Hush hush now Mama will build a boat
Just to keep you and me afloat
And if we were to never meet a land
Mama would build a castle made of sand
Yesterday was full of lights in the sky
From ground they reached a burning tidal high
And when the flames seared higher than my cry
I watched them run wilder than hopes would die
Hush hush now Mama will fill your throat
With cries to fly beyond the highest note
The flags will rise above the waving hands
The music will break through the dancing bands
Tomorrow’s crops are burnt for ever more
The gaping hedges drizzling in downpour
And when the wheat’s prices were to soar
She gave them fields of seeds that many bore
Hush hush now Mama will knead the bread
So gently when you’re a million dead
The fallen hark for every word she said
An emblem lost from mind of every head
We once saw the Earth burning like a pyre
From each dark cry their lips would expire
And when I lay beside you on the fire
We rekindled flames blazing higher and higher
Reading of the poem:
Peasant ennobled
exalted by the honours
raised head to adorn
The stern church endowed
a bishop to coronate
head shaking off dust
The stance handed down
raised wild bodies to enthrone
forsaken the crown
Feet in the gravel
pebbles thrown in old fountains
arm to unravel
Sanction renewal
erect a hanging treetop
enable embers
Jubilatory
settle platinum attire
rekindle fire
Induct strong the grit
molten powder raises flames
hanging tree now lit
Reading of the poem:
Bad Wolves - Zombie
Written in the context of Ronovan writes weekly Haiku challenge using the words “crown”, “grit” and their synonyms. For more information or to read other poets’ contributions, please follow the link.
She jumped suddenly
from the comfort of the couch
wisps of hair flaring
The couch burst alit
Once an abode of pleasure
it now spouted flames
Her hair gushed red streaks
The warmth at her temples hurled
sinister designs
All contentment gone
her face erupted fury
as eyebrows belched fire
Blankets of water
trickled down path of relief
on flanks that spewed rain
Quiet times restored
her throat emitted strange notes
she regained her poise
Reading of the poem:
Wolves hurry
across the landscapes
fiery crops
burning high
Bosom utters not a sigh
crossing through the flames
Horses dive
through etheric lanes
shaking manes
hooves thunder
The moonlit sights a wonder
etched into our hearts
Two to grieve
My breast torn did heave
coils cleft
none bereft
They ask me now in pieces
crescent moon to leave
Reading of the poem:
Alternate Realities – Chapter Eight : Training the dragons
1 June 2020
Courtesy wallpaperflare
She was awoken from her daydreaming about the dragons with a start when Horus touched her arm and pointed to a large clearing in the woods above which they were flying. Horus uttered a few words in the language of the light and the dragons swooped towards the clearing. She just had the time to cling on for dear life to the bony protrusion at the base of the dragon’s neck before they swooped as she had understood the command Horus gave just in time. The dragons had grown again in stature as she had been imagining them growing while they flew. They stood now in a circle around the large clearing.
Horus gave an order and the dragons took to the skies again before swooping down with their mouths open but without fires coming out of them. She realized that they were mimicking a flame attack but were just not using the full breath of the dragon as they did not want to set fire to the woods. Some of the dragon crossed each other’s paths and Horus asked them to stay at a safe distance from each other. He again gave the order for the attack and this time they came down swooping without crossing each other’s paths. After he had made them repeat the attack around 15 times, Horus told them that they could now play for the rest of the time.
The dragons scurried along the clearing and some wrestled playfully while the others flew about in the skies pursuing one another. A couple of dragons started getting overexcited and this resulted in them breathing out flames. Horus yelled out an order but it was too late. The flames had caught on to the adjacent trees that were very dry and immediately shot into a high flaming torch. The fire spread quickly to the nearby trees and it was soon a bushfire. The dragon she had rode on at the beginning swooped down from the skies and lowered his head so that she may climb up. She mounted and it immediately took off to the skies with the other dragons following closely. Horus was not very pleased with the incident but told her that the rains would take care of the bushfire in due course. He was still pleased with the rigour shown by the dragons in the training despite the incident as they were relatively young and inexperienced dragons. They are almost ready, he said with a smile.
She paused and looked at the clouds forming. They had been seeding them in hope of getting rain but she planned otherwise. Using the old conjuring of spirits of dry, she danced wildly invoking desert drought and parched lands. The land was cool from the winter winds but the skies grew clear of clouds and the dust flew in the air filling people’s chests. After all they had done to her, she vowed to not let the rains bless their lands until she received what they had taken away from her. They had thought her to be a mere vessel that they could lull back to sleep, not realising that within her the powers of the Shamans of old were reignited. She had rediscovered within her the spirits of the lineage of Shamans that went back to time immemorial when she had danced in Machu Pichu her senses blazing from the Ayahuasca brew.
Every time the clouds gathered she willed the weather back to that of dried lands. She had been in public once though and could not stop the rains from falling as she could not break into the dance of flames. As soon as she could, that one time it had rained, she had hurried back home and willed the rain to stop. Her eyes blazed with the fire of the phoenix rising within her and scorching the pelting rain to vapour before it had stilled it and reduced the clouds to small cotton balls in the sky. Hers was not a mere revenge but a mission she embarked upon with all the vigor and will of those who had been coarsely and negligently wronged.
During the nights, she spoke to the spirits of the rain and pacified them, letting them know that they could visit sites nearby where they could flow all their ardour into the lands. In her altered state she took them by the hand and guided them to locations that would either benefit from rain or where she wanted to wreck havoc in vengeance, taking them far away from where her physical body was lying. They danced through the desert skies, high above the clouds and making sure not to come into contact with these latter so that they would not be charged and wet the lands with their content. Every time she danced with those spirits, her astral body sizzled with the intermingling of the flames of the phoenix and the waters of the spirits of the rain. The result was a trail of mist and steam that onlookers identified in the sky as a streak similar to that of a wishing star. Together they danced right over Paris and other European cities before returning to the place where her body dwelt. Once the dances over, she resettled back into her body and slept a sleep riddled with dreams of the Mother.
