Author: michael raven

  • breaking

    streetlight flurries
    these early hours
    wordbroke, we gather slush
    chuck it gutterside
    pretending we write
    something breaking ice

  • ravaged

    Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash
    temptation drifts to river red
    flowing out and away of
    dry husk crinkle breeze me

    parched of sunbleached bone
    shift the sands slipstream
    hush, now baby-baby, hush

    flutter at whispers dry
    chapped and in peel, ravaged for
    kissing phantoms in the night

  • casting runes — 30dec25

    isaz
    not unlike sun-spangled snow
    your beauty brilliantly blinds
    binds me to something bright
    that i can never have, i am left to
    living as your shadow instead

    A rune poem, based on an Elder Futhark rune selected at random.

    Today’s rune is isaz, a rune that is translated as the word “ice”. Sources associate isaz with a calmness, present moment or stillness. As ice, isaz is sometimes associated with standstill, stagnation, stasis or contraction; even at times as pristine beauty with seductive qualities.

    Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.

  • Well, that’s done

    Photo by Mário Rui André on Unsplash

    As I committed to myself and anyone who bothered actually reading the content of my posts about the matter in either sphere, I killed my Instagram and Facebook accounts tonight. A couple of days earlier than some might expect, but my only commitment to everyone was that the accounts would cease to exist in the waning days and hours of 2025. Reach out if you want to stay in contact, I said.

    If I was expecting a flood of people saying “don’t leave us!” (I wasn’t), I might have been disappointed in the response. I was expecting nothing and got a trickle instead, so I count those few blessings.

    I am left with the overall opinion: Good riddance.

    (more…)

  • far gone seas

    Photo by Stephane Gagnon on Unsplash
    embracing aether tendril tugs
    while whispering my wishes
    back to me, offering
    drifts in calmer currents
    drifts off to far gone seas

    some days i dream of dying
    others, i know already that i have
    been dying for decades

    just a silver slip and falling
    her arms catch, on gentle wings
    to carry me, bringing
    drifts in calmer currents
    drifts off to far gone seas