all we stand pines
many winds we speak
dark heartwood groves
our brown on ground
in skirts found flowing
below in chinese whispers
carried around, around
until all sense lost falls
when we winter,
we crackle & pop
Category: poetry
when we winter
casting runes — 22sept26
hagalaz searching for stones
inside of stones —
bramble clings to ragsA rune poem, based on an Elder Futhark rune selected at random.
Today’s rune is hagalaz, which has a core meaning of “hail”, which was associated with potential, transformation, renewal and change; hail is imagined a seed from which change will arise. Hagalaz is also seen as representative of things beyond our control: a clash between fire and ice.
Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.
drawing zero
with words flailing
at razor-reaped wind
all bramble eyed with
teeth like wine and
vignettes stained with sin
i step jingled jester
over broken ends
to begin everything
once againpage after page
fuel the flames with
page after page fed
given to thorns like wine
dragged slow like night
three a.m. three a.m. mind
twisting sheets around
and around like throats
it's the same story
same haunt given
this time again,
as i am burning
page after page
again.in high plains
do not effusivate me.
i sun-bleached bone
on hardpan salts or
sage scrub windblown
in high plains more
rat-a-rat-a-rattlesnake me
with venom bite deep, for
that is how i know
the depth of love
wash me in moonlight
while smudging out thorn
sweat trails ribs after
black roads rideso many
in the shadow
i am so many
i am bone knife
i am blood dream
i am antlers inked
i am rust scream
if there were a love
i would disbelieve
for i am so many
in the shadow
unseenthat lost
that lost generation on
the corner of 6th street
and some unrecalled cross
half lives forgotten
at cigarette butt curbs
run sticky with
mad dog spilled
waiting for the bloodsport
to find its fill feeding
the maelstrom under
paint-me-black decksnow we are again
the things we did in
the ruins of forebears
along rapids back then,
scaling backwalls by
the falls with flowers
in our heads
like those tools left out
in the rain, my friend
blood washed to rust in
our time flowing over
to the big river in
concrete broken gutters
now we are bloodless
againsometimes i am also downtown
sometimes i am also downtown
in all undercity and brick
cigarette sidewalk sewer perfume
seedy bookstore, street chic boutique
standing, selling streetcorners
hey, gotta a dollar? i pay you
back next week
a river runs down the length
of my side, flowing swift and wide
sometimes i am also downtown
along with all this nature insidenothing flint
scrying of flint eyes
finding in them
nothing
.
distant ridges call horses
home with the wind
blow mane black,
tangle mane dun —
storm, she is rising
rise now painted walls
first sky tears fall
determined, there is
nothing, there is
nothing in those
flint eyes at all
