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.

2017.15 - Abracadabra

It makes no difference, the distance, when we meet 

Ten minutes or ten years - it's all the same 

Sword-pull in the gut, cut quite in two 

And a choking tug of bunting. 

Knuckle down to mundane work,

Imitating normal;

No more glittering,

Dove-chest flutter…

Oh my love,

Forget

Me

Yet again, the prompt for this came from the prompt that was given to Paper Planes for their show tonight. I'm prepared to be proved wrong, but I think this is a new poetry form called The Abracadabra. I've combined that with some concrete poetry for good (?) measure.

#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...

#13 Yours Always

I seem to be choosing to be inspired (however obscurely sometimes) by the numbers themselves quite often in this challenge...

She gets restless
Every four weeks,
Needs to complete her rounds,
Grounds herself in cleaning,
A means to forget a past life.

Darts about the house
Ousting dust and grime
While chanting against
The remnants of rememberance,
The chance that she might fall.

She is warding against
The tenets of fate
Mistakes, missteps, known
Alone by her,
Girded by hard work.

Shrouded alone in dust,
Musty under locks,
The box waits
For the day her muster's
Not enough.

For the day she stumbles
Crumples up her will
And spills colours
Under her pricking thumbs -
What comes must come.

When gaudy pictures slide,
Glide her back to truth,
Ruthlessly laid out,
Doubt eradicated,
Debts repaid.

She'll gaze at the hand dealt,
Draw breath and gather all
Her swords again,
Blending her purpose and her magic,
Tragedy and death's hope.