Sunday 30 January 2011

Camisado

In a double dream, I must spell out the storm:

how the half moon spoke in reams
of folk lore, pipe dreams that tore
the sky in two. How the walls
began to blister and you, sister,
took your place beneath my skin.

We met stargrazing, your eyes electric,
lacing your lies, your intricacies,
like a cat's cradle. And I, stumbling, stuttering
on in a maze of scars. My modern morphia,
sister scarecrow, I'd follow you to the depths
of my chest: to the mumblings and fumblings
of my heart in the dark. To deceit and defeat
and the great empty longings beyond.

For this, this is how
the camisado begins: with broken people
under a broken steeple, an arch of
aching arms and wing bones, steeling.
With the way the day is swallowed by the sun.

Undone, we write our own religions:
a crucifix made of spoons, knives,
our twisted lives. You say faith's
a virtue, but it's not for the effaced -
we who leave no trace above the surface.
But cut me open, explore me, rip me up
by the roots, and you'll find proof
of the things you cannot see: the truth.

Nemesister, teach me madness,
teach me freedom. Let me loose
control. Map the cavities, fill in
the gaps and when day breaks black,
I'll take your hand. Together,
we will meet the dawn where the sky
puckers like a bruise and I finally lose
touch.


* * *

Fear is my religion.

.

No, life and language and I are not getting on a the moment. Sorry about that.
I guess you could consider this a re-write of Monologue(s) or even You're. Yes, that's right, I'm back at square one again. :/

The first line is taken from Louise Bogan's Song for the Last Act. ♥

Thursday 13 January 2011

.mars

.

He still choked on goodbyes,
words like 'charred' and 'charnel',
but it always fell to Mars to make
the house of bone and regolith,
to take fingerprints from the dead.
He breathes the scenes of crimes
time after time in his own grim theatre.

Like a surgeon, he sculpts the earth,
wreaks revenge and wreckages.
Teethes soot and stones into the tired wings
of ribcages, wishbones - each one

a promise. That one day,
bulbs will breach the eyes of skulls,
that fruits will fill the skypits of the lost.
One day, these bruises will amuse, and
all that bloodrush will be just blush
beneath his skin.

.

* * *

Ta-da! The final piece in the mythology series!
[Yes, I'm fully aware I've missed several key gods out (including Pluto, dammit!), but 6 gods, 6 goddesses is quite a nice, balanced number.] :P

Mars was the Roman god of war, revenge and courage, but also spring and growth in nature. That sense of rejuvenation is what I found most interesting about him.


You can see the rest of my (now complete, at least for now...) mythology series here or on my dA page.

.vulcan

.

Dug deep beneath the earth, there is no light.
No footholds to electric nights or larvae of
synthetic flights. No future. Just Vulcan,
bone lonely, with only his primitive kind of hunger
and a longing to hear something other than
the cemetery talking, walking over him. Unearthed.

This is his forge, where the flower of amnesia,
allowing one man to rewrite another, grows molten -
blown into glass, gunpowder and pyrotechnic stars.
Past, present, but only the future scars in the dark,
this life in transition. And though over and over
he's said it's over and done with, there's always
more. Always a greed, a need for hunger.

God of fire, Vulcan sulks alone, lying low
below the mountain. Nurturing burns.
He's learned to hide his heart, smoked
and charred, but still he chokes electric,
growing on into stone.

.

* * *

Vulcan – god of fire, blacksmiths and craftsmen. His forge is beneath Mount Etna, where he forges weapons for the gods and heroes.

I've always imagined Vulcan as a wretched kind of figure, twisted with loneliness. Probably because my interpretation is based on the impression I got from the Roman Mysteries series I read when I was little (I was quite literally obsessed with it, at one point :P).

Wrote this several weeks ago now (sorry for the slow and multiple updates!), and I'm still not entirely happy with it. There's something a little iffy about the way it slots together...


You can see the rest of my mythology series here or on my dA page.