Ouroboros

Ouroboros

The girl who grew old

in her sleep keeps her eyes

on a chain, afraid to let them loose

from the fingerwork of dreams,

stringing the beads of her sanity.

The machinery must turn, not

roam across every face

of cruelty, of beauty, that

comes now in the crowd

whose Fahrenheit flies

towards the boiling heart of the sun.

Voices with stones, medicine hands

 on eyes seared blind in acid clouds;

gunshot, brickbat and burning

sweep our shuddering house.

Tiny assassins make up

the bed where we fear to lie down

with our dusty farewells.

The crone bleeds hidden

gold watering her marigolds,

sees again in the glinting blue stream

 the great ouroboros return; 

Jörmungandr opens his mouth

to lash his tail and break oceans.

Now is the time for devouring 

 as Fenris howls

for the gods to come out and die.

June 2020

posted for The Sunday Muse

and Kerry O'Connor's Skylover Word List

Process note: "In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr.. is a sea serpent, the middle child of the giantess Angrboða and Loki. According to the Prose Edda, Odin took Loki's three children by Angrboða—the wolf Fenrir, Hel, and Jörmungandr—and tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircles Midgard[our human world.]The serpent grew so large that it was able to surround the earth and grasp its own tail. .. When it releases its tail, Ragnarök [the last destroying battle of the old world, translated as Twilight or Doom of the Gods] will begin.  Jörmungandr is an example of an ouroboros,...an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail..The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth..." ~wikipedia, condensed.

Images: Title unknown, by Alexandra Dillon  Fair Use

Alchemical drawing of an ouroboros by Theodorus Pelecanos, 1478  Public Domain

The Great Grey

The Great Grey

I galloped my mare

on the ceiling all night;

summer stirred in her sleep,

stretched and raised warm wide arms

of red roses. Eyes unopened she died

when the wind turned corpse-cold.

I took down the remains

 with food and blankets to the child

 in his cell. I fought when the keepers

ate it all while he cried, mouths full of

carrot, April and wool. My key cracked

 in the lock. They beat me with laughter.

I watched two moons scrubbed out

by steelwool clouds, scratching paled

 porcelain sky as they streamed by,

chained in a train of tarnished

silver cars rattling out their freight

of snow-melt on my face.

No jumping that train, no escape

on the rails, no escape on

my mare, no summer, no saving,

only this waving grey

where colors are graving.

April 2020

 posted for Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads

Play it Again Day 16 Remains

and for earthweal's
Open Link

Images: Horsewoman On A Red Horse, © Marc Chagall   Fair Use

November First © Andrew Wyeth   Fair Use

Still Life

Still Life

I sit

by a dish of light

with darkness at my back.

I throw in words,

flowers of flame; only

the dry, bright ones--

you, remember, once, then--

while I leave the sodden

syllables in a pile--

now, tomorrow, alone, gone--

for nothing

will make them

burn.

We can't speak the tongues

of each other's pain;

still, we huddle in light

and forgive.

~August, 2018

Image: Stilleben mit Blumen, 1908, by Heinrich Kuhn    Public domain

Fox In The Kittens

Fox In The Kittens

You're a kite in the crows

a fox in the kittens

the dagger-light thrown

where the poisoned word's written.

I hear your screech by the dolmen

catch your stench in the doorway;

your copper cup's full when

the blood hits the causeway.

Astraea is chained

with a gold liar's lasers

while money's papier-mâché'd

into goblins with tasers;

my gift to you

is a kiss from the razor

to turn your eyes blind

to return all your favors

so the sun rises mild

so dawn saves the child.

~June 2018

I am bitter, furious and heartbroken over the evil being done on our southern border. May all of us stand up for the light, for basic human rights, and stop this vile immoral 'policy' which is nothing more than a cynical political calculus at the expense of helpless boys, girls, parents and infants.  Babies in arms, some, ripped from their mothers and put into cages-- detention centers, internment camps, bureaucratic hells on earth, for the crime of doing as every single one of our own ancestors did, coming here for a better life. There are no words.

Darkness, Flash

Darkness, Flash

Darkness

and a flash;

you turn my poppies blue.

Red is your color

and so I cannot choose it.

The screaming void

paints your face.

Heat and ruin

are your playmates,

death your paymaster.

Don't think you enter unopposed,

disguised, pretending to light

with only darkness

and a flash

for eyes.

~August 2017

Images: Torchlit parade thru the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, on the night of Hitler's ascension to chancellor, January 30, 1933,  pubic domain

Torchlit parade through the streets of Charlottesville, Va, during the 8th month of the Trump presidency, August 11, 2017(cnn)