Author: michael raven

remains

Image of a writing journal and a pencil. — *Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash*

my broken fingers
flint at cold fires
wet with rust & remains

rattle old the fractured stones
clacking 'round this
hollow & shattered head

a sleep of ashes
ashes & rust & rain
this cast off dross &
rusted remains

29 Apr 25

dark angel

i wonder than none can see
her arms draped over me with
a wink, a smile, a murder of crows
i gave myself over lifetimes ago
to that dark angel at my side

you may seek,
but you will not find

29 Apr 25

one of a few — 29apr25
beithe
```
paper bark and
fine hair flutters
on the pale winds
chasing ripples
over a secret lake
```
For a change of pace, I decided to revisit ogam/ogham for a poetry prompt tool. As with the Elder Futhark runes, I randomly select one of the ogam fid as a prompt for a bit of micropoetry.
Because I have a poorly-developed sense of humor, the title of this post refers to a variant of the word, fid, “few”. While still in common usage, “few” is not technically accurate to describe the letter — but I like my wordplay.
Beithe (in Old Irish, beith in modern Irish) means “birch”. The fid has a number of cryptic meanings depending on the kenning or its inclusions in the medieval word lists of the filli, including: white, pheasant, livelihood, “withered foot with fine hair”, and “beauty of the eyebrow”, amongst many, many others.
I do not embrace Robert Graves’ mystical meanings as I feel they are not based in scholarship and that they disagree with people who have made a lifetime study of the ogam. While there is evidence of possible filli-coding within the letters (per the lists poets were made to memorize), there is little evidence that magical meaning was the intent and the association with magic appears to be a modern invention… But that is another post.
Perhaps I’ll eventually bring fid back and finish my in-depth exploration of their meanings.
29 Apr 25
half-penny thought
Photo by Ginny Rose Stewart on Unsplash
Poetry is my incantation; writing, my ritual…
29 Apr 25

surrender

i yield my flesh to
the carrion feast —
strip me down to bone
to scatter me to stone
and bleach me to sun
wash away my stain
for i do grow ever weary

28 Apr 25

homage

badh touched my shoulder
as i held the remains of
old friends in a wooden box

i turned to the battle crow
as she leaned forward
laying her night beak
on my pale lips in kiss
numbing my flesh to tingle
well after i woke under
the reapers moon

28 Apr 25

out

all out of space
all out of time
carving the sickle moon
and dancing wrists
i slip back to stone
where blood runs thick
perhaps it is home

27 Apr 25

blotter

thrusting bare arms
into broken glass
no one needs read
these words writ
when they can be
given flow in show
and paint the floor
a crimson red

27 Apr 25

etch

eye closed become fells
the pale and the grey
lichen and moss the taiga
blue, sage and stained

this grows home and stone
of a passing day, lost 

etch me bone and twig
paint me undercloud
sway the cattails and
rain down

27 Apr 25

tossing a rune — 27apr25
the elder futhark rune, isaz
```
here, we stand in stillness.

cold still in beauty
stone against flurry
rimed eyes clear

we chill flames
burning too hot

here, we stand.
```
Another of my rune poems for a Elder Futhark rune selected at random. Today’s rune is isaz/isa, whose core meaning is “ice” and which secondary meanings are all those normally associated with ice: stillness, enchantment, beauty and, yes, stagnation, blockages and cold.
I was thinking recently about sceadugenga.com and the runes found there and decided that, rather than let the domain lapse into a WordPress.com variant when the hosting period is up at that site, I will transfer the domain to this host and continue to own the domain. I will likely reduce the content to just rune-related matters, but the annual fee is nominal for continuing to own the domain name. I will likely have to overhaul the pages to correct for some of the elements that don’t transfer over to non-WordPress-hosted variations of sites, but I should probably do that anyway to correct how some of my understanding has evolved over time (continuously). The decision to refer to the rune as isaz instead of isa is reflective of some of that change in understanding.
27 Apr 25