Thursday, October 16, 2014

Songs of Persephone

 
 
Pluto's Wife/ Demeter's Daughter
 
 
Persephone, your will is free
Even as your living is in bondage
to forces much older in their power
You are free to reconcile your fractured life
Daughter in Summer's sun
smiling warmly, playing at innocence
with charms long practiced
Mother's Fool
Mother's Lamb
Saved from that horrible man --
Well, joint custody
Ever Her beloved child
While it is no secret
Down below you are honored Queen
among tortured souls ever needy of your
attentive care
Far from noblesse oblige, it is your
chosen career, though not chosen by you
Are you told enough:
"You do it proud." or even acknowledged
for the prowess your will gives existence?
Free Will, not Free Choice
It is learning to make of the whole sad cacophony
discrete instruments of harmony, of divine symphony
to find, realize, act with
impeccable integrity
as child or Queen
or someone between
 
 
 
Persephone's Worlds
 
 
I have wandered far from thoughtless girlhood,
am woman grown, a Queen
in my own right.
Yet I am treated with the expectations
of a mindless child
in my mother's Summer home.
The Gods are all agog with Zeus,
fickle, abrasive, free to take full stance
above the laws he so imperiously commands.
My Dark King is so much more a man,
sincere, deeply feeling, committed to his realm,
compassionate, if not always kind.
Yet, this season I must obey the crowd,
display charm and grace
in haute couture, make small, insipid
conversation with useless socialites
decorating Zeus' lawn parties.
Up here, life is meaningless,
All flash and doggerel
to amuse, O', do entertain us.
So tiring to endure the ennui.
Those not privy to opulent entitlement,
relegated to the dregs of servitude, or less
endure for their time, brutal, painful, short,
for no good reason.
I hear their horrid tales,
back in my rightful place and purpose.
Shrunken souls, shriveled by life time hungers
still growling beyond the grave.
I am balm and wise mother.
At last they matter, their stories opening in me
a marvelous passageway through which they are
taken into paradise.
My life above, the petulant daughter,
the pampered goddess spawn,
I endure coldly.
Summer's trivialities, properly obedient to
rituals of social condition,
know nothing of my true calling
under Winter's glory.
 
 
 
Persephone's Breakthrough
 
 
This is where the idea is born.
 
Soft green meadows gently transforming into fall
Sounds of dying, scent of woodfire and candlelight
No separation between what is becoming
Accept and be revealed
 
Summer's wild adventures
Spring was a torrent of clarity, precious rain,
Earth coarse, ready for fecund pleasure
Queen of night in daylight's realm
obsessed in flowering
roses and daffodils
valleys and nubile hills
all is vanity and laughing vice
"But, Mother, I'm not a nice girl.
I'm a creature of the breeze; secure in shadow;
alive on the cutting edge of the storm."
Myth in revision
Standing at the back of the playground
learning theater, tucking metaphors
into interstices of sense and anticipation
In spring, kicking stones along sandy riverbeds
reading the classics
to savor practice: valor, glory, dramatic lines
 
Summer deceives
the stink of rot where flowers bloom
ancient feuds, retaliations, rage
tyrannosaurus feeding future waste,
absorbing a zeitgeist of want, of predation
 
Within greed-swollen seed infectious fear
makes merry with misery’s habit
Mythology frustrates, curls back on its own ash
Eyes burn with hazy summer wine and wilding
Feet connect dust to sky -- but only in designated
spheres, with designated peers, self-selected inhibitions
Sweat out poison into the ground; now, eat the bounty
Midsummer farce, far from honor, far from sunrise,
counting out the chimes as if time were treasure
Silly summer madness as if what matters
is so circumscribed, so predictable
 
Early autumn firelight
reminiscent of witch hunts, ghosts of calvary,
dire warnings and endless hide and strike
The game, the funhouse, turns deadly
Sanctuary calls, demanding sacrifice
The noble phoenix fed on frankenseed
can not rise
 
Skies descend, dark mirroring
Smell the woodsmoke, intoxicating, soft and sweet,
masks the taste of bitter bile, secret vomiting,
starving despite harvest's gay array of treats
Faded, nearly blind, falling in and out of
shamanic fever, primeval native callings beyond sight,
ripple of tribal beat at the periphery
ecstatic vision dark/light/agony and brilliant breaks
starbright constellations
 
Traversing worlds
seasons, years, moments of clarity
no need to navigate, to invent boundaries;
dance of the highlands warmth and sustenance
permeates
makes whole
 
 
 
Approaching Winter
 
 
Twinkling lights. I remember twinkling,
clouds resplendent awaiting snowfall.
It's Persephone's season below,
growing in power, regality.
Friend to post-living souls,
hearing their stories,
sharing her own,
from the above time.
 
Flitting about,
we hum comforting phrases,
sweat anxiously in crowded malls
over inner demands for a never
remembered perfection.
Children standing in awe below
magnificence of glowing giant trees.
Cities return to primal forest
for an imaginary interval.
We recount ourselves our stories,
pray Santa finds us worthy
of that shiny plaything that will
make us all right, make us happy.
Happy little children, so Mama
and Papa might be proud,
stop fighting,
sing us happy children holidays,
take us back to the Garden.
 
Deep below, Persephone combs
her loosened hair, long tangly
root
core
essence.
Magical petals of bliss, succulent aroma,
blow about within the Garden walls.
Perennial flowers sleep, blanketed in
millennial layers,
reverberations of legends,
plotlines thick with arboreal lore.
Snowflakes twinkle, lightly falling,
drape long-growing trees
peacefully awaiting their Queen.
 
 
 
My Pet Goddess
 
 
We ride creative waves.
Chaste Goddess child, frisky muse
picks daisies, pilfers beehives.
Sweet as to please
deities craving
for innocence.
Secret games whisk us
to deep intimacy.
Supernatural companion, she
comforts me, familiar with these
cycles of light and dark
responsibility --
cosmic irony.
Mother's reward.
Father's Hetaera.
Beloved of mordant Destiny.
Beguiling affection, she cuddles
into my simple, abyssal fears.
She licks the eyelids of my
inner vision, coaxes me open.
Together we transcend
hierarchy,
frolic
dimensions between.
 
 
 
 
imaginary workshop for re-creation




myths new and revisioned
 

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

october 8

golden
 
 
I've been purified by fire;
washed and scoured by raging rain;
buffeted hither and yon by
winds of changing fortune.
Never safely planted to grow strong roots
that hold me close and whisper
soothing lullabies.
I have suffered all, not gladly,
but fortuitously.
I have survived, have imbibed
the luscious nectar of hard found
fruits, endured trials
testing every aspect of integrity,
grown in wisdom and honour
and lack of trust
for any who have never dwelled
in these wicked realms.
No one may know these travails but I and
the holy trio who
underwrite my progress.
No matter. 
We are, my traveling band:
inspiration, organization
and sacred core of self-empowerment
forge intimate family
I have always so desperately
craved.
I am blessed, blissed.
I am that I am and none
shall cast asunder.
 
 
 
 
Expectation
 
 
Fall into whispered memory,
the best of scenes in dreams, in ether.
No time left for hope.
It's do or die unsung.
One scene at a time.
 
Busy weaving
click, click, click, click
Moving, breathing, in the rhythm,
straight ahead.
Never glancing past the engine
that entrains, chugging
brain engaged by current of song,
encouraging movement
on cue, on time, in serial rhyme.
This surreal fantasy
weaving, weaving...
 
Always on the threshold.
Never really anywhere.
On the road from here to there.
Expecting.
Not accepting.
In motion, like a trance, without a goal.
Expecting what?  A fortune to be
told?  A jaunty rainbow?
The miracle of love?
 
 
 
navigation
 
 
Stalling at the crossroad,
on the threshold,
unsure of correct direction.
Whose reflection
calls to follow?
The Moon, she shines
brightly, suffuses sky,
so hard and cold and unaware.
Where is my soft strong melody?
Where is that voice, sonorous glee,
tug of eerily familiar tune?
Running through umbra of night,
hoping to surface, wild and free.
Yet, as Sunrise obscures
my vision,
sense recedes. Lost, treading 
miles of exhaust and grease.
Chain fast food, car shops and fuel, infest
this secondary road.
No wavery door marked by ornate
gargoyle knocker shows.
I reach for higher substance, better trance.
Mystic keys, clues to advance vast scavenger hunt,
peek discreetly along arid, apocalyptic trail.
When each clicks into place,
a lock will open.
If I am wise, I will arise,
walk the circle,
traverse the threshold,
up the stairway,
home at last.
 
 
 
 

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#4 Scales, Veils & Tales* * * *October

 

Peaceful Co-Creating Emerging Visions #16 October