The Ravensong

The Ravensong

A warrior sings his death song:

'We struck with our swords.

I saw a host that morning

bow before the blade's edge...'

When his life completes, a man sings

the ravensong; he tells of his deeds,

enemies dead at his feet,

beasts brought to their knees.

'We struck with our swords.

the slain lay athwart one another

the spear-clash's cuckoo [the raven]

was cheered...'

At days' end, an old woman

sings her tale of ripe womb-apples

each more a battle than the wolf

at the throat, the axe-arc, the sword swing.

A woman sings her death song:

'In blood I brought forth,
at breast I nursed them on

and some yet stand to take me home.'

Can there be no other tune
to the ravensong then; only birth

and death under sun or moon,
for when the end comes?

'We struck with our swords;

it wasn't like a warm bath...

I saw the battle-moon burst

broken were the lives of men...'

'We struck with our swords

so it then was destined...' but what

of the one who sings of the day

the soil broke for the hand-rake

how the black earth was bent,

for the far-furrowed seeds
with unwavering intent

not to bear grain but only feed bees,

how nothing was slain, nothing was made

but color and scent, how a hand,
stretching, was put on the wind,

and it covered the land.

'We struck with our swords

So long ago it was...

[If] hope of life is lost now

laughing shall I die."

~April 2015




If you would like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below:


 

posted for    real toads




Challenge: Fireblossom Friday

Shay (the Word Garden) wants us to write a song lyric today. Because she knows me well, she has given me personal permission to go back a few dozen centuries, and even stipulated that I could include Vikings, and severed heads if necessary. Taking great liberties with sequence, I have chosen to present excerpts of a very ancient poem, called Krákumál, which is written in ten line stanzas in a particularly tricky skaldic form, which I have not tried to reproduce, using a more traditional English form, the ballad, as my base, though I have mostly replaced the traditional ABCB rhyme with just meter and slant rhyme.  Krákumál was almost certainly meant to be recited  or sung as a sort of chant, or lyric, so hopefully between the skald's words and mine, I have met the challenge.
 More info below.

Process notes: Words in italics are from Krákumál, translation, Ben Waggoner. The phrase 'the spear-clash's cuckoo' is a skaldic poetic device known as a kenning, where an obscure but descriptive set of words is used in place of a more common term. In this same fashion, 'the battle-moon' refers to a shield, and I intend 'ripe womb-apples' to mean grown children.

Krákumál or the Song of the Crow ( in Old Norse: kråka= Crow) concerns events in 9th century Scandanavia and the British Isles, but dates in its first found instance to around 1230. It ' is an example of a "life-poem" (aevikvida)...in which the speaker reviews the deeds of his life, often as he is dying...similar poems exist in other early...languages, such as Beowulf's death speech in Beowulf. Krákumál may have been composed in Orkney or Scotland...the style is similar to known skalds [there]..." ~Waggoner, The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok

Images: all rights reserved by, copyright and  courtesy of  Silvan-Massa at Deviant Art, reproduced without any modifications.

The Yule Goat

This is a repost of an older poem just to keep the place from going completely moribund.

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

Viking Funeral

Viking Funeral

I haven’t seen you since

the viking funeral when

all the boat was burning and
you were the dog at my feet.

The wind is in the east

and my old wounds ache;

the line of scar across my

fingers, almost severed

when you drew on me

for touching,

won’t stop throbbing, and though

they were embossed on my shield

against my will

the ice age, 

the broken lands

are now my own.

I drowse when I can in the sun 

outside Sleipnir’s stable, 

where Ceridwen’s cauldron

leans ready against the wall, 

deaf to Loki making 

a bloodwar fuss over Sif's shorn hair 

the yapping liar's mouth

unfaithful, untrue.

The memory of heat

on still red scars

soothes, burning all

alike to ash, 

black bones of deceit,

the cur at my feet.

April 2012

 Hoping this will 

Meet the Bar at dVerse Poets Pub

where Victoria is hosting a prompt on allegory today (Thursday) at 3:00 PM EST through midnight Friday.

Process Notes:Ceridwen is a Welsh enchantress with a sometimes calamitous cauldron of poetic inspiration. Sleipnir is Odin's eight-legged horse on which he rides to the other Worlds, and Loki is the Norse god of deception and trickery, who in one of his escapades stole the golden hair of Thor's wife Sif to make trouble. 

The rest of this poem was inspired by a scene from the 1939 movie Beau Geste, starring Gary Cooper and Ray Milland as two brothers who join the French Foreign Legion. Here's a link to a youtube clip from the film which about 1.5 minutes in, shows a child's version of the bowlderized concept of a Viking Funeral(later to be played out in a more bloody context,) where 'a Viking always has to be buried with a dog at his feet.' In actual custom, the 'dog' was more likely to be a thrall(captive/slave.) The Viking leader was placed in his ship, generally on land, and surrounded by grave goods and sacrifices of thralls, wine and horsemeat, the ship was set afire and the ashes were buried.

Image: Photo of a Viking galley, burned at an Up Helly Aa fire festival in the Shetland Islands, by Anne Burgess 1973 [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], 

via Wikimedia Commons

Freyja Speaks to the Skalds

Freyja Speaks to the Skalds

Now I call you, brother

across the ticking void

Feel my hand in yours,

over the scars and tears.

I’m with you where you sit

milling the weary hours

finer finer into a dry flour

that chokes the heart’s pores

for it’s bitter bread

as I was with you

when you raised the promise-cup

in Midgard’s torch-red halls

and played for swinish ears 

that ragged tune

of stars and battles, destinies of glass

of ebbing tides and the bones

of love’s last child, with

the gods' last dance

there before

we wore our names,

when your hand spiraled

deep in the womb black cave, 

lining for me the ochre herds

wallrunning to fill the stomach

of evernight with life

for all eternity’s migration.

I held you up

in your thin skin boat

of fancy's faith and grief;

I tried you, through the floods 

of high seas’ anchorage,

through the dark blood conquest,

holding the dripping blade. In

the stone-ringed grove

under the crooked moon

I spared your life, 

left you one-eyed, lamed but singing

in a tinsel of smudged neon night

on a winedark streetcorner wave

where every loss collides

in subway clamor or benched

in garden’s dusky still, for you my

pole-circling breath melts and blows
the spice of far Carib, because

I call you brother.

Under threads of silver gold

where seven shed skins make 

a thorny crossroads of your face

still you vigil for the heartsong.

Hear my fade note whisper on shadow wind:

call me, call me, always I will come

but when the sun pours through

white curtains and every

bell is ringing

of course the spell

is broken and

I’m gone.

February-March 2012

Posted for    real toads

Challenge: Love and Affection 

"I write because I love it."

~Joan Armatrading

I've had this one in the works awhile, but this prompt really helped it crystalize and while it may seem an odd choice for the theme in some ways, it is about love, the tenuous, pervasive and demanding love  between the Muse in all her guises and her chosen victims and celebrators, along with my usual magpie mix of Norse and other myth, history and prehistory, some of which I owe to the Celtic and Early/Post-Christian 
mytho-poetic synthesis of Brendan MacOdrum of Oran's Well. 
Thank you Brendan, for Lascaux, the coracles and the garden bench.

Freyja: in Norse mythology, a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, gold, seiðr(sorcery), war, and death. (Technically,her brother is Freyr, per wikipedia, among other things 'a phallic fertility god,...[given] Álfheimr, the realm of the Elves, as a teething present.')

skald or scald:
 —n    (in ancient Scandinavia) a bard or minstrel
[from Old Norse, of unknown origin]~World English Dictionary 

Promise cup: 'The bragarfull "promise-cup" or bragafull "best cup" or "chieftain's cup" (compare Bragi, [god of poetry]) was in Norse culture a particular drinking from a cup or drinking horn on ceremonial occasions, often involving the swearing of oaths...'~wikipedia

Image: Freja, By John Bauer 1882-1918 (www.uppsalaauktion.se) [Public domain], 

via wikimedia commons

Viking

Viking

When we go a-Viking

we leave the women back.

The sword becomes our lover

the wind our home and bed.

The sea becomes our roadway

that tosses men to Hel.

The sword becomes our lover;

all the Danelaw knows it well.

When we go a-Viking

the axe comes out to bite.

Bright blood runs wherever we come

to make the old gods’ fight.

Raven brothers, iron and flame,

wrapped in wolf's head grin,

we bring this night the red flesh feast

to feathered and four foot kin.

 

The blade is our sweetest lover, 

pitch torch our warming sun;

the liar has a thousand words

but the fire only one.

January 2012

Posted for   Fireblossom Friday at real toads

Fireblossom hosts her Friday poetry event at real toads today, asking us this time to write of a man(or woman) in uniform. The uniform shown in the picture above and associated with the Vikings of horned or winged helmet and animal skins is historically inaccurate and a product of 19th and 20th century romanticizing, often for political ends. Vikings most likely wore a  conical helmet with nose guard, either of wood or iron, with chain mail or leather armor, depending on affluence and position. Either way, it's a uniform I find most attractive.

Image: Viking Foray, illustration from Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas, Guerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline) (1909). drawn by John Charles Dollman [Public domain] via wikimedia commons