2021.10 Weaver

In youth you roamed the earth as honoured guest,
The blood of gods and giants in your veins;
Whatever traps you sprung were loosed in jest,
The first and last to be adorned with chains.

Where laws and strictures fail, there’s always you –
A name to summon cunning, loose the tongue.
When plans come spinning, quite out of the blue,
Yes: you’re the one whose praise is rightly sung.

But jokers cannot always court guffaws;
Ambition’s bitter, given second place.
Your children held to ransom, framed as flaws,
Will rip the cords that grip your smile in place.

You knotted threads that bound the gods to Fate;
When twilight falls, your flames will liberate.

Following the @allographica prompt for 10th April (write a sonnet about your favourite god/ saint/ superhero), I ended up doing a swift bit of research/ reminding myself about Loki, Norse god of cunning, chaos, plots, tricks, and schemes. I hope I've done said deity justice with this somewhat twisted net of multiple meanings.

Gorgeously ambiguous image, "Laufeyr-sonr" (Laufey's son) by @sceit_a, found unattributed elsewhere and tracked down to Deviantart (let me know if I should remove it!)

Detailed image description in alt-text

2019.7 Amphibious

We were looking for ourselves,
Flicking over pages
Bright with gold –
The certainty of the light,
The heritage of those born to
The winning lineage,
All straight lines and shining faces,
Sword-girt, sunlit,
Indomitable,

We sped, too, past the dark,
The depths of the woods,
The unlit caves,
The places where the cold
And dispossessed lure
Innocence to be consumed,
Transformed into dinner or symbol.

Nothing fit.
We saw only funhouse mirrors
Fracturing us further.

It took a while;
We didn’t see you,
Stepping between the rays of sun
At the forest’s edge;
Standing on a bridge
(or under it);
Inhabiting the banks
Of the pond.
We saw you transform –
Small to large, smooth to hairy,
Vulnerable to scaly.

We were taken in by the suggestion
That only one state was the
True one.
We watched them break the spell,
Return you to your
Rightful shape:
Goose to brother,
Mage to dragon,
Fox to wife.

And we, who loved the liminal,
Found our eyes drawn, repeatedly, to you
Who, settling, unsettled us.

And, decades on, we finally re-write,
Breathe easier,
Gift the selkie back her skin
The swan maiden her shift.
The faun runs again in dappled shade,
Chain about his slender neck,
And the frog settles into the
Churning cool of the Springtime lilypond,
Raising his voice in chorus for a while
(just for a while),
Astride the twilight margins,
Until the palace beckons once again.


I’ve already reached the point where I’m asking for prompts from anyone nearby. In this case, my partner, clearly casting an eye about the room, said frog (did you look at the stuffed frog on the bookcase? Shh!). This is where my brain went.

2018.6 Unnamed

She is stained already, slain, sained, scraped with the impurity of the material picked out for her by a man with a plan, a penchant for antiquity. No iniquity is implicated here, but we are steered towards a dark and lingering gloss on high, undeveloped breasts, our eyes rest on a twist of faceless torso, shallow mons. This is battered, armless Psyche, who must rely, at all times, on masculine charity and her own unchancy beauty, punished for curiosity, rewarded for sleeping, silent.

Kept in splendid hush,
Drowned by her only action,
She waits to waken.

2018.4 Druth

When I left, they let me.
No-one followed, And I
staff in hand made my own path
Sky-clean and stream-wandering.

I bordered on nothing, nodding
its feather-brush, touching and untouching.
I dark, it follow, wending and
unending. We peer freely, touch
with reverence, the grey is

And I

Forest is sky - the touch untouch
fronds against light and dark speaks.
It is more than maybe but
Not too soon.

If I, feathercloak fly it will be
Taken of taking, touch of untouching.
I gather. Cleave close to edges
Edges speak where the centre stays silent.
S   I   L   E   N   T   C   E      S   I   N   G

I prefer here that is not-there
Ivy shoulders; smoke skin,
Gather the edge dark in my hands
Wait patience as song for them to stop
feathering, gather my arms from mist
so I can eat.

I still eat, though its weight can be
bruising and nor of. Some of the
It’s very light, but quiet is dark so
edges of song drift feather bright

We were leaves once.

And we. We are featherdark light
And I am forgetting where my
old name talked.
It talked and talked, lode and loaded
the words hot and

Yet

Song.

Silencesong is feather soft, leaf edge
against me and we walk,
Darkness and I cry sometimes
Laugh sometimes, edge drift like
the smoke I remember
And quiet is still and I can hear
on the edge of breath

My other heart. A new hearth
For the silent song.

Bound no more. I am.

2016.13 Selkie

Inspired by the fairytale senryū series and - of course - by #theselkie - a tanka:

Seal's pelt stolen, now
Woman walks in gravity,
Chained to dry land and
Cursing everything except
The innocence born of theft.

---

Invoking emergency tanka at this stage... And no, of course I'm not writing these all this quickly - they just haven't been typed up from last week(end).

2015.12 - Devices

Green 

You whisper at night
Of theft, shine cruel light on all
My pitiful gifts

Gold 

One word can turn my
Head, spin me breathless in an
Endless mirror cave

Purple 

I squirm, caressing
Everything, dig deep, and come
Up sticky-fingered

Pink

Crammed to the rafters
I gape still, trying to fill
That elusive gap

Blue

If only I could
Stir myself to...

Orange

Less than the sum of
My parts, my heart hold no more
Space for charity

Red

Raze it to the ground,
Delight in the hollow thump
Of fists and bootheels


_______________________

There are traditional colours for these things, apparently, but I've chosen my own...

#26 Pied-à-Terre

There's a house near the road
Where nobody goes
Its shingles are withered
And so are its toes
It used to stride freely
Its cargo to tote
Now it's stuck by the roadside
Where nobody goes.

It's seen witches and princes
And feisty heroes
Now dust lies in state
Over mouldy old throws
How it used to perambulate
No-one now knows
It's a lonely old lookout
Where nobody goes.

"Little house, little house,
Turn round to me.
Let the sun on your windows
The whole world to see"
The heroes would seek it
But peasants would flee
Now it camps out in scrubland
And pines for the trees.

Its mistress is long-gone
Which just goes to show
That you shouldn't turn round
On the word of heroes
Its magic ambitions
Are covered in mould
And all it can do now
Is stare at the road

She saw that old house
As they, northbound, sped by
She felt its predicament
Wanted to cry
That its power no concrete
Could heedlessly bind
If it just changed those words
It had stored in its mind.

"Little house, little house
Turn round to see
That there's nobody stopping me
Least of all me
With my mistresses gone
And no heroes to flee
Little self, please believe me,
I'm perfectly free."

There's a patch near the road
Where nobody goes
With a flattened-out square bit
And marks of huge toes
One day its old tenant
Rocked, creaked, groaned and rose
To march off to a future
That everyone knows.

***

I'm assuming that you all know the story of Baba Yaga and her ubiquitous hut...

#22 Do the Little Things in Life

Some of my NaPoWriMo comrades and Facebook friends appear to be writing about their day’s saint today. With no offence intended, this is my take...

St. George says jack to me
A hackneyed archetype
All “look at me” with his
Smouldering Italian eyes
Fixed on a slightly dubious prize.

Maybe I’m bitter -
A feminist Welsh witch
Gritting old teeth at occupier fervour,
Nerve hit by symbolic pagan-killing.

He’s an interesting twist away from
The other fellas - remonstrators,
Snake-haters, hillock-makers, fishermen,
Kings and bones and gold-bound things,
All the big ones imports.

It seems I like my holy people local,
Vocal, quietly stubborn,
Humble, healing, proved
To have been breathing more than ink;
Psychopomps and gods and warriors
All have their place but not as saints.

I know it isn’t up to me, but
Yellow buds, a half-day holiday,
Dressing up and pungent vegetation,
Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd,
Whispers more to me than violent adulation.

#16 Suspension

Tuesday was fun...

And she says:
I've changed your plans.
You understand, yeah?
That I'm the one who's
In command.

You? Irrelevant, really,
A means to project my energy
Into existence
An assistant, if you will;
Bearer of the bitter pill.

It's like this:
At the flick of some
Imaginary switch
Your life's unhitched
From its designated tracks
Sorry - I'm talking about
Whatever you thought
Was the direction
To head down.

I'm the queen of blips,
Missteps, glitches,
Disappearing lovers
And mysterious sickness.
The Greeks had name for me,
Yes, bless them,
They venerated Eris -
Goddess of jealous fate,
Spite, and spikes,
And tragic mistakes.

I've been around
Since humans first thought
They could rule themselves
You could say I've kept
Your whole lot
On their toes and
Don't suppose for
One moment that
Just because you know me
You can sit back...

Buckle up, and
Get uncomfortable, manchild,
I plan to be around until
The crack of Doom.

#12 Laborious

Treacherous golden
Fur spurs sacrifice, armour
Carved from enmity.

Spawned for vengeance he
Hacks heads dreading the hiss of
Reawoken flesh.

Swifter than sunlight
Hero's plight wins forgiveness;
Politeness trumps spite.

Undaunted by the
Heat of pursuit, arrogance
Is cooled in a jar.

One day to make a
Difference, sluicing the neglect
Of years clean away.

Cry havoc! Unleash spite
On cowed head until bright noise
Drives you from your bed.

Bring the might of this
Yet untroubled king to his
Knees - a fit tribute.

Man-eating nags can
Only be soothed by their lord's
Flesh - best rest ever.

Princess craves a royal
Gift; jealous rift rips living
Breath from girt queen's lips.

Elements conspire,
A year of tireless pursuit
Bears out giant fruit.

Laughter rings and he weeps
For brief golden memories
And your heavy tricks.

Wrest friend and pet from
Frigid dark, hark at captive
Whines, win long-sought rest.

#11 The One Left Behind

It was dark then,
The others slept,
A perfect time
For whispers,
Clutched garments,
The scent of secrets.

Inescapable desperation
Moved me, and finally
We kissed.
You looked at me,
Unfathomable,
The ground dropping
From my world.

As the night came alive
With the sounds of death
The others, belated, wept -
I was the one
Who stood with you
That night in the garden.
Not them.

It is cold now,
The air empty of your breath,
Still in the caverns
Of your silence.
It was dark then
And, though the cock has crowed,
I know the sun will never
Come for me again.

#10 Indelible

Tanka - challenge prompt - are only slightly more difficult than senryū...

All that remains is
For you to inscribe my laws,
Ensure they're obeyed.
But remember, son, he said
That they don't apply to me.

#9 Lleu Llaw Gyffes' Woman

Imagine if she'd said no:
Don't give me claws -
I was given for loving,
I did only as you made me.

Imagine her saying it:
No, don't kill him -
Send us into exile,
Beyond sight,
Tell them I died.

Imagine if she'd refused:
No - let's just run away,
Let this be about you and me,
Not you and him.
Theft is better than murder.

Imagine if she'd said:
I never imagined men
Were like you - tender, attentive,
Bearing their own names,
Fragrant, unfettered by fate,
But first I need to leave him.

Imagine if she'd refused:
New-minted, the world glinting,
Let me touch it
With my softness first,
Then choose my own chains.

Imagine her saying it:
I will not turn,
I'll stay scattered, natural,
Making love to earth
And sunlight.

Imagine if she'd said yes:
My son, my own,
You'll grow to be a man,
And just a man,
Wound round with women's love.

#6 Statute

I don't usually do intros, but this was inspired by visiting the Louvre in Paris recently, and seeing, among other things of beauty (we mostly stuck to the Classical statues - you can't hope to "do" the whole museum in a day), the Venus de Milo. I don't usually do set forms, but NaPoWriMo is all about the challenges, so this is a terzanelle, or approximation thereof.

Love appears to be disarmed
And where she points is empty
By powers absent we are charmed

Antiquity has lost her sentry
Her guards are lost or sleeping
And where she points is empty

By night came thieves in dark and creeping
By day with flags and trumpets bold
Her guards are lost or sleeping

We revere them, sere and cold
Visit them in crowded dreaming
By day with flags and trumpets bold

White or black or gilded gleaming
We come from all across the Earth
Visit them in crowded dreaming

From them we seek to fill some dearth
Love appears to be disarmed
We come from all across the Earth
By powers absent we are charmed