Tag: poetry

  • fabric

    Photo by Tengis Galamez on Unsplash
    needlethreading the dream
    fragile in porcelain pale
    stitching her fabric close

    shift skies on the flint
    slip steel on white
    a twist, a turn, on veil

    shadow scrim moving thin
    shadow unmine, carry
    beyond this windtorn coil
  • tossing a rune — 27aug25

    gebo
    "we sacrificed all the things we love
    to get more of nothing"
    cry the echoes of november in the empty
    of this autumn head of mine—
    gates dissolve by way of drifting snow
    revealing the only thing that's real

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

    Today’s rune is gebo, which has a core meaning of “gift”. This relates to all forms of reciprocity, transaction, generosity, hospitality and sacrifice (in the sense of giving up something).

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

  • that merry-go-round

    carousel with lights
    Photo by Mihai Vlasceanu on Pexels.com
    clockwork broken and
    stone etched bone
    a heart stitched hazard

    hands tick back that
    merry-go-round
    temptation in autumn comes

    with pricking thumbs
    and old man's hours
    waiting for her ice to thaw
  • tossing a rune — 25aug25

    othala
    weary of tethers
    fingers dance the blade
    toying with cutting away jesses
    and giving wing to flight

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

    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.

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

  • north away home

    Photo by Janke Laskowski on Unsplash
    reaching for
    something profound
    in red dog dreams,
    coming up with
    handfuls of dust

    wondering if
    pale hands will
    finally carry me gentle
    under the wave &
    north away home
  • semicolon days;

    these semicolon days
    with that breathy pause
    before twilight turns to night
    the winter queen waiting

    with a yawn and stretch
    dreaming of scarlet and black
    both wrists bared and
    knees to the earth
    a surrender to stone
    and hearth
  • bye on bye

    catchbreeze with
    birds on a wing
    shallow sun
    growing deep
    a wave bye on bye
    on her slipping by
    heading to her
    south once again

    for me, evergreen
    and slate skies grey
    come the flint
    of my blood and
    of my skin
  • slumber

    chill breeze flowing
    through open windows
    and everyone sleeping
    in this sleeping house

    my own mind slumbers
    too
    and i wonder if it
    will ever wake

    There are more times of late when I feel more simulacrum than person. This is one of those times, where I am quite content in not moving forward if only this moment could linger. Stop the simulation, let me sleepy-slumber with late summer (or early autumn, I suppose) on the morn, windows open, bare legs cold, the faint bird chirps without rhythm or meaning, the highway drone from a few miles away. Coffee mug in hand, ignoring the turmoil in the news. Watching cats watch whatever and not feeling too much pain in the joints until I move.

    I could be that simulacrum, my brain says — for a while longer. Record and set to repeat. I’m tired of most everything else. Add a section when I lay atop my bedding and sleepwalk in half-remembered dreams, maybe program a section where I catch chill and nest underneath too. What about a companion? While a nice thought, I’m not sure such scenes allow for companionship. The slumbering simulacrum seems a solitary affair, doesn’t it? Or maybe… but no. We’ll leave that for the dreaming this simulacrum might have.

    If it were possible to have this half-dream state of existing, I might even stop writing. It would be my gift to the world.

    Hush now. I feel another dream.

  • just to hear his screams

    Image of a writing journal and a pencil.
    Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash
    “we locked up Ben
    just to hear his screams,”
    is how the story began
    once black type, now brown
    on yellowed paper old
    stuffed without ceremony
    in a notepad more
    jaundiced than the
    paper it was printed on

    nervous chuckles at that
    with a put that aside
    until braver days rise
    maybe some misbegotten
    future morn
    or maybe not,
    vaguely recalling
    misdirectional intent behind
    the phrase from before

    but not tonight, no
    as i enjoy the glow of
    cds inventoried to store
  • unpermitted

    lost weirds wording
    mute mouth movement
    i blind eye my fuzzy sight
    waiting for fires to burn

    your permission is
    not my intention
    your permission is
    not my affliction
    i break earth in lines
    in my own damned time

    nightsitting, waiting
    giving over to my dross
    'til she bare feet comes
    never touching ground
    never turning 'round, again