Author: michael raven

Half-Penny Thoughts | 23jun25
Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash
I used to be really proud about how clever I could be and how much information I was able to amass in my cranium.
The past decade or so, however, I’ve been discovering how liberating it is to be the one asking questions instead of being the one who “knows” stuff. And how freeing it is to let “knowledge” slip away when the information does not have an immediate and proven need. I can always ask the questions, or read something, again and — sometimes, even — I learn something completely different when I learn something “from scratch”.
That means I can often reread books, for example, and see the story or the information with completely new eyes. Or find a new technique to troubleshoot a problem.
Forgetting doesn’t have to be the horror that some folks make it out to be. Memories are not something that require preservation. They may give you joy or feel useful, but there is no real reason to cling to memories, or that joy, just for the sake of remembering. Or is there?
23 Jun 25
tossing a rune — 22jun25
berkana
```
through the pass
we may yet recall
all of those parts of us
long since forgotten
```
Another rune poem of mine, where the rune is selected at random.
Today’s rune is berkana, which has a core meaning “birch”. Birch are often the first trees to populate areas after a forest fire and, by extension, are associated with new beginnings, purification and rebirth — all of which tend to be related to the eternal feminine.
22 Jun 25

hold

standing stones — *Photo by Suzanne Rushton on Unsplash*

come the drift as
voices fade away
the taste of ash
'cross my tongue
distrust, the taste
of dream

bone hands stolen
of twilight childe
hold onto me, hold

22 Jun 25

waiting to come

i am held apart and
the words said
are not for who
am i say i may be

rejoined if held together
in arms tenderly and
whispers the wind
my name am be

still crushed flower
under the snow
waiting to come of spring

21 Jun 25

venus in firs

gather us now
at fingerposts &
streetlamps in the fir
bone crunching the
frostcrust snow
under our woolen
scarlet, some
edges cut thin

"how do you do?"
"i am well, and you?"
"fine, i couldn't
be better."
"it's cold, we should
have a bit of tea."

— and so forth
and so on as the
sleigh bells silver
their ever closer in
a pale empress coming
could you not
see all is well as
might have been?

20 Jun 25

pict-too

a slendering into irrelevance
pict-too pict-too painted blue
—and now the unwanting

to crawl down to bed in seek
to find a dream in shiftspace
between the you and the me

that clackbone cracking
after the summer, corewood
once living, now dead

kiss me before the afterglow fades
pict-too pict-too all painted blue
to slip to my slendering again

20 Jun 25

eyes play

growing at distance
eyes play watchmen
observing in steel as
a hand strokes in time
with the machine

20 Jun 25

sudden summer

black wooden fence on snow field at a distance of black bare trees — *Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com*

sudden summer rain
calls to the napping
of grey dark the room
i still ache to dream

winter tales,
winter song

19 Jun 25

The long drive, connectivity and tech
Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash
In my post where I mentioned I will be busy this summer with things that take me away from posting here quite so frequently, I alluded to a lack of connectivity for a spell as being one of those reasons. Well, those plans are starting to firm up and I will be incommunicado near the end of July for about 5-10 days.
(more…)
19 Jun 25

crash

distractions become bliss with
the fever of fingers dancing
in the darkest shadows and
a kiss before that small death
where stars blur and blend
slipstream into one present
into rising waves of pasts
beyond remembering
to crash into you

18 Jun 25