Category: Blogging 101

Song of Sacrifice 2

You hold the knife

as one holds

a fallen fledgling,

Your eyes command my approach,

and as I shuffle,

the shackles sing a

discordant, jangling dirge

 

I weep,

but whether for my soul

or for your cruelty,

I cannot say.

 

I held you.

Kissed you.

Loved you.

Sang you to sleep in my arms.

 

Your smile transfixed me,

and the hidden coils of your flesh

felt warm in my hands.

 

Your lying mouth

wrought cries from the core of me.

And like fresh clay

you molded me into a sacrifice,

 

Sharpened your knife

on your heart of stone.

 

Pray make it quick, love.

I will wait for you

in the

frozen abyss…

Poet of Light

The beacon skims

the waves

but no ships sail

this hour of night

 

A false dawn lights

the horizon, and

obsidian skies blush pale

as the stars shine

their last

 

My small lantern

battles

what shadows it can tame.

The rest wait their turn

 

The mulled wine

warms the bones

and softens the edges

of harsh memories

 

My breathing,

the scratch of the pen,

the sizzling pop of an oil bubble

sound all the louder

at this hour

 

Far below,

waves whisper

susurrations

of sighs

 

The keepers of

the past

watch from

realms unseen,

but whether in

approval or censure,

I can’t tell.

 

Either way,

I’m undone.

 

A red gold band

of light

sears the seam of

the horizon

 

I finish the wine.

I finish the page,

and close my eyes

to the sweet brightness

 

And once more

the walls crumble

to ruin,

the light

dies,

and I fade

like the names

of lovers

drawn in the sand

before high tide.

 

 

 

Poet of Shadow

I write

in the

shadowed places

 

cold, bleak

and dark

 

Stepping on cracks in the sidewalk

full of cigarette butts,

phlegmatic spit

and on occasion,

blood

 

There are crevices

in the fences too,

where the wind whistles

off key,

enticing me

to emerge

and share.

 

And I want to,

I so very want to,

and know that I

so very

never will

 

The silent shadows

comfort me,

drape their darkness

across my shoulders

like the powerful arm

of a strong friend

 

I shift and settle,

a  bag of  garbage

kicked in the corner,

under a wedge of dim, flickering light

from a faulty streetlamp,

the wires humming in

off key harmony

with the whistling wind

 

Come out to play, poet…

 

‘No,’ I reply to the invitation,

now no longer content to be in

the shadows.

I melt into them.

 

My words spin

out and away,

beyond my control,

into the vast, black

void of heaven.

 

And I write

in the

shadowed places

 

Untethered

Back then, the pit as warm red embers glow

But soon the fire and clawed, webbed wings will grow

The chains will melt that bind me far below

And soon for you, he’ll make the hot wind blow

 

See how against the moonlit sky he soars

Forgetting steely bars and oaken doors

The ship is no escape, set down your oars

There’s thunder, flame and lightning in his roars

 

See now the fire raining from the sky

So hot it cooks the skin and blinds the eye

And in the slaughter’s wake there is no why

Perhaps the flame will spare you if you cry

 

Untethered are we, fire in the cloud

As flying low we skim across the crowd

Our hearts within us passionate and proud

Our battle cries are ringing long and loud

 

When the alarum bells toll, run and hide

The armies intertwine and fight with pride

But warfare ever was a prickly bride

And vanquished now, we wash out on the tide

 

What sealed our fate remains a mystery

And now we are a different form of free

It struck us odd because we couldn’t see

That love is best to fight your enemy

Maker

They say nights are quiet, silent even, but that really isn’t so.

It makes noises of its own.

Even the seemingly silent glide of the hunting owl whistles keen as wings slice wind, and prey screams before talons crack it open, spilling red life like the contents of a leaky whiskey barrel.

A late autumn cricket chirped in vain, born too late for mating. It too, will freeze and die in the cooling mornings, no progeny for spring.

I stared at the wheeling moon and stars, thinking I would stay here.

Believing I could.

I’ll leave tomorrow.

The chilled wind seized and shattered my breath’s vapor as it floated through the air.

My worn cloak had thinned into little more than a long rag full of holes where the cold poked at my legs like children’s fingers.

I took a look around the cemetery; everyone I knew was here.

Did they know that I was among them?

Could they hear my heart, see my breath, and hear the lonely cricket’s solo above the blowing, rustling leaves clattering against the tilted, faded headstones?

Did their wandering ghosts find it as beautiful as I did?

I shuddered in anticipation of the change to come when I heard the voice behind me, as if the very air itself had spoken:

“Are you ready?”

The anticipation turned to fright, the fright to something I couldn’t name.

The stink of him was overwhelming; his beauty, unparalleled by anything I could name.

No doubt he knew what I thought already; he let me fall into the power of his silent, evil presence, quiet and feral, an old snake full of intelligent insanity.

I used the headstone I’d sat against to pull myself up, not trusting my legs, then brushed off what autumn detritus didn’t fall on its own, as if appearance mattered now.    I wanted to run screaming, to call him vile things, to spit in his bloody face after I beheaded him.

As he watched me struggle with myself, I sensed his patience start to crumble before the slow rise of his anger.

“Are you sure?”

His low, deep voice pierced my ears, a nail coated in honey, lethal and sweet, challenging me to defy him, laced with desire to punish me if I did.

In the silence of my trembling, looking into the jade and gold of his gleaming eyes, the tatters of my will fell to the cold, hard ground along with my bedraggled cloak.

It slipped from my shoulders, the cares of this world trapped in its filthy folds.

“Yes.”

He held out his hand

I went to him.

 

The Treasure of Us

I found it quite by accident,

long after

you were gone.

A sunbeam

through the dirty window

was resting on it,

a celestial beacon

like

a navigator’s star,

or a savior’s herald.

Emotions stirred,

slow and sluggish,

a snail waking from sleep.

I hesitated, standing in

the acrid, arid attic dust,

my heart warring

with my mind,

Do I open

the treasure of us?

Long buried memories

of times past,

of youth and strength,

of love and passion,

of you smiling,

of us, in love.

I could open

the creaky wooden lid,

softened, like me,

by age.

I could grasp

the rich fabric to my cheek,

and twirl the bright coins in my fingers,

admiring their sparkle and flash

in the fading light.

I could let slip

through my fingers

the bloody cloth and the fool’s gold.

But  it’s all of a piece, isn’t it?

And I would have

peace now.

I wiped my tears,

and left

the treasure of us

unopened.

I will hold it

in my heart,

in these last days.

For that is enough,

and somehow

more than riches.

Broken Bells

Hear the toll of broken bells

Over hillsides

Down the dells

Angels sing in seven hells

Dead things crawl up out of wells

Demons crack their human shells

Ringing din at midnight swells

Night air’s rife with graveyard smells

Devils laugh discordant knells

At the sound of broken bells

 

Flowers for Wishes

Flowers for wishes

Flowers for dreams

Flowers for nothing

is all that it seems.

Flowers are falling

from heaven above.

Flowers are given

when one is in love.

Flowers for loneliness

Flowers for tears

Flowers for happiness

driving out fears.

 

Flowers are falling

in fields green and gold.

Flowers for young children

soon growing old.

Flowers for wishes

from out of the blue,

wishing you’d love me,

if wishes come true.

Of Muirgen, Lost at Sea

And now she wanders ‘neath the waves,

her raven hair pulled tight,

dark eyes upon the ocean floor.

She walks it through the night.

The ship she rode was shattered

on a rocky coral shore,

And now poor Muirgen, lost at sea,

will ride the waves no more.

Loved lass she was, and passing fair,

the sailors all did say.

No favor gave she when they’d stare;

she sent them on their way.

A new start was her final wish.

The village grew too small,

and passage bought with man and fish,

they sailed into a squall.

The vessel fought it bravely,

but the waves kept rising higher,

and cracked the mast and broke the deck,

and lightning started fire.

And there was Muirgen, lost at sea,

to bear a bitter fate.

She never would see land again,

but had no one to wait

at home upon the seaside shore

to grieve her soul’s demise,

no family or caretaker.

For Muirgen, no one cries.

They say that you can see her

when the moon and stars are nigh,

serene beneath the rolling surf,

the southern wind her sigh.

We sing of Muirgen, lost at sea,

the world no more to roam.

The current of her passing soul

will guide us safely home.

The current of her passing soul

will guide us

safely

home.

 

Cara-Cell

 

As autumn dies,

the bitter night wind

seeps into the stone walls

of what has become my

new home.

Hope of leaving

abandoned me.

She peers into the defeat

replete within my gaze,

and smiles

with

pleased and mocking scorn.

Dressed in midnight,

she comes,

a cream-skinned shadow

in silvered fog,

and tells me her name

is

Cara,

as if I cared,

as if defeat had somehow

changed to affection.

A Murder follows her,

and obeys her every gesture.

Her lacquered black nails point,

and soft eyes are

plucked like jewels from bone settings,

the screams

drowned by the eldritch music

of their raucous cries.

Why do you stay? she whispers in my mind.

Do you not see there are no stones to bar your path?

No chains, no locks, no guards to block your way?

Blind,

I stumble past

the warring scents

of lavender and carrion,

to roam

the shrouded night.

Exhausted,

helpless,

and alone,

by dawn

I find myself

returning

once again,

to where she freed me.

And barefoot, shivering,

crying ice-laced tears,

I walk the frigid riverbed

back to my

Cara-cell.