24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Nauthiz
Weaved within the law of cosmic balance
Knots in the web cause ‘need fire’ reaction
Driven to turn stresses to strengths
Needs & distress release, no longer a distraction
Changing Fate, with knowledge & wisdom
The Norn orlog tablets for re-casting
A newly grounded force of reality
Is brought into positive action
Nauthiz operates by what necessity dictates
Not what you desire or wish
Skuld veils all future fate
To profess otherwise is foolish
He didn’t mean to die,
and break his daddy’s heart,
that poor little Willy, but he did.
We almost lost our Mr. Lincoln to grief.
Only the kind spirits saw the danger,
knew what had to be done, and selflessly
applied limited etheric skills to pull the boy
from the clutches of schlerosis. To pull daddy
back from his shocked, catatonic state.
The scene was chaotic, as one might expect
when a hodgepodge of circus clowns, comedians,
fathers and doting mothers in various states of decay
confer on strategies best avoided by the living,
and as certain to confuse .
But Mr. Lincoln was closer to joining them himself
than any living person could see. He felt their pull,
and let them lead him back to his boy.
The urgency of his love broke through to his son.
Willy’s spirit raised itself up just in time to be saved
from eternal misery. His spirit arose with a clap
of thunder to the afterlife, and Mr. Lincoln’s spirit
was yanked through the graveyard fence, away from the place.
The spirits drifted back to their flamboyant displays and
collegial mutterings, no emotion attached to the scene
they had created. It had had to be done, and they did it.
A few of their number were rewarded.
They ascended, to the bafflement of the others.
To the bafflement of the readers.
To understanding only of the brilliant writer who gave them life.
And one other, for whom the spirits of the bardo solved
a long-standing literary problem.
(I am uncomfortable posting this as a poem, but the hour is up and I have no time to revise now. Pretend it is poetry until I can make it so! :))
The Great Alone
_________________
How heavy is the world?
You asked your dad
before realizing it
weighed him down
How far to the moon?
You asked your mom
before knowing its
vastness consumed her
How is want, a brother
And need, a sister?
You asked the universe before
blowing out your birthday candles
How full are my dreams?
You asked yourself
before facing
the great alone
Let me tell you a tale
Of the Train that represents Life
This train guides us through our life
From the baby’s breath of bravery
Over to our subborn friends on the road
And finally our grandma’s death
This train will always be by our side
It will hold close our memories
And keep track of our enemies
And it will cherish our trasures in life
This train will end our life
It decides when it arrives at the last stop
It decides how it will arrive there
It decides on who gets out of the train with us
Sometimes I don’t understand
Why I didn’t realize as a child
That the house I lived in was haunted
The windows, always the windows
I was terrified of them
Something was watching me in the woods
I made my parents buy me thick curtains that were never opened
Nightmares of faces scared me in the night
The woods I had grown up in,
That had raised me
Felt dangerous
And I had no idea why
Creaks in the night
Windows, so many windows
Burning at night with something unholy
When I was a toddler, so I am told
I woke screaming of demons in the air
Attacking me, swooping down to me
When I was a pre-teen, my fear of the windows drove me to my sisters floor where I slept for half a year
Something was lurking in the dark
Step outside children
And feel the cold creeping up on you
You are being watched, always watched
Your mother feels it too
This land is cursed
Only this house, built by your father, protects you
Come out to play children
We are waiting
From the shelf I bring down the canteen,
instant coffee, measure out a large dose
and catch the kettle just before it whistles.
There is a hush outside, moonbeams
still trickling though the fog and heavy branches
of the fir trees. The cabin is wood and I
are miles from the closest concrete structure,
a lonely hike through the trees yesterday.
I head down the dock and pour out
my first cup of the pre-morning, waiting
as I have all night to wash the first streaks
of sun lighten the darkness, cleansing
your damned soul from my flesh, my eyes
bloodshot today from my vigil, not tears.
By the dock stood he
Watching the trajectory of a solitary moonbeam
Cutting through the fog
Like the sound of a chopped fir cutting through
The silence of the forest
Yet the fir has kissed the ground and hushed the forest once more
And the moonbeam now dances on the waves of the Pacific.
The ingredients of us are never
exact measurements. Just thrown together at will
and upon necessity, combined with hopeful efforts
that something worthy will become of our mixing.
A dash of words chosen for us, to define us,
to spend our young adult lives trying to unshackle
from whom we had grown into.
A splash of distant mother, a shake of detached father,
a pinch of childhood ending too soon.
A handful of home that felt unsafe,
and a generous amount of life’s imperfections.
The ingredients of us are the most delicious parts,
each tantalizing on its own, spoon-licking trauma
nurtured by an unrelenting hand. Swirled together
in an heirloom bowl, passed down from one generation
to the next, wherein each was created the meal of their own making,
every part a distinguishing feature of a repeating recipe.
And in our time we took the bowl, added to it
the secrets of our families’ history,
mixed equal portions of good and bad
until our story became a creation of both.
And now we eat this bread we inherited.
This bread we contributed to, changed slightly,
and will pass on to our children,
in the same mixing bowl, still holding all the cracks of the past,
and some new, as evidence of our use.
Does it make me soft That I feel kinship with the milkmaid From times long gone? Does it make me weak That I long to make a home Warm and comfortable and safe? Does it make me teutonic To desire a flourishing garden And a family well fed? Why should I shy away From the traditional femininity In ways that are not stifling?
Why can I not be soft?
We will be old and wrinkly,
with liver spots and creaky joints.
Matching silver hair on our heads.
We can sit on the porch, rocking.