I’m almost two months late for a spooky and grim theme, but what does that matter? Welcome to Quickwords, my very own poetry series! Today’s the twentieth volume, Black Woods.
| Lumberjack, Lumberjack |
| Lumberjack, Lumberjack, cut them a tree Chop a trunk of black wood and slice it in three So they can give planks to this ship piece by piece And question if it is what it used to be Lumberjack, Lumberjack, your hands are tied Bring them some timber and flatten its hide So they can tell themselves things and not think they’ve lied Boards on new vessel sail poison tide |
| Black Woods |
| Where the fog’s shadow makes tenebrous the viridescent A snarling theft of life’s solemn hue To the fleeting stars are the trees Montague When the light has faded and the only pollution is the dead A cozy home the macabre forget To the tearful trees are the stars Capulet What to my bleeding feet are needles with drugs I was to afraid to try A phantasmagoria of my gnarled roots To a wicked place destiny wants shoot Why I began to walk in these black woods I cannot remember A mission submersed wipes my mind of air To a pilgrim wraiths bring wounds lest he care Who I knew in this photograph I hold is a man time prevents my being A fragment in future, present, and past To give me a shrouded memento at last How one arrives and how one comes to leave A question two left feet cannot answer To a day known in passing I live with this cancer |
| Bloodied Blade |
| You tell me hellhounds hunt for blood And I wield this blade afraid of all they could do But gore adorns the sword and keeps the wolves fresh on my trail With trembling hands I release the handle and cry in the light of a candle Teach me the lesson that the screams will lesson and I need not hold a weapon |
| With twisted paw |
| Autumn needs no change from the leaves where no sun Would care gift the forest in which the beasts run A muck ravine siphons ichor from the cold spring Muffles the tunes of drowned starlings who would’ve hoped to sing Crystalline clarity reflects only shadow Or broken frescoes in debris from a ground once hallowed With twisted paw a pup staggers to the water Loathing the fangs of its pack and the pelt of its father Each lap from the stream sees only the foremost To survive yet one night but one day be a pure ghost Silver in moonlight and brilliant to brimstone Tame to the hounds who feed on the dead’s bones The young wolf howls beyond its quenched thirst To someone, not something, lost in this black earth Blood not yet spilled is all still of worry Onward this spirit runs to where light comes from morning |
