Posts for June 3, 2020 (page 5)

Sigil commandment
spirits arise, solstice rite
summoning shadows

Grave grimoire conjures
staves carved into Ursus skull
rebirth, athame

Gather crimson blood
Vulpes gifted scarlet ink
stave sketched upon bone

Gather crimson blood
Phocidae gave orchid ink
stave sketched upon bone

Gather crimson blood
Häxa gave lavender ink
stave sketched upon bone

Chant olden versus
a feminine ascension
burning black copal

Invoke her rebirth
ethereal ghost rising
invoke her rebirth

Þykkt blóð, þreytast rekkar.
Þjóð mörg vos öld bjóða,
grand heitt, gummar andast,
glatast auður, firrast snauðir.
Hætt grand hræðast dróttir
hríð mörg, vesöld kvíða,
angur vænt, ærnar skærur.
Illur sveimur nú er í heimi.

the funny thing about time is
when you beg him to remain, he consistently changes
and when you beg him to change, he remains the same.

They keep stars 
in canning jars
shooting off the sides
of its glass smoothness
a cosmic letter 
in a bottomless sea
shooting stars 
streaking off the walls 
glass holding light
flickering celestial 
Morse code behind the safety 
of their star-stained cage
lid screwed on tight
a mason jar mystery
as shooting stars 
flick flickering
a bottled up night
on a bottomless 
ink-rich sea
paradox behind the glass
constellations spinning
canning stars in Mason jars

They say

absence makes

the heart grow

fonder.

My heart grows

restless

and

wary

and

at the end

of the day,

the only thing

I’m fonder of

is my

solitude.

A parked car

in the middle of a back road

2 in the morning

the music up as loud as it can go

Dancing in the headlights

Only the stars can see

Flying down a curvy Kentucky road

Hanging half way out the window

Like a wolf on a full moon

The outlines of the trees

Grow closer together the farther you go

The train tracks up ahead

Flash by like a blur

Dumb and reckless

You could say,

But for us,

This is the only thing

That makes us feel alive

These nights, our

Demons hide in the shadows

And our worries in a well.

Who knows how long we’ve got?

So we’re living, while we still are.

Sincerely, the wild ones

If the center can not hold,
To what will I?

Cities quake and tremble,
heaving with sorrowful sighs
uttered by those burdened with pain – 
Those holding onto a heartbreaking past
and pitiless present,
their outstretched fingers brushing up against Justice,
yet always with a slippery grip.

What do I hold onto now?
To what – I cry – can I cling?

I hold onto my husband,
and let him hold onto me.
I hold onto my children,
and whisper messages of peace and love in their small ears.
I hold onto Truth,
that finds dignity in all life.
I hold onto Beauty,
that blooms like the yellow flowers of weeds clinging to the sides of the gutter.
I hold onto Goodness,
in voices demanding change and a better world.
I hold onto my neighbor.
Hold fast.

Dipping lightly in and out of sleep, half-seeing the movie, she imagines lying back on the beach as the sun sets, or being embraced in the grass at the edge of the woods. She thinks of fingers tracing her collarbone, lips tasting the nape of her neck. Her head just right on his shoulder, the images are wonderfully calming and blissfully not. He thinks of those fingers and lips being his, of the neck and throat as hers. An hour into the movie, her head just so on his shoulder, he feels the familiar sensation as the circulation in his arm slips from asleep to comatose. At a certain point, this, too, is romance after the kids are asleep.  

Like the ocean waves
continuously crashing on the shore,
you run through my mind,
fragments of you left behind.
Broken, I’m trying
to collect them
without touching them directly.
For if I do, I know how it’ll affect me.

When I was a kid,
I played tennis. My coach would tell me
“Always keep your eye on what’s coming”
as if I wanted to be hit
by a rogue ball.

I learned as I grew older,
that tennis is a discussion.
The players must contribute equally and play fairly
for a good, long discussion to take place.

But when one side steals the other’s rackets,
the defenseless players can only cower
and run away from the onslaught of fist-sized balls.

No longer can they play,
for they have to defend themselves.
(And the discussion is ended with violence). 

If they played like that on my team,
my coach would have stepped in
and punished the offenders.

For it is never fair
to meet those without weapons,
without rackets,
without defenses,

with senseless, reckless brutality.

Black Lives Matter. 

Three fair-skinned
blonde-haired girls
Huddle around a desk
One whispers: “I wish I was black”
Loud enough for me to hear
My poor heart leaps
At the thought of it
does she really? I think.
“You do?” One girl echoes.
“Nah- I’m just kidding,” she says
And they all burst with laughter

That’s what I remember
From the third grade.

I remember the rocks
That met my skin
When I went across the street
To play with two white boys
I hadn’t yet met

I remember the fear
In my mother’s eyes
As I laid on the couch
Concussed after being hit
In the head with a tree limb

I remember insisting on her silence.
Insisting that it was an accident.

But was it an accident?
As the three of us
Two white
One black
Stood by the pond
Swaying sticks
And feeding fish
A force so hard
It knocked me off
My feet and sent me
Spinning
As they searched
For frozen peas
And I fought
To stay awake

When I was a child
The hate I had for myself
(Because hating myself was easier)
Ran so deep I cursed god
For thinking of the creation
That was me.

I walk for the fallen
And I walk for the girl
So beaten down
She wondered why
She was even created