The First Kingdom

 

 

 

 

 

The First Kingdom

 

I dream of

the first kingdom

empire of four

water wood earth and sky

when we knew

 we did not rule,

when a hand outlined

 in ocher

tried to make us real;

when water set to boil

in the round womb of the cauldron

gave magic,

when our skin was honeysuckle,

our tongues fluent in bird,

our hands for making not breaking,

each others' blood too precious to shed

except in the green sacrifice.

 

Now I watch

the black beyond night

billow out.

The poison steam of brittle brains

evaporating madness

cracks the cauldron.

Sacrifice is colorless.

The lie of ownership replaces

creation's light in our eye. This empire

of assassins, where love is only

an argument of muscle and bone,

where the last fires burn and

birds drop dead from the sky

must pass away, its darkness carried

from the earth, before

the first kingdom can become

the last.

 

September 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Fireblossom at

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: in Celtic mythology, cauldrons symbolized many things magical: birth, death, endless plenty and the strongest magic of resurrection. They've been found in many Iron Age burial sites, and later Christianized in the concept of the Holy Grail.  The Cauldron in Celtic Life

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Hand Painting, Chauvet Cave,circa 32,000 BP

Title unknown, by Brooke Shaden  Fair Use

Cave Light

Cave Light

Darkness is safety

when the eye won't shut;

what can be seen

in the dark warm

where pillars of salt

turn ebony and

 the far sound 

of ocean licks

at time's feet?

Without fail

 I see two

you

myself

the 

twisting meet 

of  stalactite 

and 

stalagmite;

the fallen

also raising

a bridge from 

dissolution,

conduit and 

collapse 

columned, fused, 

shadows in the light 

at cave-mouth that sends us

its  own soft arms as we span

the rock room and shelter night.

~June 2015

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Caverns of Thoughts

Corey Rowley (herotomost, at Mexican Radio, and  recently published author of On Hunter's Wash ) takes us spelunking in the caverns of the mind, our quest to report back on what we see. This was a quick and spontaneous write, so thanks, Corey, and all my patient readers for putting up with whatever happens when there is not the usual excruciating editing process.

Images: Cave Dwellings Near Sperlinga Sicily, 1933, by M.C. Escher
Magic Grotto, 1942  by Remedios Varo
Fair use via wikiart.org

Venus of Brassempouy

The above figurine was found in a cave in Brassempouy, France in 1892. Known as the Venus of  Brassempouy, she  was carved from mammoth ivory, and  at about 25,000 years old, is one of the earliest known examples of representational art depicting a human face.

 

Venus of Brassempouy

Neanderthal venus

walks the proto-forest

very carefully.

She has no lipstick

but her lips will be red

as soon as she eats.

Under the furflare of hair

her occipital bun is tidy.

Her berry eyes glow beneath

an artfully ash darkened

supraorbital ridge.

She has a leopardskin miniskirt

and is goin clubbin.

The ferny air is like a gravy

of wet delicious smells.

Soon, she will invent gravy.

 But first she must catch

the makings.

She pauses in a feral crouch

dead in her tracks with a pair of ughs

pulls a fat snail from under a hairy heel.

She has invented h’ors d’oeuvres.

Crunching this gastropodian bonne bouche

between her mandibular prominences,

she scuttles through the underbrush

searching for the ever fragrant

slender and succulent

Cro Magnon man.

February 2011 

Image and information on Venus of Brassempouy courtesy wikipedia and wikimedia commons.

 

The following music clip is totally optional, and other than containing the refrain 'Cave Woman,' and being as non-serious and possibly offensive as the poem, has nothing to do with the subject. Nonetheless, a casual hearing after many years inspired me to write this, and I can't get it out of my head, so I'm including it as it seems to want to hang out with the piece. (This is all your fault, anonymous person who knows who she is.)