November
bloodteethandflame
A life in threes
Tag: poetry
July 10, 2020
Month for Loki: Ninth
LOKI’S GIFTS
by Mordant Carnival
Hail Loki, honour to Loki
To Sif you gave her golden hair;
You have given me renewal.
Honour to the Son of Laufey.
To Thor you gave Mjolnir;
You have given me strength in the face of my enemies.
Hail Loki, honour to Loki
To Frey you gave Skinbladnir;
You have borne me over mighty gulfs.
Honour to the Son of Laufey.
To Frey you gave Gullinbursti;
You have been a radiance for me through the darkest times
Hail Loki, honour to Loki.
To Odin you gave Draupnir;
You have given me wealth uncounted.
Honour to the Son of Laufey.
To Odin you gave Gungnir;
You have given me victory.
Hail Loki, honour to Loki.
Honour to the fair One,
Honour to the cunning One,
Honour to the generous One,
Hail the Son of Laufey.
(poem from ‘Be Thou My Hearth and Shield: Prayers in the Northern Tradition,’ Elizabeth Vongvisith, editor; Asphodel Press, Hubbardstown, MA, 2009; p. 124.)
July 6, 2017
Month for Loki, Sixth: Ritual (poem)
Last month, I began reading Elizabeth Vongvisith’s Be Thou My Hearth and Shield: Prayers in the Northern Tradition, an excellent collection of prayers and poetry she edited for Asphodel Press in 2009.
I’d read some of the reviews on Lulu, and as one reviewer put it, ‘This book is excellent! It sits at my bedside as I read the prayers daily…..‘
As I have found myself doing that very same thing, I could not agree with zir more.
This is an excellent book, one which I would highly recommend to anyone who seeks to connect to the Norse Gods, let alone Loki.
And today, for my sixth post, I’d like to share this heartfelt prayer-poem by April Ragan, which resonated with me deeply:
Ritual (for Loki)
What need have I for chants
When every rise of my lungs
Breathes for You
A hallowed hymn.
What need have I for music
When every beat of my heart
Drums for You
A sacred tattoo.
What need have I for dance
When every gesture of my being
Moves for You
In a rhythm of devotion
What need have I for magic circles
When every piece of my soul
Burns for You
In a consecrated ring of flame
What need have for these accompaniments
When the essence of my being
Is a life-long ritual to You.*
❤
Loki, Kalari Stance, uploaded to flickr, shivarea31
~~~
*Elizabeth Vongvisith, editor, Be Thou My Hearth and Shield: Prayers in the Northern Tradition, (Hubbardston, Massachusetts; Asphodel Press, 2009) p. 125
September 8, 2016
A Thursday Throwback: Sometimes.
Here’s a Thursday Throwback – from 21 February 2013 – that I am sharing at the request of a dear friend.
Enjoy!
~~~~
“Sometimes, He is not pretty.
Disheveled, stinking of piss and filth.
A frightening homeless man
Shouting at me from the other side of the train station:
The face that you often see is nothing but a glamour crafted to be pleasing to you.
But, sometimes, I am tired of that
face, and you will see Me as I am
An ancient being, whose face bears the ravages of time, and what appalling marks
Grief, pain and madness have inevitably made upon Me.
While it may be easy to approach Me in a finer guise,
Silk cravats and topcoats, leather and flash, I am
Also this, at My core. This is also Me.
I am bloated with rage, and careless
grime settled in the creases, compulsively licking
The blood and the spittle that collects at the corners of My ragged lips.
My yellowed, broken teeth have gnawed and ground down upon the offal and
bones of My very long memory.
I call to you
but you must approach Me.
Would you kiss My mouth?
~~~
And I see Him across the room, and His voice is interwoven with the cacophony of noise that is noon at South Station, Boston.
I cannot will my feet to go forward, but I see His eyes, the intense clear blue of Icelandic water, His disheveled hair an awkward penumbra of red and gold, His face unshaven and streaked with the filth born of having slept in the elements upon concrete. He raises a hand, and makes a beckoning gesture. Oh I see you, little one, He drawls. I notice that His fingernails are dark with grime, and He smiles, a grin of wolfen teeth, and He licks His cracked lips, waiting.
For all that He looks, His voice is not unpleasant.
But I am afraid.
I am cold, I realize, and I hug myself tighter, as if my own arms could possibly warm me enough, and yet I know that I am holding myself in. This is me putting up all my walls and fronts.
You have so much shame, He shouts, You have learned nothing….
The rumble of the trains pulling into South Station obscures His voice, His tirade, for several minutes.
There are too many trains, I shout, I cannot hear!
He begins to laugh, shaking His head. He tilts His head, almost menacingly, working out a crick in His neck, as He continues, Oh no, my dear. It is as it is always, with you. You are too cold. You cannot hear. You have a headache. You are afraid….
He glares at me.
He pulls a cigarette from the pocket of His shabby, unseasonably thin coat. Oh, spare Me the details of all of your excuses, He snarks at me, loudly, angrily.
He reminds me of Heath Ledger’s Joker, as He wipes His sore and tattered mouth with the back of His grubby hand, before placing the cigarette deftly on the edge of His lower lip, and lights it.
A lone ribbon of smoke curls and spirals ever upward over His head, strangely unbroken and unbuffeted by the crowd and activity that surges about Him, between us.
Come. Kiss Me. I might believe you.
But I cannot will my feet to go forward. I will have to push myself through this crowd, I am thinking.
The air feels thick and heavy, my head rings with high-pitched buzzing anxiety, and my skin prickles with heat.
Poor little girl, is His singsong sigh, half a sarcasm, half a reprimand, to me, as He shuffles His feet, waiting.
Come to me, He whispers, more within my head than without, and His words seem to reverberate like a humming inward chant, in my head.
Come to Me.
Come to Me.
Come to Me.”
(link here)
July 9, 2016
Month for Loki, Day 9: Poetry
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
January 10, 2016
Context is everything.
This quote has been sitting in a folder on my computer for at least three or four years now.
I never knew where it was from, except that it was from a poem by American poet, Louise Glück:
“…from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant I was not loved.
It meant I loved.”
~~~~
Today, I found the whole poem.
The poem is titled
First Memory
Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was–
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.
~~~
Context is everything.
January 3, 2016
Sometimes I just need poetry.
As I have had company these last four days, I have not been able to post this lovely poem from The Daily Good, as sometimes I just need poetry.
(If you click in the link below, you can listen to the poet, John O’Donohue, read this poem aloud, along with some rather lovely imagery.)
Beannacht: A Blessing for the New Year
–by John O’Donohue, Jan 01, 2016
For Josie
On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets in to you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green,
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.
[Note: “Beannacht” is the Gaelic word for “blessing.” A “currach” is a large boat used on the west coast of Ireland.]
November 24, 2015
Poetry: Margaret Atwood
Variation on the Word Sleep
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
From Selected Poems II: 1976-1986 by Margaret Atwood (1987).
bloodteethandflame 