Category: poetry

  • days gone by

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com, August 31, 2020]

    labyrinthine skyway
    urbanex trespass
    riding the viking city's back
    aloft and above
    throngs and buses
    summer heat

    mills where wheels turn no more
    empty railroad warehouses
    where bums shit, sleep and drink

    mary tyler moore in bronze
    holding court in crystal
    buskers outlouding street preaching
    shouts at the devil in biker leather
    the casual lusty glance 
    of hookers towards cops
    jesus smoking, watching
    unperturbed
    we try to catch mohawk's eye
    — she deftly ignores

    black men in bright
    purple zoot suits
    daring you to enter dick's:
    "are you experienced?"
    next to narrow high windows
    selling fantasy and
    rifle sport record store
    dirty magazines adjacent to
    paperback necromonicon,
    maus and superman
    buck knife wielding rednecks
    who hate the fag you must be
    while the pigs turn away
    ignoring the scene

    bawdy cabaret vaudeville tucked
    behind "SEX SEX SEX"
    because naughty of all stripes 
    belongs to the neon-lights

    sipping at turkish sweet coffee 
    and your java gyro lunch
    waiting for the show
    where a man plays guitar in a
    worn out house dress
    from a second hand store
    and nothing more

    Note: I am taking a short break from posting new material and am tossing out a few older pieces as explained here and here. Thanks for your continuing support.

  • crystal tears

    show no steely smiles
    nor crystal tears
    as you ghost dance
    this mortal coil
    bound by razor wire,
    guilt and shame

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com on July 10, 2020]

  • epiphany

    tok tok tok --
    raven tapping on the
    fog filled street

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com, June 22, 2020]

  • wraps and chains

    gallons of ink have been spilled
    etching razor blade words 
    into arms wrapped in the rags of
    our stains

    little changed in the years between
    youth and age
    till gagged
    still chained

    [Originally posted June 23, 2020 on sceadugenga.com]

  • sin

    some strange feelings
    come with that fragment
    a song not heard since
    the late 80s

    part is loath to stream it
    knowing that moment
    of remembrance will
    be ruined

    the other part wants
    to let it play loud
    until the kids tell me
    turn it down

    in the meantime
    i  fidget with the memory
    trying to recall what it is
    i think i recall

  • casting runes — 31aug26

    kenaz
    ash remains...
a smudge over each eye
to wipe away a pale veil
that lies, hidden
of shadow & fey
burning brands
to light the way

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

    Today’s rune is kenaz, which has been translated as both “torch” and “ulcer” . It is conceived as symbolic of flame, which is the illuminated creativity as well as the source of purification/healing/cautery. Fire is a a source of transformation and unmaking as well as heat, passion and light. As an ulcer, kenaz can be associated with a fever or inflammation, perhaps a wound which requires healing.

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

  • thunder rumbles through

    'the weather is changing,
    i can feel it in my joints',
    sounded so cliche & quaint
    until it became a song i sang
    for my own

    have you ever just sat with
    your pain? talk to it?
    embrace it? hold it?

    sometimes you can
    befriend your pain as
    thunder rumbles through—

  • undrifting

    a hell-shackled drifter
    with hot poison words
    burning at the tongue —
    were silence always
    mine to own

    but fire burns in veins
    drenched in sweat i
    try to sink heat down
    ground out the fever
    in the name

    an exchange in only
    shadow, puppet & flame
    searing flesh with
    each pass of the torch
    under my skin

  • drift off

    perfect, the rain day falling
    over flint and cast as steel
    coffee steam rising and
    a wish of your here
    — and knowing your why

    whisper water on pavement
    hush, don’t wake up the us
    slumber undercover and
    d r  i   f    t        o    f     f —

  • then, fade

    tucked between birchbark light
    and gathered by the bramble
    wire-bound his bone heart waiting

    lichen keeps no tick-clock and so
    the world waited on granite time
    before blood was to crack the flow

    no gate, nor thorn
    no gate, nor thorn
    he wound thread taut
    around twin thumbs
    by which he was
    to remember

    then, fade and