Another ritual night

Photo by Stephane Gagnon on Unsplash

I have forgotten stars now. That light flickering, I wonder how it entranced me so now that it has faded from view. Perhaps I used to be somebody in the before. Or, maybe, it was always illusion that snaked this road into each night before the screens stole it away.

Blood hands from holding blades, shards of glass on a beach of stone. Mournful, the cries of ravens from the cedar warning me from the windswept hill. They used to hang people there. They used to pierce them, too, to ensure they were not playing the dead, those soldiers of gloom.

A right pinch of snuff and a stroke of scrimshaw in the left hand holding. Clearing the head of stagnant saltwater in rituals of the hands… I am bone, I am stone, I am wings on the thermals ride. Black as the night that drew me. My feet pound the wood dock branching out over water, echoing the hollow within.

Joyless I wait for the push from behind, black water calling.


7 responses to “Another ritual night”

  1. Bob Avatar

    I think of Dante’s “abandon all hope”

    1. michael raven Avatar

      Perhaps it is a little bit of that…

  2. chrisnelson61 Avatar

    ‘Perhaps I used to be somebody in the before. Or, maybe, it was always illusion ‘
    I really like the idea here. Do we trick ourselves in order to find some kind of ‘meaning’? Or is it that we can no longer connect with our inner self?
    Great questions in this piece, Michael.

    1. michael raven Avatar

      Thank you, Chris.

      I wonder the other way around — if we can no longer connect with the outer self…

      Oh, dolorous days…

      1. chrisnelson61 Avatar

        Ooh, interesting!

  3. lodestarwytch Avatar

    …atmospheric & beautifully dark ♥️

    1. michael raven Avatar

      Thank you very much 💕