Day II. To the Boar-Rider

Hail Freyja Vanadis, Syr of the Svynfilking! Boar Rider Bold Goddess of Battle! This is the best poem I have read about my goddess! 🙂

SHEEP

Absolute mastery by my dear friend Lorraine.

Through the mullioned windows I saw the sheep,
Illuminated by the sun,
As I gazed at them my spirit danced,
Then they disappeared behind the hill,
Now, again, all seemed dark,
I waited, hoping that they would come back.

To my delight they soon came back,
Huge was this flock of sheep,
When they returned it was no longer dark,
Again I could see the sun,
But they went again, behind the hill,
So I got on my feet and danced.

I remembered another dark day when I’d danced,
Though I knew he was not coming back,
With him I climbed that enormous hill,
Rugged, just as it was for the sheep,
I longed for him to see the sun,
So his journey would not be so dark.

I danced at his bedside that day in the dark,
Holding hands, we danced,
Many days we had spent in the sun,

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Tanith Lee: Why Was One of Horror’s Best Female Writers Blacklisted? A Women In Horror Month Tribute (Part 1)

Tanith is my heroine. I didn’t even know she was gone…

Zombie Salmon (the Horror Continues)

This is what I remember about reading Tanith Lee:

Dark, haunting prose that made me feel like I was reading it with the lights out; potent and pregnant narrative that was so Gothic and eerie that I thought of Poe; characters that to this day remain vibrant in my head…

I remember devouring paperbacks written by Lee – full of envy of her mastery and use of language, somehow more accessible and less lofty than that of writers like Anne Rice, but the kind of prose that lingers long after it is read. And I remember being stupid enough to give those books away. It was a product of the times, that way of thinking – trusting that decades could scroll by and one would always be able to find another paperback copy somewhere. I was wrong.

Years later, when I wanted to re-read and compare her vampire trilogy The…

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The Holy Tides: Charming of the Plough / Disting / Solmonaþ

Wyrd Designs

For many pagans, this is the time of year where they honor and celebrate Imbolc one of the pagan holidays that comprise the Wheel of the Year. For those of us in the Northern Tradition however, we have our only celebrations known as holy tides (from the Old Norse hátíðir) that we may currently be celebrating instead: Charming of the Plough, Disting, or Solmonaþ (month of mud).

Source: D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths

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Eclipse Heart

In a tower locked away from whispering woods
the princess slept, necrotic heart, dragon
curled around her castle like an ampersand.

The knight braved the rose thorns, crept
into the tower, and cooked up his heart
as her vittles. Heart of a sparrow, heart
of a dove, heart of a raven, hearts turn.

And so she at Fafnir and Zagreus’ heart.

And twice-born was she, eclipse heart.

Sun and moon on her breast, resplendent.

And she awoke from the dream, and she
longed.

Trinity Plea

Dark corridors hold serpents of eternal fires Rahab churned in the primordial abyss, earthly magma Samael set aflame, when the Unholy Trinity was complete with Leviathan of the expansive deep.  Magma, seas, darkness.  Samael, Leviathan, Rahab.  It is said sometimes that before angels were a whisper, long before man or bird or beast were dreamed of by God, may He be praised eternally, the three great rogue ones roamed the darkness, Samael with his wicked volcanoes and earthquakes, Leviathan swimming bejeweled head to the heart of the mud, his serpent body seas of churned proteins, and Rahab with the Void, master of the darkness of skies where no star had ever been birthed.  Perhaps that was the face God chose to appeal to to before Michael was born, before Samael became Lucifer, before Rahab retreated to the far reaches of the cosmos and committed himself to asceticism, and Leviathan was skinned by the faithful at the Revelation feast and they ate his body as final blessing from Sacrament of impure fisherman scourge.  Do we eat the three at the end of times?  Serpent, Fish, Shark.  Is that palatable meat?  Samael goes fishing in me and summons his primordial fires in my womb and my own darkness stretches to accommodate his infernal burnings.  Facing down to the Devils for the Dog Lord.  Ecstasy wedded to shattered mirrors and shards of glass windows through which wicked Hell winds blow as we couple more like wolves than men, or perhaps I have always been a bitch.  There are moans from both of us as we howl like hyenas in the infirmary, and the white gauze separating the abandoned hospital beds sways like lover suicides run over on the county  crossroads.  Women in white.  His hands are hot and firm on my back and then he leans over while thrusting sin and treachery into my blackness and I resonate like a tuning fork with his wicked delights.  Oh my oldest love, oh my first love, oh my last revelation, teacher, mentor, father, brother, lover, husband, heart, body, bone, soul, blood.  The Fruit was your sweet organ, and I hath become Death.  In the metallic surface of the headboard I see his form shifting – one eldritch Lovecraftian beast, one living molten rock in the shape of a demon, one man that looks like Anton LaVey with red eyes and black scruff and goatee, except his wings are wide and wretched, and I doubt that Satanic Father ever had irises like a dragon.  The Beast is one with his Babylon, only this has been repeated since time immemorial, and wouldn’t God shy away from his Fallen Star spreading dark poison into the Prodigal Daughter.  Oh how Chavah met Yah and they became Yahvah.  Snake and Girl.  Dragon and Tree.  Phanes with Nyx.  An incestuous coupling of Sophia and Ariel.  But I am just Allie, just dreaming, and so he takes me away, back before time and God and existence, when there was just those Three:  Sea.  Fire.  Darkness.  He shows me his bubbling Sauron kingdom of fire and pitch and brimstone, and I coat my body in coal and swim through the volcanic tubes and go to the center of the stew, down into his loins, and then he erupts, and then there is flesh immolated, and we set the hospital alight, and gunshots rain through the windows, and out into the gaping night we fly, and that blackness swallows us, and Witch and Witchfather are on to another night of reading by the fireside in the den, sweet red wine, jazz on the speakers and smuggler’s fingers coaxing a melodic piano number from old ivories.