Moondancer

Moondancer


A full moon’s whisper
Beckons,
Beckons
Once again
And reaches out
To grasp and pull
Each molecule
Of pulsing blood,
A silent, steady call
Heard only by
A listening heart
Opened and attuned
To ancient, secret words.

A nameless beauty
Dances,
Dances
As a mist
Of fluid motion,
Subtle sways,
And endless curves
Beneath the moon,
Bathing in the glow
And swirling
In an eddy
Of the mystic pool
Of shining silver light.

A constellation
Twinkles,
Twinkles
In the air
Around her
Like a spell,
A spirit form
She has called forth
To play a tune
With beating wings
Now singing
In the breeze
Evoked and stirred
By her twirling form.

A crowd of creatures
Scurries,
Scurries
To the edge
Of this small field
Within the woods
Well trodden
By her feet,
Their shining eyes
Reflecting as they watch
Till joining in
They circle round and dance
With soft and padded steps.

This nameless beauty
Dances,
Dances
In the crowd
Till dawn awakes
And paints the sky
With fiery gilded hues.
Her heavy heart
Ceases and she drops,
A crumpled mound
Of weeping, weary flesh
Encircled by the stars
That fall upon the grass.

And there she lays and weeps,
And there her heart seeks sleep,
But still her Mother Moon
Is calling for a dance,
And still her flesh is strong
And still she knows the steps,
So soon she stirs and stands,
And sways into the dance.


Image credit: Lachlan Donald, from Wikimedia Commons, under a Creative Commons License.

Pandora

Pandora


A midnight moonbeam, streaming misty light
Like liquid pearl, is swirling in a pool
Upon her dampened cheek, its soft caress
Too weak and wan to wipe away her tears.
Her face aglow although her eyes are dull,
She gazes down upon a sleeping world
From high atop a monument of steel
And waits to watch the sun awake again.

But now in darkness and a grim despair,
Her heart cries slowly like her sparkling eyes,
Its pulsing sigh and hidden, lambent fires
Grown dim but not exhausted lest they die.
This world in slumber, how it makes her weep
And long to hold it in a long embrace!
Those bodies, billions though they be, call out
And plead her passion bring them life again!

Within the silent shadows, this she hears,
And in her separate darkness, this she sees,
Envisioning within her mind much more
And feeling in her belly every prayer.

The moon now smiles upon a falling star
As she descends to give the world a gift
Too great, yet delicate, to be possessed,
Its secret borne within her naked flesh.




Image credit: Jules Joseph Lefebvre, from Wikimedia Commons; public domain image.

The Cry of the Fates

The Cry of the Fates


The old Norns Cement plant had closed down about five years ago, the piercing scream of the whistle on the side of the factory announcing that the last remaining workers were quietly leaving at the end of that solemn day so long ago. It was the same note heard every weekday at 1:00 and 6:00 p.m.—the sound of lunch break and of quitting time—that had become such an ingrained part of daily life you could practically set your watch to. The amazing thing was how it had suddenly become a forlorn cry instead of the usual nostalgic sound penetrating the air as the workers slowly shuffled home. And as that once-great beast of activity died and soon fell to neglected ruin, so too did this little Appalachian town follow it down into obscurity.

Nearly all of us lost our jobs in the weeks preceding the shut-down—with my old age I was of course one of the first to go—and it left everyone with little more than a pink-slip and a hot temper. I think that the hollow feeling that you find suddenly residing in your stomach when the realization hits home that you're no longer the breadwinner had left a lot of people uncertain and scared. I remember that feeling, but things were different for me now. I didn't have the same responsibilities, the same worries that the other younger folks in town had. I simply went home to an empty house, thinking again of my wife and how much I had missed her these three years since her death, and I thought about what my next move would be. Should I finally just give in and retire, or should I look for another job just to pass my days outside of a lonely, quiet place that used to feel so warm for me? Fortunately, I had Social Security to fall back on, but not everyone was so lucky. My concerns weren't on finances, so I guess that made my position enviable from some people's perspectives.

Either way, the decisions had to be made, and shortly after the shutdown the anger of the town had abated, as it is always does, into an empty resignation that filled the hearts of those who had once thrown out bold talk of "strikes" and "filing grievances" with relentless fervor. They didn't know who exactly was there to listen, but I'd be willing to bet that the act of talking about it had at least helped to soothe the inescapable feeling of helplessness. Almost overnight, shops began to close, folks began to move to other productive factory towns nearby, and Perch Creek seemed to be fading away. Sorrow had soon turned to desperation, and desperation grew into fear as time marched slowly, steadily onwards and the fate of the town unfolded. Over the past five years since the factory shut its gates for good, I thought that the town had known fear and despair, and that the looming threat of financial and personal ruin had left us all questioning the future. That was before the Norns Cement factory whistle decided to start up once again.

The Poet

A song for Blake, Shelley, Keats, Swinburne, and Crowley...

The Poet

Weep for the world,
O, you son of the tears
Of the gods and the devils
With which you are fed.

Weep with your words
For the quick and the dead
For your brothers and sisters,
Though shunned and unheard.

Sing with the birds
As the nightingale mourns,
Forlorn and forgotten,
Without tongue or wings.

Bring us your song
And kindle our blood:
Speak to us, sing to us,
Give life to our hearts.

Bring us the fire
Of bright beauty and truth,
Remember and raise us
From shadowy sleep.

Now is the end
Of your exile: return!
Come to us, walk with us
Over your grave.

Bring us the power
To pass on through the night;
Bring us the truth
And the beauty and light.


Image Credit: Johann Friedrich Naumann, public domain image, from Wikimedia Commons.

Snow On

Batten down the hatches, folks, we have the winter uglies coming our way tonight...

 Snow On


Snow on a dead-skin-gray-cloud backdrop:
White freckles jumping ship to seek their color again
In warmer climes, anywhere but here,
While gravity grabs them to spite their denial.
“All things fall.” As if we need to be told.
And snowflakes, fat and heavy with the season’s weight,
Quietly descend (unless a whimsy wind stirs in their hearts)
And bring the seeds of winter from the cold but virile sky.

Snow on skeletal brown branches:
Bones of our bones with the flesh having changed,
Dermis and epidermis hardened and chilled;
Nails grown clear and long, creeping towards the ground;
Torso, loins, and legs boarded up as if in a coffin;
Blood turned to ice (or else seeping out of buried toes).
Trees know best what insulated mammals can only intuit:
All things freeze and slowly die from the inside out.

Snow on suffocating yet ever-green grass:
Billions of dollars’ worth of first-class lawn care—
Greenery groomed, pampered, spoiled like a prissy child—
Buried and mocked by a blanket of dusty white,
Its crystalline surface flawed by cracks from flurrying feet
And a snowman looming, a fat ephemeral god
With smile, top hat, carrot nose, and eerie button eyes,
Evoked and alive in this season shrouding all with death.

Snow on concrete (looks safe but watch your step!):
Blacktops, parking lots, driveways striving to keep their integrity,
The fury of specific heat waging war on snowflake ordnance:
Bombflakes striking without a boom, mushroom, fallout, or hell.
This battle has gone to the moderns, so high-tech designed,
But the ancient forces of white know persistence will win
And that “victory” here is but a holding of ground
For any and all things haughty in defiant hues.

Snow on the outside slowly drifting deep within:
In through the windows, in through the doors,
In through the clothing, the skin, and the eyes
As we watch ourselves, feel ourselves fall from the ashen sky.



Image credit: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Public Domain image, from Wikimedia Commons

In the Mouth of Chaos

In the Mouth of Chaos

Black heart bangs booms beats
Arrhythmic—
Shatters black daylight
Swallows dead sunlight—
Tattoo pounded, skid mark of sound.

Sea foam swirls in black aether,
Choking suffocation
Breeds bleeding maggots—
Feeding puking feeding
On shit of stars and shadows,
Bleeding dying light
In ooze, black semen, pitch,
Excretions of cosmic harmony
Rotting corpse-like melody—
Sing sing sing, O bones of air:
ינתקבש המל ילא ילא
Χάιρέ κάκος άγιος Πάν!
Ιω Ιω Σωτηρ Χάος!
Bat wings clapping slapping beating,
Tympani played by brimstone hail
Sulfur notes waft
Through black piss rivers:
Ιω Ιω Σωτηρ Χάος!

Why, mother dear, are you here?                               i am
And father, you as well?                                        alone there is
Come, help me hold this nightmare spell             no god where
Away, away, till break of day!                                    i am

Black cock calls out black windstorms—
Black cock falls in black sea foam—
Scythes swing through fields of blood
Reflecting refracting
Deforming in eddies of lightless
Flame.
Names without meaning
Meanings without words
Words without language—
Names, black names:
Skeletons of scarabs
Buried in cold sand
Clinging to fossilized shit
Of cold suns.
Names, black snowflakes
Dancing over frozen flames
Of ooze, black semen, pitch,
Names of harmony
Dancing in discord—
Revelry ribaldry lustfully wed.
Ιω Ιω Σωτηρ Χάος!

Names of dead gods
Dismembered                dispersed
Remembered without members
Alive in molded clay.
Black semen, black river,
Golden child floating on black aether,
Swallowed by starving crocodiles
And serpents borne on wings of flesh.
Flowing black river, ancient sewer
Rancid with shit, piss,
Black semen flung on dirty curbs,
Seething with scavenging worms.

Black worm, black heart, black god
Of ancient aether,
Asshole mouth, dribble on—
Babble On! Babble On!
Names without words without meaning,
Skeletons of scarabs in black wind clinking:
Ιω Ιω Σωτηρ Χάος!

Image credit: Robert Fogliardi, from Wikimedia Commons, under a Creative Commons License.