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Author Topic: A Month of Poetry for Brighid  (Read 10302 times)

Fagan_the_Pagan

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A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« on: December 26, 2011, 08:58:57 pm »
I am not a Cill member officially, as I do not currently have a shift, but Brighid has claimed me, and here seemed the most appropriate place to put this.

I have come to a decision: I have not been nearly as consistent in actively honoring Brighid as I should be.  I have decided that I need something firm and, perhaps a bit drastic to change this, and to reconnect with Her.

I have decided to commit the Month of January to writing poetry.  For one month, I will write a poem every single day, leading up to Imbolc on February 1st.  I will post them here, and anyone who wants to can join me on this.  Feel free to post your own poems here, and be on the lookout for mine, starting January 1st.
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Aster Breo

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2011, 01:56:39 am »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;36500

I have decided to commit the Month of January to writing poetry.  For one month, I will write a poem every single day, leading up to Imbolc on February 1st.  I will post them here, and anyone who wants to can join me on this.  Feel free to post your own poems here, and be on the lookout for mine, starting January 1st.

 
Hi, Fagan.

This is a really ambitious commitment!  I'm looking forward to reading your poems.
"The status is not quo."  ~ Dr. Horrible

SunflowerP

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2011, 05:06:50 pm »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;36500
I am not a Cill member officially, as I do not currently have a shift, but Brighid has claimed me, and here seemed the most appropriate place to put this.

 
Yes, it seems appropriate to me, too - thank you for sharing your project with the Cill!

Sunflower
I'm the AntiFa genderqueer commie eclectic wiccan Mod your alt-right bros warned you about.
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entwife

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2011, 01:47:21 am »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;36500

I have decided to commit the Month of January to writing poetry.  For one month, I will write a poem every single day, leading up to Imbolc on February 1st.

Splendiferous, I look forward to feasting on poetry throughout January! Here's my piece from last season to get ya started :whis:


Mother of Necessity

Queen of the Soulforge,
Mistress of Wolfsong
and Ravenlore,
set my heart on fire!
Kindle my soul
with your compassionate flame!
Evoke my creative spark,
with all that you divinely inspire!
Teach me. Nurture me.
Call my name!

Yours is the hand
that thrusts me
into the furnace
of soulful trial,
Yours the strength
that shapes me upon Life’s anvil.
Yours the loving laughter
that, even in darkness, makes me smile.

Sweet succor! Like you, may I inspire, feed others,
as the sweet berry at brambles’ heart;
Blossom, as the gentle Rose
admist bladed thorn.
Mother of Light and Shadow,
Healer & Destroyer, Fiery Arrow,
pierce my heart!
Through your eternal song I am reborn!

Maiden, Mother, Crone; yet ever young.
Holy well of wisdom,
Patron of healers, smiths, mothers, bards, poets…
Your braided crown bejeweled with stars,
is the beacon that lights my way.
Eternal Flame within the sacred Hearth,
ever-present,
you offer shelter ’neath your verdant mantle.
Honey-mouthed,
your songs bring victory, enlightenment, healing.
When my song is ended, carry me joyously onward,
O Beloved of the Fae!
« Last Edit: December 29, 2011, 01:48:08 am by entwife »
Wishing you laughter

AlisonLeighLilly

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2011, 08:29:22 pm »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;36500

I have decided to commit the Month of January to writing poetry.  For one month, I will write a poem every single day, leading up to Imbolc on February 1st.  I will post them here, and anyone who wants to can join me on this.  Feel free to post your own poems here, and be on the lookout for mine, starting January 1st.

 
Love this idea! :) Good luck - and I may join you... though I'll probably wuss out part way through. ;)

--Ali

Fagan_the_Pagan

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2011, 02:05:40 am »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;36892
Love this idea! :) Good luck - and I may join you... though I'll probably wuss out part way through. ;)

--Ali

 
Then I look forward to having you share this with me, for as long as you last :p
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River

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2011, 04:44:19 am »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;36500


I have decided to commit the Month of January to writing poetry.  For one month, I will write a poem every single day, leading up to Imbolc on February 1st.  I will post them here, and anyone who wants to can join me on this.  Feel free to post your own poems here, and be on the lookout for mine, starting January 1st.

 
I took this idea to heart Fagan and spent today writing this. I know it is not January yet, but consider it my blessing on your Jan project.

River

Bride’s Land

Snow bunting flurried
mottled brown
from the twisted oak of the hedge
to the badger’s sett
where black eyes in black stripes
peeked above white
into a flurry of snow.

Ayrshire cow grazed
grass and hay
by the old wild rose of the hedge
with birth ground near
where snowflakes on snow drops
touched earth to white
in the graze lands of Ayrshire.

Mother’s girl swirls
Hair and dress
with the white birch stick from the hedge
and holds up her star
where gold stone is gold heart
to invite Bride
from swirling cups of Mothers.

Fagan_the_Pagan

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #7 on: January 01, 2012, 11:04:28 pm »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;36500
For one month, I will write a poem every single day, leading up to Imbolc on February 1st.

And here is the first:

The First Offering

I’ve writ iambic meters and rough prose,
Used metaphors, alliteration, rhyme,
Made swaths of formless dialogue and speech
And now I seek to pin one word to another
But words cramp up and muddle, sluggishly.
They clump like sludge and flow not readily,
Or else come out in stutters, tripping on the threshold of my mind.
Time and again I put my pen to page.
Time and again I wrestle with my mind.
Each thing I write reminds me of another,
Or clouds me with a haze of recollection
So that each phrase rings hollow—overdone,
But I have pledged myself to honor you
Each day this month with words that are my own,
And so I offer such words as I have
To please you in what measure that I can.
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entwife

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #8 on: January 02, 2012, 04:24:15 am »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;37179
And here is the first:

The First Offering

But I have pledged myself to honor you
Each day this month with words that are my own,
And so I offer such words as I have
To please you in what measure that I can.

 

Some lovely turns of phrase here, and you capture the writer's frustration in vivid images. I particularly liked "Each thing I write reminds me of another,
Or clouds me with a haze of recollection." Reminds me how often I find myself staring off into nothing when I should be setting pen to page :) We are always our own worst critics too, seeking perfection. We can but offer the words that write themselves across our hearts, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that! well done.
Wishing you laughter

entwife

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #9 on: January 02, 2012, 04:25:27 am »
Quote from: River;36928
I took this idea to heart Fagan and spent today writing this. I know it is not January yet, but consider it my blessing on your Jan project.

River

Bride’s Land


Mother’s girl swirls
Hair and dress
with the white birch stick from the hedge
and holds up her star
where gold stone is gold heart
to invite Bride
from swirling cups of Mothers.

 

Lovely wordpainting! Feels fresh and innocent, yet world ripe, like the turning of time. well done!
Wishing you laughter

Fagan_the_Pagan

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #10 on: January 02, 2012, 07:14:26 pm »
Quote from: entwife;37194
Some lovely turns of phrase here, and you capture the writer's frustration in vivid images. I particularly liked "Each thing I write reminds me of another,
Or clouds me with a haze of recollection." Reminds me how often I find myself staring off into nothing when I should be setting pen to page :) We are always our own worst critics too, seeking perfection. We can but offer the words that write themselves across our hearts, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that! well done.

 
My thanks!  And now I present my second poem, for my second day.

Seeking Imbas

Against the cold I lay in bed awake
A mantle of darkness hanging over me
In emulation of old Eire’s filidh
Sequestered in a stone sarcophagus
Where waiting for a fire in the head
They’d sit and soak in water to the nose.

A boy steps in, his cheeks still round with youth.
His heart of passion holds his fire there,
Interred in two-fold dwelling of the dead.
A wrinkled man steps out, his trials carved
Into the features of his face and hands.
Inside and out transformed, still full of flame.

The fire in his eyes bespeaks the new song of his soul;

A song that will define him as a man,
And more than just a man; a man of art.
His own, no other’s, gifted from the gods—
A flame that burns in water, spreading forth
To fill up all his being, every vein,
Dwelling in body, mind, and his spirit;

That head which is the chamber of the soul.
His lines will fade and make him new again,
To be a man with his whole life laid out,
To do with and to make of what he can
Until his wrinkles find him once again
And mark him as a man who has known life.

It is this transformation that I seek,

But lacking a sarcophagus of stone
Or any means to soak until such time
As difficulty, hunger, and the strain
Bring on such visions and stir up such fire
That poetry streams from my fevered brain
And I return from past that land of death;

Until such time as I can do such deeds
I do my best to follow in their wake;
In dark of night, enclosed in my own space,
In semblance of sarcophagi I lay
As sleep draws near, I fill with images
And ride my inspiration into dreams.
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Fagan_the_Pagan

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2012, 09:48:37 pm »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;37289


 
Visions of Otherworld
I


I tread the rough path ‘twixt two hillocks green.
The air is thick with mist which hangs in sheets
Obscuring vision of the road ahead.
The moisture saturates my every breath
And coats the grass and skin and cloth with dew.

My road leads to twin monoliths of stone
That flank the threshold of another land
Through which my path if e’er I follow leads.
Each menhir a rough pillar of grey rock
Bearing runic symbols of safe passage
Deep notched in channels on each carraig’s face.

Blind to beyond, but trusting in my road
That never once has yet misled my feet
I overstep the boundary of the rocks,
Whose man or elf-marked runes invite me hence,
And pass beyond the portal ‘tween the hills
Into what land as yet remains unseen.

Now is the fog from o’er my eyes removed
And with true vision look I on the land
That stretcheth out before my thoughtful feet.
Below the hillside whereupon I scan,
Behold! A field of gleaming grains of gold;
A flaxen swath of gilded wheat and rye!

Farther thence a sapphire rivulet
Cuts its trickle through that shining land.
Beyond, a forest most majestical
Rises in green pines and hazel trees,
Whose branches overreach the quiet stream,
And trunks the height of which do scratch the sky.

What lessons here be taught I do not know,
But I will walk this world of shining lights,
Of precious metal grains and gemstone leaves,
Of colors strong and trees of soaring heights,
And glean what secrets it presenteth me,
What truths unfathomable it will show.
(/|\\)  Fire in the Head: My Blog on Matters Spiritual, Political, or otherwise important to me.
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Fagan_the_Pagan

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2012, 02:39:14 am »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;37419
Visions of Otherworld
I

 
Visions of Otherworld
II


A slow-meandering breeze rolls past my face
To rustle in my ears a traveling tune.
It sings to me the thrill of letting go
And following where intuition leads

I ponder for a moment what it means
In slow and carefully examined thought.
Its argument exotic presses me
To ascertain how much its worth, or not.

So lost I ruminations stand I there
My legs grow root-like, buried in the ground.
No image moves me while I question it,
No progress made debating what is sound.

The wheat does wave me onward with the wind.
I protest “I do not know; is it safe?”
“You must make risks to learn, must fall to rise,
Or else become a tree, and then a stone.”

I have not time to contemplate the words
For only do they drum upon my ear
When emptying his cheeks upon my back
The Wind does blow me forward off my feet.

So stumbling I throw out my hands and feet
To try and catch myself a hold on ground,
But tumbling ‘spite my efforts I do greet
The earth and roll, world-whirling, from the mound.

My sight still spinning, swirling from the fall,
On stomach sprawled I raise my rumpled gaze
Upon a stately, cloven, blackened hoof
Whose slender sinews stretch toward the sky.

As quickly as appearing it is gone,
Vanished amid the golden stalks of wheat.
Blind instinct urges me to follow on
And swiftly gains firm ground beneath my feet.

I cut through clinking oceans of tall gold,
The shafts of growing metal scratch my cheeks.
A pair of twisted antlers I behold
And try if I can see which way it seeks.

In fixed pursuit my hot feet pound the earth
Till ground gives way beneath my sprinting frame
And into earth I plummet past my waist
And find myself in grubbing rabbit’s hame.

The figure looks at me with knowing eyes,
Full human in their shape and countenance,
No aid they offer, nor no obstacle;
They wink and vanish in the waving wheat.

Already twice I’ve fallen in this land,
And from all paths my chase diverted me.
Now I must lift me up with my two hands,
And find my way through shining lands of sidhe.
(/|\\)  Fire in the Head: My Blog on Matters Spiritual, Political, or otherwise important to me.
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Fagan_the_Pagan

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #13 on: January 06, 2012, 02:38:07 am »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;36500


 
Scrying Pool

I speak the silence of my soul,
A language known to none but me.
I peer into the deepest hole
And see the darkness watching me.

And as I stare into the black
Twin stars out in the distance glow
Like eyes of fire staring back
From some strange mirror long ago.

My vision on the sky at night
I chart upon its astral map
The course of time in specks of light
And in the space that forms the gap.

I seek the secrets in your eyes;
The breadth of your extremity,
And with each one I realize:
All that I see in you is me.
(/|\\)  Fire in the Head: My Blog on Matters Spiritual, Political, or otherwise important to me.
Bardistry Wandworks: My Etsy shop for wands, athames, and other pagan crafts.

Fagan_the_Pagan

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Re: A Month of Poetry for Brighid
« Reply #14 on: January 07, 2012, 12:08:48 am »
Quote from: Fagan_the_Pagan;37792


 
Leannan Sidhe

A red-haired gypsy dances through my mind,
A fleeting, spangled, salamander joy.
A spell upon my soul to her does bind,
To this my wandering woman, brash and coy.

Her hot skin bronzed by years in summer sun
Seems now as if some otherworldly site
Where earth forms not the very stuff of one
Were called her home and sparking of her light.

Her hair unfurls around her like a snake.
It wraps around the column of her spine
And floats above her head, a thing awake,
Of this fired-dancing fairy woman, mine.

She is some elemental Efrit djinn
Or else a wildfire catching hold,
Which spreads where blowing Zephyr throws his grin,
And flaunts her there, her going ever bold.

Her light throws shadows on the wall
Like ghosts in some Platonic cave.
Dim likenesses the others, all;
None satisfy that which I crave.

She turns the stuff of matter into art,
Transforms its ores to an ascendant state,
But yet you know she always will depart,
And leave you burned, still praying her to wait.

Such joy that brings such pain, my leannan sidhe!
Her breath of fire fills my lungs with heat,
Excites and scorches, spins me round, and she,
Unknowing, runs away on too fleet feet.

Her each move kindles fire in my breast!
I, captive to her eyes, am never free!
Her smile, the glowing iron, stabs my chest!
The sweetness of her laughter murders me.
(/|\\)  Fire in the Head: My Blog on Matters Spiritual, Political, or otherwise important to me.
Bardistry Wandworks: My Etsy shop for wands, athames, and other pagan crafts.

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