Tags
Brother Cavil, fighting for the peace that comes from war, I'm a machine, quote from BSG, rune for chaos, sonnet, thurisaz, war
I’m a machine, and I could know much more.
Careless smiles and guileless graces are mine.
I’m split in two; like a wind-up centaur
or a clockwork sphinx, digital moonshine
or an island lost between day and night.
We half things. We projects someone else soon
started then got bored. Naked in firelight
my bat wings fit me. Why wings? Why the rune
for war — war and chaos — thurisaz — carved
in my skin? Naked I look human-made.
A thing for war. Beautiful, save a scar
where they turned me on. You blood; you have starved
me for years. Half thing hungry and afraid;
built to fight for the peace that comes from war.
* * *
Notes:
The first line, “I’m a machine, and I could know much more,” comes from the re-imagined television show Battlestar Galactica, where one of the Brother Cavils moans that of all the ways to experience the universe he ended up in a human’s body.
Thurisaz is a Norse rune literally translated into, “Thor-is-as.” Various authors have claimed this is a reference to the rebel giants, the god of war himself, as well as simply meaning thorn.
memories of my ghost sista 
Runes have been as subjectively interpreted as any method of divination, I think. I always heard Tyr was the god of war, his rune the inverted arrow…the inspiration for Tuesday, since a “y” sounds like a “ue” sound in Anglo. On her belly, the vertical line, I always heard of as Is, as in “ice”. My favoirte, Wyrd, the blank, or Odin’s rune, came into common use in 1980s because of one author. Purists banish his memory, and the rune, which threw all previously drawn or following runes into new meanings, because they became weird. It’s a “quien sabes” bag of tricks, for sure. I have Scandy runes all over my arms and shoulders, and so many were adopted by the Nazis, I am constatnly asked about my affiliations. SS troops, the double Sieg boys, indicted a few of my markings…thanks Herr Himmler.
Later…
Even as I was working on the poem last night I got the feeling I might want to cross-check my references with someone in the know about runes (since I am, as it were, not in the know) but at the time I couldn’t think of anyone to ask. If you don’t mind in the future me asking you if I’ve got my t’s crossed and i’s dotted when it comes to runes, that would be wonderful! No one wants to present mistakes to the world, especially if they’re easily fixable. Cheers!
I don’t “know” any more than others “know” about something they don’t fully understand. All the sites on runes say something different. The vertical line on belly…to me it’s always been Is. Tyr was an inverted arrow, see it on SS Panzer vehicles motoring off to die in Russia…Wyrd, my fave, is so shat upon by purists, but such a good idea…Odin’s blank rune – don’t make images of the supreme – threw everything before it and after into a different light…supposedly where Wednesday, or Wotansdag, came from. I’m only a source for my opinion…fifty self-proclaimed experts would rage against me like a confederacy of dunces, even though I make no claims to the “g” word.
Later…
True, everything is open to interpretation, and one person’s spin on things might not be the same as everybody’s else (and thank goodness too! how boring if everyone knew everything), so I’ll re-state what I was trying to say. One of the great joys of life, for me, is meeting people who know more than I do so I can learn from them. Yes, I could always read what Wikipedia has to say on a subject, but I don’t like learning that way, really. One of the great things about the internet is it opens whole new worlds for me, meeting people I never would be able to under different circumstances. It’s sort of like discovering a brand new library, it’d be silly not to sit down and do some research.