crescents dazzling at the edge;

nothing but the sun survives the myths.

The lion has no wheel behind his hiss.

Ravens flow in the tempest and its drum,

dark lettering spelling out the ride to come.

November 2022

 

 

posted for

Word Garden Word List

 

 

and

 

 

 

earthweal's

Open Link Weekend # 142

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: The Word List this week is taken from the works of Jim Morrison. He has always reminded me of a lion in figure and impact, though perhaps a bit more prone to roar than hiss. I've been reading Stevens again lately and somehow he got tangled up here, with more of a sun king's than lizard king's flare.

 

 

 

[lyrics begin at 1:12 mins]

 

 

 

Images: Lion, 1492, by Albrecht Durer   Public Domain

Samhain Night 2014, ©joyannjones

 

Cryptid

 

source

Cryptid

Was it your lover

you saw in the dream,

a spirit bear on fire,

or perhaps

the chupacabra, a steam

 given off/

absorbed  by

too-hot night?

Some cryptid regardless,

a cambion that comes

when eyelids fall down

before the stare of stars

dropped silent with a burn

from black sky

as morning turns to face you

cobra-hooded.

Fragments of him

of you

litter the lawn.

Meteorite dust

hangs in the air;

the smell of old longings

seeps from the roses

powdery as the skin's

 memory of a hand

that still feels,

of lips that know words

are the dark subsidence

 

down which you will tumble

to the place of live shadows

where two become one.

Posted for earthweal's

Open Link #141

~September 2014

 

 

 A little something for All Hallows, originally posted at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday 55 May 18 2018

Another Friday rolls up to offer our brains a wrestle with that fetching little fussy form, the flash fiction 55, brought to the world by a man not fussy and who probably would not relate to fetching, Galen Hayes. Thank you, G-man, (hopefully being entertained by our attempts wherever the good go) for this ever-reliable basket of tricks. The rules are simple, no rules except the word count, 55 of them, no more no less, in any style, shape or slant that offers itself up to your pen. Visiting, commenting, etc is entirely optional because, this is purely about you, writing. Link your result in the comments below between Friday and Saturday at midnight, and I will be by to read what you have rustled up.

Now for a little spelunking...

The Cave

I won't go into the cave, I said

but I'll come as far as the edge. I

heard you laugh and promise

you had all the night inside; moon

stars, pearled city lights,

fireflies,wine-

silvered dreams.

Come you hissed,

louder, redder;

Oh no my dear oh no

I learned long ago

what lives in caves.

~May 2018

Images: Cave Finn, opera Ruslan and Lyudmila, 1900 ©Ivan Bilbin   Public domain.

Detail, Minotaur with dead horse in front of a cave facing a girl in a veil, 1936, ©Pablo Picasso

Fair Use.

Friday 55 April 13 2018

Welcome, writers. It looks like we have another Friday the Thirteenth to accommodate in our 55 word journey; feel free to play with that concept if you'd like. For those writing 30 poems in 30 days for April, extra welcomes, with all respect.

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

still hates

 the old rose by the fence,

bleeding life

 at each finger's end.

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.

 

 

Mole Run

Mole Run

Time has made me a mole.

A thrower of dirt, a rebreather

defined by my runs;

blinking in the occasional dazzle 

of that other world

then head back down in the blanketing dark,

swimming through earth with my

double thumbs, sniffing and

pushing with my starburst nose,

living on whatever I find

that thinks itself safe underground.

This poem is a tunnel,

a simple device through which

the wriggling earthworm falls,

 stunned and saved in my black pantry,

where I keep all the juiciest creatures

just for you.

~October 2016

Note: Moles have a special sort of hemoglobin which allows them to absorb more oxygen while above-ground and reuse it later. They have two thumbs per paw, and construct tunnels in order to 'trap,' devour and store wandering earthworms, which they paralyze with a toxin in their saliva. You can find out more about the lifestyle, physique and habits of moles here on wikipedia: 

Images: An Egyptian Poppy with a Water Mole, 1912, by John Crome; Public Domain via wikiart.
Star-nosed Mole (Condylura) by the US National Park Service; Public Domain via wikimedia