Tag Archives: Poetry

chums & the eight of cups

16 Friday Sep 2022

Posted by in Armenia, Poetry, self-portrait, sonnet

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Q: What is the meaning of the Eight of Cups?

For me, the Eight of Cups is all about how we deal with problematic situations … and by “deal” I mean running away from it. It is a card full of disappointment and regret. This isn’t about being judgmental; the world is full of horrible, no-win situations that only get worse the longer we stay with them. It’s why we have the term, “Survivor’s Guilt,” which often accompanies PTSD. Free will can only take us so far. Or, as Goldsmith reminds us: “He who fights and runs away/ May live to fight another day;/ But he who is battle slain/ Can never rise to fight again.”

That might be true, but often it does not heal a spirit broken by shame and guilt. They say you never know how you’ll react during war until you’ve actually fought in one. I haven’t. I’ve been nearby but that’s not the same. A memory of my time in Peace Corps came back to me yesterday so I wrote this:

All through red suns at dusk. All through dark suns

at dawn. Those low rumbles. I’ve heard thunder.

I’ve heard earthquakes. Neither sound deafens

nor numbs me utterly like gun powder.

Once, while drunk (I was always drunk) some chums

and I drove to the outskirts of Artsakh,

“to watch the fireworks.” Back when my eardrums

were still naïve over certain noise. Raw

and green. The border guards turned us away.

Being dumb we parked on a hill to eyeball

the «pff-boom» flashes down in the valley.

That’s called privilege: turning someone’s doomsday

into drinking games. Fireworks fell. Nightfall

fell. We drank … numbing their rage and fury.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting for decades over an area of land called Artsakh (formerly known as Nagorno-Karabakh). While geographically it has been claimed by Azerbaijan its inhabitants are Armenian and since the fall of the USSR Artsakh has been a democratic republic, mainly unrecognized by the rest of the world. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War lasted from 1992–1994. I was living in Yerevan in 1997 while shelling and guerrilla warfare were still going on. It wasn’t the only military conflict happening in the area, though. That same summer I watch plumes of smoke billowing from the foothills around Mt. Ararat as Turkish troops battled Kurdish resistance fighters.

malaise

25 Thursday Aug 2022

Posted by in Poetry, sonnet

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It’s a beastly, sleepless night. The question that stirred me was, “What did the King of Wands say to the King of Swords upon meeting for the first time?”

At first I thought the answer should be a riddle … but I’m sorta crap when it comes to those sort of things. Instead, I turned to Syssk and her tarot deck. Besides English, the cards are translated into two other languages. On the left is Galactic Basic (Syssk’s native tongue) and, on the right, Armenian (the language, Lord Byron once declared, best to use when talking to God). The phrase in the middle, where these two cards come together, reads, “Ամեն ինչ քաոս է” (All is chaos) … for what else is there when wind and fire comingle?

Often, though, I don’t find the linear story telling path of English all that useful. So many ideas get lost between Point A and Point B. Memories crowd in on me and I have grown to abhor what my higher self considers worthy memento mori. Instead, I will answer this question with a sonnet, when the truth that needs to be spoken is less horizontal and smooth and more rough and deviating:

To flee from this sultry night heat I slept

outdoors. A slight breath filled the night. Restless

from stray dog days I heard how the frogs wept

for their dead, too, while moonlight cast monstrous

shapes; but all I could think of was the blow

when the Daimyo of Wands, “Lord of the Song

of the Turbulent Fire,” and the Daimyo

of Swords, “Lord of Raging Winds,” ran headlong

at each other. Blows that glowed into flame.

Misuse of power? Gall? The worst of those two

Lords rests in me. I know I should, “Come praise

Visions that bring Wisdom;” instead, stiff shame

rattles the bamboo. Love, I called for you ––

I called and curs squelched back through the malaise.

fae

20 Saturday Aug 2022

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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Twilit sea. Twilit swamp. Twilit bedroom.

Uncanny times. Uncanny sex; since all

sex is uncanny. From womb to the tomb,

I’ll show you. Go down by the broken wall,

down by the ash tree’s roots: blood and mud, clay

and moss. I’ll show you your loss. Unwombed thing;

unborn ash and ember when the moon’s fae

is on you. Before your birth blood, stirring,

the way all chaos stirs, forced you into

physical form, you lived with me, dearest.

It’s why I’ve been abstaining for thirteen

years. You were my loam, my shadowy blue

soil. I was your roots, your muscled cock, lust.

Now you’re flesh and I’m an eldritch obscene.

Notes:

While popularized by Lovecraft, the term, “eldritch,” means something strange or unnatural, especially in the way that it inspires fear … which, I suppose, means, “Eldritch Horror,” is a bit redundant.

buckle

15 Monday Aug 2022

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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I learned to walk when the rolling sea ceased

to roll like the earth. I learned to sleep on

billows when you taught me about your creased

lips that tasted of lime. With your tampon

between my teeth I ached for that other

low tide. I didn’t blame the moon, that time,

when you pulled your swimsuit aside. “Lick her.”

I won’t blame it now. Let the sea’s stars climb

the sky, I will not drown while going down.

Without sea legs I drank my fill between

your hips. Rising. Falling. Groaning

of a ship’s hull about to buckle. Drown

with your tampon between my teeth. Sea-queen.

Argos-eyed. You are the vast Deep, moaning.

to: bureau of ocean energy management (boem)

06 Wednesday Jul 2022

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You have forsaken oil platforms dotting

the coast. Locals call them eyesores. I call

them a queer Muse. Sadly, they’re bewitching,

ghostly and waiting for the perfect squall

to rift under. Instead, let one live out

its long golden years as a shrine, an art

commune, a haven for all us devout,

seafaring witches. We’ll bring all our hearts

and Craft to this sanctum. Eh? No, listen:

it’s like H.D.’s Sea Garden –– we’ll transform

flotsam into lore. We’ll live without sin

or oil spills. We’ll turn other’s pollution

into the realm of maritime brainstorms

and myth-making. This is how myths begin.

this

03 Tuesday May 2022

Posted by in Disaster –- Pain –- Sorrow, Poetry, self-portrait, sonnet

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Now words are rare. Whatever synapses

let in the Divine are misfiring. ––

Neurons fail. Neural pathways do not please.

Now words are a struggle. I’m struggling

just to write this. Once I said I’d go turn

a tramp steamer into a library. ––

Sail from port to port, sharing that stubborn

love of books with all who live by the sea.

Now I’m struggling just to write this. Now

I sit in my chair and –– stare. There are no

books here. Words, like the water, turn brackish

each time I go down. Let me drown, somehow,

instead of this decline. Instead I know:

first I floundered, now flail and soon perish.

pestilence

20 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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Rise as the nightly scourge of a sanguine

people—Illusive as a ghostly stroke

across one’s cheek. Not a spring-heeled villain;

be that other sort of pestilence—smoke

smitten, unfettered, the Azalea Crypt

of quick caresses that makes flesh quiver.

I think of the moon bent; how cum once dripped

from your smile. A conked smile that grows fainter

in my mind as all memories grow faint

when you’re no longer haunted by a bent

figure pressed to the window. I know why

you’re gone. A scourge would need to be a saint

to slake my passions. For nightmares hellbent

on wet dreams I am where they go to die.

umbral

31 Thursday Mar 2022

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Hecate. Mother of the Moon. Hear me.

3 Fates. 3 Faces. Nighttide-bellower.

Thrice-voiced. Beloved of the Cemetery.

Mistress of Corpses and Fire. Bewitcher.

You, who Cronus gave the Underworld to.

You, who feasts among the graves; with this knife

I cut my flesh. 3 drops of blood might do.

Lover of Erinyes and Afterlife;

you face 3 Paths. Show me the 4th. Crossroads

form an X, show me the 5th. Blood umbral.

Mother mine. I am blind from Right-hand light;

from saints that rot, from angels that corrode.

Hecate: show me what’s veiled, nocturnal,

lustful; all that cavort in the moonlight.

serpentine

22 Tuesday Mar 2022

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Yes, let all dried pied things that hunt beneath

hueless meringues, that kink about and crawl

upon claws or stunted feet in the heath,

let them all come. Let the dead things that brawl

with the living come, too. The fell things cast

out who walk in the wild woods by their wild

lones. I want them all. Every downcast ghast;

woebegone eidolon; every reviled

wild child. My bed is big. My appetite

curious and my hunger fabulous.

Mortal hordes bore me. Nations of grundy

prigs priss want away. But passion, delight

bred, its fire stirred by Lilith and Eros,

is worth it. Here, serpentine lust, take me.

thunderhead

09 Wednesday Mar 2022

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Half a mile high. Book open. Pen drooping

in one hands; the hand that writes secret words.

Just as the in-flight drinks are served something

enters. “Sounds like dementia. It’s absurd;

ghosts and gods and stuff.” I’ve done deep damage

with my drinking; taken blows to my head.

Who knows? Half a mile high and a mirage

enters me. Shadows? The dark thunderhead

out my window? “Sounds like that Twilight Zone

Gremlin.” On Thursday I’ll be fifty-two.

“Vo’chinch,” my pen writes. Nothing? Good enough.

Good? I’m a half-assed conduit. I’ve grown;

not wiser, just … vaguer. Just … the one who,

miles high, mumbles of ghosts and gods and stuff.

][][

Note:

Armenian, an ancient language I am forever butchering when I try to talk, has the most useful word in the world, “Vo’chinch,” (Ոչինչ) an expression that literally means, “Nothing,” but is used in the same way that the French use, “Comme ci Comme ca” — neither good nor bad, it just is.