The forest is on fire. It hums and burns with a violent red, and its tall, dying pines arch their backs against the rising sun like rotten thorns. The sun, pricked by their peaks in its soft egg-yolk yellow, blooms and glistens and drips blood from just about everywhere; it runs wild and free through the sea of green grass, smothering everything in its thick, heavy shade.
Month: October 2019
Merry-go-round [Emotion Poem]
Blind trust wrapped in quixotic disguise
bedded in comfort and married to lies
canary yellow, and dripping from better times
from its beak comes the high carnival whine
of a calliope.
Its sound twists the breeze, pulling the clouds
their white threads into yarn-piles unbound
shapes you can’t hold, though you lean and reach
its birdsong now akin to the screech
of a calliope.
Desolation in April
A boy looks out his window on an April afternoon
his room is quiet
there are cake crumbs stuck
in between
the keys
on which his fingers rest.
Harmony, in Birdsong [#13]
Rooster’s beak and feather-tail
mottled, many-colored
Venus, Mars grace her trail
skies swept by wings mallard
Roaring with her dragon
she wears his marks with pride
from the wedding wagon
birdsong, peace comes in tide
Rattle-Boned Hag [#12]
Past the fence of young yellowed bones
the children pelt her house with stones
three-headed snake, wicked she may be
with sharp and shiny iron teeth
a nose so tall it pokes the sun
if Baba’s out, you’d best run
She flies in the belly of her cauldron
bubbling, slick with blood that runs
swinging her pestle at all she can reach
her two sisters let out a cackle and screech
beware Baba, the rattle-boned hag
beware—or you may end up in her bag
Ignus Fatuus [#11]
He holds ye lantern high
in the shadow of the willow tree
wisps of fairies dancing in the night
their high voices beckoning
Blue and red fire burning bright
flocking to the sight of a tragedy
if Will gets you in his crooked sight
never again you might be seen
Auspicious Oracle [#10]
In birth:
fire, licking down its scales
curling smoke ‘round its horns
nosing the mother of the profound
In reign:
cloud, from which it walks upon
naught a single blade of green harmed
whispering greatness in its mists and fog
In death:
horn, piercing the moon at night
dancing with the breath of mighty lion
holding its head in tearful sorrow for the martyr.
Lich King of Bel-Air [#9]
Cadaverous
he stands at the lychgate
hands wrung, in such a state
it’s scandalous
Immortal
not drunk on blood but
drunk on knowledge, shut
away from mortals
Seer o’ all
ain’t your story so tragic
peer into that swirly magick
crystal ball
Voids and an Absent Father [Fantasy Story]
Kaptor tore through the undergrowth, his pursuer’s breath hot and heavy on his neck. The moon drenched the world in dizzying swirls of blues and whites and greys; it swam through the holes in the tree canopy and danced on the forest floor, giving shape to shadows, and breathing life to gnarled, scarred trees. His heart was pounding against his ribs like the heavy beat of funeral drums, leaping up into his throat and back into the heaving of his chest in a matter of a second. Every shallow breath he took pierced his lungs in its coldness—icy daggers taking frenzied stabs into the soft, tender flesh.
The Devourer [#8]
Snake thrashes against the walls of your throat—
no matter, preening the feathers of your golden-bodied coat
hiding the waters of life in those talons:
gloat.
King of birds and with that sharp beak you defend—
no matter, if you are to be at the warrior storm god’s end
throwing Indra’s mighty thunderbolt:
upend.
Wear your wings like a cloak and take to the skies—
no matter, the water only taunts and mocks and cries
stealing eggs from poor sparrow:
reprise.