Tag: Real Toads

Two Lucia Poems – 13 December (Re-post)

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Re-post comment:

As you might have noticed I’m lagging behind on writing Advent Calendar poems so today you get a double re-post of two poems with the the Swedish tradition around Saint Lucia. Both poems are from 2019.

Saint Lucia

(2019 Re-post)

Walters Art Museum [Public domain]

Fair maiden
come to rekindle the light
Hymn signing
sung to heavens delight
Not a word sung
about your saintly fight
As a woman
with your own goal in sight
Condemned by men
to suffering without respite
To write your praises
my hopes reignite

© REDCAT
Claudia Gründer [CC BY-SA 3.0]

All trough childhood and adolescence I where one of those girls that sang like the angels in Lucia processions. In Sweden it’s all about upcoming midwinter and celebrating the returning light. Also the protestant church don’t have saints so the real symbolism of the story of Saint Lucia of Syracuse has gotten lost along the way.

Also posted to OpenLinkNight #256 at dVerse. Which is why this poem is in the dVerse form of a Quadrille – a poem of 44 words, not counting the titel.

Kolforn (Wikimedia) [CC BY-SA 4.0]

Cold Moon

(2019 Re-post)

Preparations for the last full moon abounds
Where we let the Midwinter darkness fall
Then light return with a fair singing maiden
Her clear voice and it’s adoration turns our eyes upon the star
It’s light compelling us to contemplate
the birth-death-rebirth of the fisher king
Yearly reminder to shed the old and start anew

© REDCAT
Image Source

Where I grew up. A several hundreds year old small, pre-steam industrial-mining-farm-wood-lakes town. Folklore still ran deep even in the 1980s.

“The tradition of Lussevaka – to stay awake through the Lussinatt to guard oneself and the household against evil, has found a modern form through throwing parties until daybreak. ”
– Wikipedia

As a teenager and young adult, no real adult found a problem with us staying out late at discos and parties. As long as some of us (nearly, girls only) also showed up in the early morning hours, clear eyed and sweet voiced to carry lights in our hair or hands singing hymns to Lucia and Light re-born.

So, I grew up with Lucia vigil. It’s a tradition dating back to when Lucia occurred on midwinter, the origin might be somewhere in the pre-christian era, but it is known from the 15th and 16th century. Meaning before Sweden switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1753.

As Midwinter is the opposite point of the year from Midsummer the veil between the worlds where thin, and you kept vigil to keep harmful spirits away and to celebrate and greet the light of a new year in form of a fair singing maiden with light in her hair.

Written for Kerry’s prompt on Real Toads ~ Art FLASH! / 55 in December.
55 words without the title.
Read my first contribution to this double feature prompt here.

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash
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Onyx darkness (2019 Re-post)

Nyx Goddess of Night

Leave any light on the endless shelves
Speak the pass phrase
Only those with flawless elocution
A mind open to betwixt and between
Shall pass the warden
Go through the Nyx-door
Plunge into onyx darkness
Within are nights that never die
Without the world spins on
Here only esthesis will guide you
Stay as long as it pleases thee.

©REDCAT

Re-post comment:

Body and mind buzzing with the joy of dance class, I felt this to be a good way to get back to Wandering the Archives Wednesday that I’ve missed for a few weeks.

Enjoy!

Written for Get Listed! with a Mystery Guest at toads.
Really fun, and much harder to than one word prompts.

Both club images by Antoine J. on Unsplash



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The Garden – A Prose Poem

Photo by Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash

For many years the garden lay neglected.
Fallow,
overgrown with sorrow weeds and thorny trauma brambles.
Creative stream choked off,
the source strangled by fear.
No longer filling the deep story pool.
Unable to attract sparkling dragonflies of fantasy,
buzzing idea bees or paradise birds flights of fancy.

The weeping willow shedding its leaves in grief.
Becoming naked skeleton of raking nightmare fingers.
The starving muse wilts and fades.
Retreating into dark amnesic mist under the onslaught of anxiety rain,
depressive storms.

A bolt of awakened lightning sheared through the bruised cloud cover.
Putting the strangling weeds in flames.
Rekindling the suffocated creative fire.
Birthing a fierce Phoenix from the flames.
Rousing the sleeping muse with a song of newfound life.
Hailing the first ray of kind sunlight.
Praising the smatter of nurturing rain.

Now the garden blooms and grows.
Tended by the muse and the soul Phoenix.
The brook babbles and laughs as it flows.
The air is filled with fragrance,
the sound of wings of every shape and size.
Safe in the knowledge their host will never again,
let anything her creativity compromise.

©RedCat
Photo by Jie on Unsplash

Written for Poetics: Garden(ing) at dVerse. As I took my evening walk, thinking about gardens and gardening. This is what came to mind. Following a thought about one of the first writing communities I found “Imaginary garden with real toads”. A place that made me feel welcome and a place who’s kind encouragement kept me writing through all my doubts, making me think that I could do this. I know many of you might have a hard time believing it. But I’ve been writing poetry for less than two years. I’m still finding my way and my voice.

This is not the first and probably won’t be the last time I’ve written something very personal to a prompt. My writing is both pent up creativity poured out, and a form of dealing with and working through everything that’s happened to me.

Photo by Jeff Finley on Unsplash
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Witch Voices (2020 Re-post)

Night Poured Over the Desert
Sheila Sund, Salem, United States [CC BY 2.0)]

We live in solitude, we three
Three for one and one for three
You will think us an apparition, you’ll see

Lives run by magic and moon
Moon and magic sees us identical to humdrum brain loon
Only a loon they say
Sees witches on a moonless day

Just a platitude, that we can time fold
We are not centuries old
Just an old tale
Again, and again re-told

Our roots run deep
Deep down where shared memory sleep
We feel the gravity of your leap
Need to renew, to wonder keep

Like the canary in the mine
Mine and your soul is on the line
Soul locked in a dark cage, let it fly free – soar
On inspiration dine
Lore by unique poet voices shine

We are the circle of mother, maiden, crone
In the circle we the Goddess intone
She steers our lives with wisdom felt deep in the bone

© REDCAT

Re-post comment:

Middle of the week means Wandering the Archives Wednesday. Tonight an echo poem that still makes me smile. And wonder when the three witches might turn up the next time. The original post was published 3 January 2020.

Hope you enjoy it to!

Written for both PLAY IT AGAIN! with REAL TOADS and A Skylover Word List ~ Apparition.
My second choice for PLAY IT AGAIN! became: Kerry Says ~ Let’s Find Our Poetic Voice (from July 2015). And just because my muse took me in that direction it also became another attempt at echo poetry.

The three witches appeared through my pen when I started writing poetry. They are free, headstrong characters that sometimes have their way with me. You can also find them in December Moon. Witches brew and Yesteryear Cheer.

I owe thanks for my inspiration to Kerry, without her prompts I wouldn’t have managed this, to Björn who showed how it should be done. And to Terry Pratchett for writing hilarious and thought provoking witches.

Daniel Gardner [Public domain]
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The ivory lighthouse (2019 Re-post)

Re-post comment:
Time for another Wandering the Archives Wednesday. Today’s been filled with writing stories. So I decided to share one of the first I wrote in poetry form.

Pharos ~ The Lighthouse, Kerry O’Connor, @skyloverpoetry

I

Hurt beyond measure
Faith in humanity utterly lost
She decided to seek solitude
The soothing presence of the seas endless swells
Mist that obscures everything
The cries of seabirds

II

High in the tower snug with a roaring blaze in the hearth
At peace thou outside the winter storms
Wailing presence around her shutters
Safe among her books and scrolls
Content with the rhythmic beacon-light sweep
Reassured by the mourning foghorn sound
Winter swells are not for sailing

III

Then suddenly cries and shouts
Running feet on the stairs
They don’t disturb her at first
The running of the tower, light and horn are the servants
hers the contemplating solitude

IV

The storm has brought a shipwreck
The vessel all in splinters
Among the swells dead sailors
Only one survivor
They call on her to use her healing skill
She mends his bones, tends bruises and sores with salves

V

Once he awakens, she finds a pair of honest eyes
A heart open to life’s joy
A curious mind ready to soar
In her heart she feels an igniting spark
Two lonely souls together for the solstice
Who knows what they have to share
During all those winter months, isolated until spring

© REDCAT

Had a busy week and weekend. Celebrated birthday. Went to a concert and out salsa dancing. Gave myself some time off blogging to enjoy other things in life and not stress out about views.
This is written for Kerry’s prompt on Real Toads ~ Art FLASH! / 55 in December. Already Sunday evening here, but if possible I’ll try to write something in the 55 form also. A third poem appeared in my head and made this weeks contribution to Pantry of Poetry and Prose.

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Cold Moon – 12 December (2019 Re-post)

Kolforn (Wikimedia) [CC BY-SA 4.0]

Preparations for the last full moon abounds
Where we let the Midwinter darkness fall
Then light return with a fair singing maiden
Her clear voice and it’s adoration turns our eyes upon the star
It’s light compelling us to contemplate
the birth-death-rebirth of the fisher king
Yearly reminder to shed the old and start anew

© REDCAT

Where I grew up. A several hundreds year old small, pre-steam industrial-mining-farm-wood-lakes town. Folklore still ran deep even in the 1980s.

So, I grew up with Lucia vigil. It’s a tradition dating back to when Lucia occurred on midwinter, the origin might be somewhere in the pre-christian era, but it is known from the 15th and 16th century. Meaning before Sweden switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1753.

As Midwinter is the opposite point of the year from Midsummer the veil between the worlds where thin, and you kept vigil to keep harmful spirits away and to celebrate and greet the light of a new year in form of a fair singing maiden with light in her hair.

“The tradition of Lussevaka – to stay awake through the Lussinatt to guard oneself and the household against evil, has found a modern form through throwing parties until daybreak. ”
– Wikipedia

As a teenager and young adult, no real adult found a problem with us staying out late at discos and parties. As long as some of us (nearly, girls only) also showed up in the early morning hours, clear eyed and sweet voiced to carry lights in our hair or hands singing hymns to Lucia and Light re-born.

Written for Kerry’s prompt on Real Toads ~ Art FLASH! / 55 in December.
55 words without the title.
Read my first contribution to this double feature prompt here.

Image Source
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Midwinter Love – A Landay Poem, 11 December (2019 Re-post)

©RedCat

Outside the white winter ice-cold
Inside the warm fiery Viking by Freya foretold

Longhouse cools as fire turn to embers
Passion ignites as skin touches skin below the furs

Midwinter winds whines around the thatch
As the warrior finds the shield-maidens lust his heart’s match

© REDCAT
Wikimedia Commons

Written for Sannas’s prompt ~ May the fire in our hearts keep burning as though there is no end ~ Our challenge is to write a Landay (or a series of Landai) on a subject matter of our liking.
“It’s a traditional Afghan form which consists of a single couplet. 
There are nine syllables in the first line and thirteen syllables in the second. These short poems typically address themes of love, grief, homeland, war, and separation.”

There was also a link to this very interesting article ~ Landays.

I will definitely experience more with this form
and read more about the subject!

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Words dance – 2019 Re-post

For this the first Sunday in Advent I choose to re-post this lighthearted, fun word dance.

I also think it’s time to find some new words to dance with in this form.

Enjoy!

I like words.
Love to move in dance.

Move words to dance in love.
I like!

Love to dance.
Move in words I like.

Like in dance.
I love to move words.

Words move love.
I like to dance in.

I like words to love.
Dance in, move.

Words in love dance.
I move to like.

Like I dance.
Words love to move in.

I love words.
To move like in dance.

I in words dance.
To move like love.

©REDCAT
Photo by Matej from Pexels

Written for today’s prompt at toads ~ Weekend Mini Challenge. We’re asked to read the poem  ‘The Uncertainty of the Poet’. And “study the structure and word patterns, and then write a similar poem, choosing your own words to noodle around with, restricting yourself to those words and trying them out in different combinations in couplets.”

This was really fun and both as easy as it looks at first and deceptively hard.
I played around with a couple of different word combination before finding my stride…
;-)

Originally posted Friday 29 November, 2019.

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