8 - Erasing Eris

Things you need to know:

1. Eris is the unpleasant, bitter, Greek deity of Chaos and Discord.
   
2. This took me for-bloody-ever…

#NaPoWriMo Day 8 and yesterday I sculpted an erasure poem, inspired by a prompt of “Eridanus”, courtesy of my handy-dandy randomised prompts-and-topics spreadsheet. And, being me, I went a bit extra with it all (we’re all astonished, I know), and decided that the thing I would be erasing would be the entire bloody Wikipedia article, and then, in order for the audio version to match the spirit of the visual version, that I would record me reading the entire bloody Wikipedia article aloud and cut the concomitant bits out of the recording for authenticity.

I can certainly say I’ve learned some things, though what they might be, only time can tell… (The image description for this is going to be… special, for one…)

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the seven preceding it) there. And it is certainly an experience! The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/erasing-eris-155174189

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Two halves of the redacted article side-by-side:

Or, if you’d like to see the whole darned thing in a oner:

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Fine, I’ll have pity on you – here’s the version rendered into plain words:

Eris stretches along the south.
It is a river. It remains one of the
real features of the blue-white years,
whose tradition means “the end”.

Peculiar observations indicate poles
spinning extremely rapidly.
The noteworthy Beta tradition called
a blue-white Earth. Its foot gives
indistinguishable amateurs primary
binary magnitude; visible, divisible:
a triple system consisting of an
orange main star,
a white dwarf,
and a red dwarf.

The maga is easily visible white.
The maga have a period of 50 years.
Artists impress, ran –
one extra orange-hued star,
one planet, a period of 7 years.

Supervoid cold spot is large
(devoid of gaies),
meter superseded only by
speculation that the void may be
due to quantum entanglement
between our universe and another.

Deep-sky visible in small amateurs
with large instruments
light the northeast. Eris is a faint reflection,
an ancient remnant illuminated by grand design.
barred gays center an unusual structure:
a grand design spiral that exists tightly wound.

The Nu Eris shower radiate cons every year;
the parent is unidentified.
Another peaks, dips his paws into Eris;
this mirror depicts a river,
flowing into the south.
According to one theory, the marsh is
held sacred to the domain of the Abyss:
a myth of the father, no strength to control
and so veers, scorching both Earth and heaven.
Zeus intervene and cast him to the burning river!

Eris cannot be seen from China.
The White Tiger of the West was
classified knowledge of western stars.
Citation needed.

5 - Inflexible Meritocracy

#NaPoWriMo Day 5 and it is Sunday, so I’m taking advantage of the bibliomancy prompt I gave the Allographic Write-In to make what turned out to be a somewhat fatalistic rant against the symptoms of autocracy, on a variety of scales, via a quote from a book about astronomy, that I happened to have nearby because I wanted to check about Rhiannon’s place in Welsh astrography for yesterday’s piece. I bounced via Perseus and Medusa to misogyny and marginalisation, and thereby pattern-matching and prophesy. So, you know, nothing too major… The title speaks to the etymology of the names of the Greek Fates, especially Atropos.

Remember that, if you’re a subscriber to my Patreon, you can hear a recording of this piece (and the four preceding it) there. The link to the relevant post is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/inflexible-154851101

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Where the arm of Perseus curves around to hold his shield, there are several interesting star clusters worth observing.

Dark Land, Dark Skies (The Mabinogion in the Night Skies)
Martin Griffiths, 2017

Where his arm curves, something glimmers,
a shimmer in the half-light, a collection of
burning elements that may protect him.
Some say it had a woman’s face, once;
something to possess, cursed for its
rarity, high market value, hanging in the
balance of men’s regard – something
only the divine could stand against.

And yet. How fearsome to be someone
used and rejected, ejected from humanity,
disappearing into myth and yet made
to go on serving after being cleaved from
the weft. We are a warped warning;
for daring to have ungovernable hair we’re
a sinful admonishment to freeze, petrified by
whispers that those the gods favour
can be cast lower than a snake’s belly,
and jealousy is bitterest when it
echoes from the mouths of power.

This stanza should be a volta, a turn from
the established narrative, a way to make
this story happier, the powerless rise up,
abusers affronted at being confronted,
but I haven’t found the solution, hope
only we’re not doomed to repetition, and
that lessons learned from classics can
be steps; foundations, not predictions.

Fate’s a tricky thing, and eavesdroppers
on the future never prosper by it,
locked in an agony of wanting to stop the
jackboot, halt the tide, and craving the
grim frisson of being right. Tucked far enough
into the margin, you get a better view of
the larger pattern, and, hampered by the need
to see it complete, we compete with curiosity
to grasp the shears, delineate what’s next.

And maybe this time…
Maybe. Please.

Image is of a Medusa cameo ring from the Altes Museum via Wikipedia

4 - Yr Eos

Day 4 of NaPoWriMo and I made a spreadsheet to give me random prompts of form and topic. While testing it out the other night, it gave me “Blank Verse” and “Rhiannon”, who happens to be one of my favourite mythological figures. (I was once cast as her in an audiodrama and I nearly expired of excitement – the title for this came about because the sound designer used nightingale birdsong behind my voice.) She has no connection to inspiration/ the awen that I know of, being a shrewd stateswoman and strong woman associated with horses and sovereignty (and sarcasm), but her advice to go slow and her association with (healing) birdsong turned into an exploration of patience in association with creativity. And I thoroughly ignored the notion of blank verse and used a series of chained clogyrnachau instead…

If you’re subscribed to my Patreon, you can hear an exclusive recording of this (and other things) read aloud. The recording is here.

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She is still with us, don’t you know?
She tells us: “Take your time, be slow…
“The trees are heavy
“with birds, so merry.
“Listen, let the words flow.

“Child, the muse exacts no levy,
“the fruit comes in its time, very
“generous and true,
“because it is you,
“and creation’s messy!

“Cariad, take the longer view:
“the words will come out when they’re due.
“If shy, you must coax,
“not lash them to yokes.
“Trust in patient virtue.”

Her voice lingers beyond the oaks,
I close my eyes, let it invoke
magic, sweet and slow
(she’s still here, you know).
Let her guide my penstrokes.

Image from the Lady Charlotte Guest translation of The Mabinogion, by S. Williams, via Wikipedia

If you’d like to try out a clogyrnach or two, why not use my Repeating and Concrete Forms spreadsheet, which also has some syllable-counting forms like this, to help you?

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.

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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.

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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