Category: writing

  • slipping snares

    slipping those witchy snares
    letting hedges fall away—
    i am not here to cosplay

    i sky scree lake water blue
    i dark root mycelium bound
    i æsclāst, that wending path

    fever, dreams draw heat
    forest and wode, grown old
    crows rise calling—

    blood on virgin snow

  • lark on the morn

    Today I draw dark lines in charcoal on parchment so thin as to air. All gravities pull in your direction and the angles bend true, in teeth-branded skin and hurt so good.

    Head wrapped in linen for better to see. My fingers dance liminal, waiting for the telegraph of dream. Can you see the words writ in water? The ripples cross my dark lines in coal drawn on angle to you.

    Granites love your gravity, antlers turn their curves to thee.

    And, it is in this I apprehend. Waiting on the morning lark to call you into being.

  • casting runes — 12may26

    othala
    ancient this wood
    sheltering spirit
    a compact made
    in the ever ago

    moss at north
    & lichen scalloped
    at deadfall we hoard

    fox bark, underdark
    a crow calls, naming
    from branch & from floor

    A poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.

    Today’s rune is othala, which has a core meaning of “heritage”, “inheritance” and “legacy”. These are all associated with home, kin, ancestors, stability and (in some interpretations) past lives or spiritual legacy.

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

  • oculus obscura

    i am not of dreaming
    her eyes mind not me
    laugh crow at skies 
    laugh stone at feet

    i am hoar of unnight
    shattered & unseen
    laugh flint scrape skin
    laugh bone under me

  • no such thing

    those lips still cut
    with every touch
    with every view, so
    tie me to the screen
    to bring them closer,
    still closer, to me

    there is no such
    thing, love
    there is only bruise
    a thumb pressed to
    heart-boxes caged
    within rows of ribs
    and vanities

    so give over blind
    a seer for sweet pain
    rending through
    to see so clear
    it hurts

  • VMH Ep 6.2: Stilmere is live

    start readingVengeance, My Heart

    The Argument:
    Things are on the Turn or on the Twist.
    A landscape in cards.
    Everything æsces on the wræclast.

    Episode 6.2 of Vengeance, My Heart (episode link), my serialized Sepulchral-Gothic Western novel, is now live at ravensweald.art.

    Subscribe to the serial via email

    ❧

    (more…)

  • atelier

    We held feather to flame and come out charred, there, in the underwood, the oaks rising sentinel high. The many mutter and shuffle, not wanting to be left behind. But the barrier is the bending of knee supplication, to both the underwood and also the trees.

    And stiff knees bend not.

    Though fevered and enflamed, I wish I could remain here kissing, improbable memories, unlikely times. We might talk to the old skull stone and antler, carving names with flint beyond the skin’s deep. We might slumber afterglow warm, sweat dripping chill on your side.

    This bone atelier, sanctuary and rain. Inkstained. I close blind eyes tight to stay.

  • casting runes — 10may26

    uruz
    a discarded broken thing
    you wouldn't look twice
    at what can be seen—
    an old thing overlooked

    raindrops splinter
    on corrugated steel

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

    Today’s rune is uruz. The rune is named after the now-extinct aurochs, a wild ox and has become associated with standing up to challenges, having both confidence and courage, stubborn tenacity, and boundless strength and health. Uruz is alternately associated with the more raw elements which include rain, primordial potential, and the slag/dross cast away during the making of iron.

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

  • surrender

    there was a used-to-matter
    and now a not-certain-it-does
    laid across existence-as-wraith
    as the haint at the bottom
    of the stairs and down the hall

    it could beautiful, one supposes
    if such a dream were real and
    i am dreaming of us dreaming
    of one of us drowning and
    one of us is just me just dreaming
    of slipping under the wave

    surrender comes easy with
    no ropes cast to the deep

  • only

    whispers doubt &
    memory these
    pushnail hands to
    rust on through &
    twistgrind bone to
    raindrop splash
    my naked face

    who cares for
    tonight tonight
    when something
    rests between
    fold & trench
    forgotten in
    butterfly dream?

    there is no love
    betangled of song

    only—