Ruins

Ruins

"...I have let time pass, which..helps more than reasoning.”

~Queen Elizabeth I

I.

I wake in the night

thinking of ruins;

not the makers

but their leavings: fort,

church, graveyard,

house, each

with no tomorrow of its own, yet

a casket full

of glass for magpies,

scroungers' stones,

writers' plots,

lovers' verses, shadow beds

for weary ghosts

and so must be content

to watch the walls fall down.

 

II.

These rainy ruins

where ravens ride wrinkled sky

where nightfall black-backs silver-mirror moons

however weak you are,

you can stroll forever, 

muscular past for a walking-stick,

hearing a hundred private jokes

the ghosts still tell/will tell

to you or the next one

for nothing's

as constant as a ghost

or more hopeful

than a ruin.

~December 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two old 55's, reposted for 

 earthweal's Open Link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Image: Carpathian castle ruins, author unknown, via internet. Fair use.

 

 

 

Daisy

Daisy

Awakenings these latter days

seem sullen, straining for

a gone green music, unprepared as

the day that lumbers up,

tripping its way through a

zodiac of sticks like a clumsy thief,

 too old to run but still wanting to steal.

Hours revolve in a maelstrom

of ferns, once fresh for morning

now a parable of crackling

 brown loss drying back to some point

of unknown where its powdering tides will

drain down earth's fissures,

intimately gone; I'm just another

torn membrane losing the lie,

spinning down the dark drown.

Still I pull all the architecture

of my ruins--the folly, the narrows,

the knot garden, the rockery of

a thousand dead alpine desires--

forward to find

a station of cleared space

to stand in place for life's moment,

asking eyes shut, seed face

blind and upturned,

 sunflowered on my stem

for one last hot meal

of yellow light;

being a daisy,

being a dream.

April 2020

posted for Kerry's

Skylover Word List for April

Note: April as always is poetry month, and though I will be writing as much as I can, it most likely will not be a poem a day. Nonetheless, I will offer to those who are the Friday 55 each week for their use if so desired. So see you here on Friday if you need a meme.

Images: The Old Tower In The Fields, 1884 by Vincent Van Gogh, Public Domain
Still Life With Four Sunflowers, 1887, by Vincent Van Gogh, Public Domain

Friday 55 Comprehensive Holiday Edition

It's that season, dear readers, when everybody is rushing and pressed for time, so I am offering poetic dispensation to any and all of you who may not have the leisure or the inspiration to construct a 55 for the next few weeks. As always there are no rules other than the word count, so please feel free to participate or not as you see fit, and please bear with me as well, as I may not always be available or online myself.

That said, this single post will remain active for Friday December 22nd 2017, Friday December 29th, and Friday January 5th 2018 with comment moderation off so everyone can come by when they can--be patient however, since as I said above, I will not always be around, especially the week following  New Year's Day.

That said, a very happy Yule season to all, and a deep thanks to all of you who make this Friday journey so memorable. Have a kickass holiday, and let's all hope for at least a saner New Year.

I have written two 55's for this combined edition...

Ruins

"...I have let time pass, which..helps more than reasoning.”

~Queen Elizabeth I

I.

I wake in the night

thinking of ruins;

not the makers

but their leavings: fort,

church, graveyard,

house, each

with no tomorrow of its own, yet

a casket full

of glass for magpies,

scroungers' stones,

writers' plots,

lovers' verses, shadow beds

for weary ghosts

and so must be content

to watch the walls fall down.

 

II.

These rainy ruins

where ravens ride wrinkled sky

where nightfall black-backs silver-mirror moons

however weak you are,

you can stroll forever, 

muscular past for a walking-stick,

hear a hundred private jokes

the ghosts still tell/will tell

to you or the next one

for nothing's

as constant as a ghost

or more hopeful

than a ruin.

~December 2017

Optional Folky Musical Accompaniment

Images: Carpathian castle ruins, author unknown, via internet. Fair use.

Hope From The Ruins, ©Joshua Smith,  All Rights Reserved. Fair use.

The Last Peony

The Last Peony

The cold crawled in and flowers fell.

No charm of mine could bring them back, no

hex on the wind would keep it warm.

The withering came, creeping up my neck and so

I stirred the dark and began to make;

the face of a moon child, round, unmarked,

to wear, first try and somewhat

skewed, one eye too old, but

no one sees a child, you know,

except to swallow its light.

Then feathers and furs, white and blue,

a yellow brooch of badger skull,

a peony from a peacock's eye, twined real

with dry heart's blood; but still

alone, I stirred and made again.

From cat's fingerbones and casts of worms

three pearl alpacas, from the spilled wheat
my snake-spine pig, from snailshell opalescent
my solemn pachyderm--six weeks I spent

knotting howdah-fringe with quicksilver.

I the maypole round which they danced,

they my partners on their living strings,

each strand my soul, each hoof my hand;

held like eggs, I smoothed their ears, intent

upon their amaranthine tale, until the sound

of their gentle deaths

broke my looking glass heart.

The peony cracked and reddened the skull.

I wait now, alone in the dark and child

no more, still til the flowers come again.

~October 2017

for Fireblossom's Spellcasting

Process notes: The image which inspired this poem is called Witch in Winter, by Sachiyo Aoyama. Here is the site from which it comes, and the only bio I could find of this young Japanese artist.

In the language of flowers, the peony signifies good fortune, prosperity, and a happy marriage, and in Victorian times, bashfulness. With a long history as symbols in both Western and Eastern mythology, their bark and roots were also believed to have medicinal properties, including the ability to 'cool the blood,' and ease the pain of childbirth.

 Image: Witch in Winter, 2010, © Sachiyo Aoyama  All rights reserved. Fair use.