"A YEAR OF SUNDAYS" - SUBMISSIONS - October 2023

[Michael Pendragon]

Start posting:

[Ash Wurthing]

Calendar Blues

So, September
what did you leave for me
beyond stupidity
gushing from a broken dam
that held all reason.

Don't blame October;
a new month of masked mayhem
colored leaves and Trick or Treat --
it's now that grabs my interest --
perhaps smiling Jack-O-Lanterns
will light the way to sanity.

Maybe November Thanksgiving
will fill the belly with stuffed birds,
jams and jellies awaiting
the re-birth of all that was good.

Time will tell.

~Reverie

//Posted with author's permission. Ash posts for Ecthrois Grimm, Last Dance and now Reverie on AAPC, in AYoS only, since they don't wish to come here under the current conditions, but want their work posted to AYoS.//

[Michael Pendragon]

[Michael Pendragon]

WHEN I AM DEAD


I'm in no "better place," nor have I power
To think, or feel, or dream, or see the tears
Shed at my bedside or above my grave;
The moments are as meaningless as years
Devoid of substance, context, time and place --
Not that I'm stoical, resigned, or brave
But vanished like the ghosts from prosper's stage.

This sagging flesh that used to be my face
Has no more of me in it than the sand
That stole our footprints for a Summer hour,
Then swept them off to sea without a trace
And washed the beach clean as an empty page.

The sunset's grand, but I'm not in its hues
Of crimson, lavender, and burnished gold,
Nor am I in the day's cerulean blues
Or midnight's velvet widow's weeds of black;
The spark of life within cannot withstand
The heart's cessation, nor can memory hold
The ghost of one unable to come back.

I'm not a guardian angel looking down
Who guides your steps somewhere beyond the stars
But plowed beneath the earth with last year's seed,
I have no inkling of this world of ours --
The seeds may grow, if such fate has decreed,
But man cannot renew once life has flown.

Don't seek for me in Heaven or in Hell
There are no "Afterworlds," and we've but one
Life here – that like a charmer's spell
Entrances for an hour… and is gone.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[Michael Pendragon]

[Michael Pendragon]

[Michael Pendragon]

[Ash Wurthing]

Mates

It's nature's way
those two swans I fed
no longer pass each day.

I do show up,
toss a bit of corn,
thinking they'll
return back home --
but it's nature's way
those mated for life
have now gone away.

~Reverie
//Posted with author's permission.//

[Michael Pendragon]

[Michael Pendragon]

BLACK MASS

Build the bonfire high tonight
Till its fingers to scorch the moon,
Soon the Bringer of the Light
Shall stop the heavens in their flight --
Let's sing his praise this hallowed night,
An ancient witching tune.

When the moon is full and red
When the midnight hour is nigh
Draw the ring and raise the dead,
Speak the charm that binds like lead
Prick your finger, raise your head
And curse the star-crossed sky.

Raise the goblet, drink the wine
Be it Christ's or Satan's blood,
Demon spawn or Being Divine,
Drink! And bear the Devil's sign
Then thrice again to make up nine --
For it is understood

That those who serve the Prince of Power
Gain their power from his shrine,
Gather 'neath a leafy bower
Dance across the deadnight hour
Let the weak and timid cower
Tonight the world is thine!

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[Ash Wurthing]

Wisp

One ember remains,
waiting for a slight breeze
to re-ignite its journey, but it fails
as a single strand of smoke,
curls and disappears into the desert sky

I look up at the brightest star
knowing the light I see
has traveled on.

~Reverie
Posted with author's permission.

[Michael Pendragon]

WHERE THE WILD FERN GROWS

Come away, come away, where wild fern grows
And the wind breathes a mournful sigh,
Come away to a world where nobody knows
If the sun or the moon rules the sky;
Follow me down a trail where the fireflies' glow
Is the only light there to be found,
Down a trail far away where the hours come and go
On tiptoe without making a sound.

Come away, come away, to a faraway land
Where the rain never dares to fall,
Come away where life's cares drift away like the sand
When the waves wash the shore; and the call
Of the old Piper Man is a whippoorwill's cry
That shall sing you to sleep evermore;
There, wrapped up in a sigh, through the ages you'll lie
As you fade from the pages of yore.

While the tears that you've shed for the sick and the dead
Shall be dry as the centuries of dust,
Piled high o'er your head, as you lie in your bed
Hewn of pinewood, while swaddled and trussed
From your head to your feet in a white winding sheet
That will shield your remains against time,
Where the present, the past, and future shall meet
In the peace of a heavenly clime…

Where the wild fern grows by a moss-covered stone
All alone in a wild woodland glen;
Where the sun never shines, and the Summer's unkown
While the names of forgotten men
Shall watch over their bones till the stones turn to sand
And the heavens are rolled as a scroll;
We shall stroll hand-in-hand to that faraway land
Where but one obolus buys our toll.

Then somewhere in the night where the ancient gods lie
Fast asleep in the silence of time,
Buried deep in the darkness where dreams go to die
You can let your eyes close, knowing I'm
There to lend you my arm as the ages roll on
And the universe draws to a close;
Side by side by, slumb'ring on as we wait for the dawn
In that glen where the wild fern grows.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[ME]

[Michael Pendragon]

[NancyGene]

Leave a Light On—I’m Coming Back
by NancyGene

I’ll move towards the light--do not be afraid.
I’m your man but transformed from where I was laid
In the ground but not dead, yet dead I would be
But I knew that your love would help sustain me
Through the hours and days and months in my tomb
While you lived on alone with our babe in your womb.

You wear a new dress with your hair left unbound?
You sing a sweet song and I’m drawn to the sound!
You’ll be happy I’m back to care for you two
Though the clay stained my clothes to a putrid brown hue
And the flesh on my bones hangs down by its cords
That were ripped and stripped on the grave sealing boards

Does your heart beat fast now that I have returned?
I look in your eyes but yours are downturned.
Where is my son, the one who inherits
My land and my goods--he has gone to where its
The unbaptized and bastard, the unholy born?
Why is it that you do not wail, cry and mourn?

What then happened to you, to me and our child?
You smile as you say that you were defiled
By me and then others and you wanted me gone?
And instead you desired that majestic swan
To come back, lay with you, forever to dwell in
His kingdom with eggs of his children and Helen.

I’ll go back to my grave if that’s what you desire
I love you but now know your ambition was higher
Than a farmer who scoffed at the Gods and their whims.
If it took a white Cob to loosen your limbs,
I’ll go back in the earth and this world I’ll renounce
For without you, my life is not worth a troy ounce.

[Michael Pendragon]

TIMELINES

Nobody dies.
The universe exists
In an eternal state of "Here and now."
Each moment of our lives held in the mists
Of time and space -- adrift within the Tao
Forever moving, yet always in place,
Each one a frame from some great picture show
That countless centuries cannot erase
As round about the sprocket wheels we go
To throw our shadow faces on a cave.

Nobody dies.
Our timelines meet and part
Then meet again, as two films are replayed;
And for a little while, heart to heart
We walk together till the closing fade
When one of our twin tales has reached its end.
But even then the images remain
Fixed in their reel of film and so transcend
The tyranny of time as once again
Their tale's replayed from cradle to the grave.

Now as before, our tales shall interwine
As we relive each moment that we shared,
Through neverending years, your hand in mine
To face the hand of fate as lovers dared
Unfold their wings to soar across the skies.
Nobody dies.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[Michael Pendragon]

SOMEWHERE IN TIME

Somewhere in time I know we'll meet again
Beyond the sun and moon, the starry sky,
I'll steal a gentle kiss beneath the rain
And touch your forehead at our last goodbye.

Somewhere beyond Earth's rim where night and day
Embrace in hues of purple, red and gold,
I'll raise your cheek and brush your tears away
As I once did, somewhere in days of old.

Somewhere a lake is echoing your name
As lovers race across the snow-white sand,
Somewhere we walk together, hand-in-hand
Each word, each glance, each footstep just the same

As we retrace two paths that intertwined
Combined as one then went their separate ways.
But somewhere lost in time, I know we'll find
Each other far behind forgotten days

To share the lovedreams that we shared before
Our lives, and love, renewing evermore.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[Michael Pendragon]

[Ash Wurthing]

On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 8:50:13 PM UTC-4, Ash Wurthing wrote:
> The Long Hall
>
> Stacked as if rush hour
> stainless steel rubber lined wheels
> line up -- the drivers,
> with a permanent smile,
> wear fresh washed bibs
> catching drool and breakfast,
> perhaps remembering
> that slow snake ride up the freeway
> while inching home to supper.
>
> The long hall has no
> traffic lights, no right turn only
> demands, just the wait
> until back to bed and beeping
> machines with their steady drip
> of saline and heartbeats.

> ~Reverie
> Posted with author's permission.

Revision (many thanks to Anon)

The Long Hall

Stacked as if rush hour
stainless steel rubber lined wheels
line up – the drivers,
with a permanent smile,
wear fresh washed bibs
catching drool and breakfast,
perhaps remembering
that slow snake ride up the freeway
while inching home to supper.

This long hall has no
traffic lights, no right turn only
demands, just the wait
until back to bed and beeping
machines with their steady drip
of saline and heartbeats.

~Reverie
Posted with author's permission.

A backstory note: The imagery when visiting a friend's mother in the hospital-- this long hall full of all those waiting for a room and it looked just like a traffic jam.

[Michael Pendragon]

[Coco DeSockmonkey]

[Ash Wurthing]

^

[Ash Wurthing]

^

[Michael Pendragon]

IT'S AUTUMN

The seasons change, and Autumn's here again
My tired bones grow cold with morning frost,
I settle back and watch the dead leaves fall.

Bent down with age, like bundled sheaves of grain
I bow my head and ponder all I've lost
Since youth and time were at my beck and call.

The years slip by like golden Summer days
And time weighs down my back with fallen sand
Till I am certain that my spine should snap.

The skies are gray with early morning haze,
A ghostly shroud that hides the reaper's hand
As chill winds strike my cheek like age's slap.

It's Autumn, and the days are growing short,
I know my days are growing shorter still,
And Winter snow will soon be drifting down.

I pull my collar up, and down a snort
Of brandy, and pretend I've found the will
To face another day as leaves of brown

Gather like fallen hours outside my door
To let me know that Autumn's here once more.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[Michael Pendragon]

OUR TIME OF YEAR

When gusts of wind are crisp with apple spice
And jack-o'-lanterns guard each front porch door,
When black cats twitch their tails and hungry mice
Dart fast as shadows 'cross the kitchen floor,
When scarecrows hang like martyrs on their cross
Midst broken shafts of grain and stalks of corn,
When nightwinds howl and oak and maple toss
Their leaves of red and gold like pages torn
From out the age-worn book of Father Time…

When scents of nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove
Warm wooden houses lining every street,
Then old men gather 'round a Franklin stove
While gingerbread and pumpkin pie compete
To fatten children for a witch's stew,
When harvest moons and ghost tales set the scene
And Jack Frost leaves his touch on morning dew,
We know decorate our world for Halloween
And celebrate with masquerade and rhyme…

Then bathed within the glow of candlelight
We dance like skeletons across the night,
Drink apple cider down and raise a cheer
For Autumn's come -- and it's our time of year.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[NancyGene]

My Moment
by NancyGene

He walks toward me;
My heart leaps.
His face, his eyes, I see
My destiny.

He walks on past me;
My soul weeps.
Tonight’s not mine, maybe
Eventually?

[Michael Pendragon]

THE WARLOCK

Blacker than a starless sky
Colder than December stars,
Deadly as an evil eye
Twice as twisted as the scars
That wind their way across his battered scowl;
Cryptic as a gypsy's moon
Wicked as a devil's spawn,
Restless as the dead leaves strewn
Across an Autumn lawn;
Scholar of the ancient ways
Guardian of the sacred flame,
Wanderer of a thousand days
He keeps his secret name
Forever hid behind a reaper's cowl.

Wild as a storm-tossed sea
Haunting as a witch's spell,
Taunting as a mystery
That none save dead men tell,
He holds the heavens rolled up in a scroll;
Older than the face of time
Muses wait at his command,
Master of both verse and rhyme
Like to which no mortal hand
Ever dared to raise a pen;
On the brink of the abyss
He will lift his eyes, and then
Softer than a vampire's kiss
He'll speak the charm that steals away your soul.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[David Dalton]

On Oct 23, 2023, NancyGene wrote
(in article<993740f9-2b80-428d...@googlegroups.com>):

Sounds like me and Sarah McLachlan.

--
https://www.nfld.com/~dalton/dtales.html Salmon on the Thorns (mystic page)
"But you come around in your time; Speaking of fabulous places,
create an oasis; Dries up as soon as you're gone; You leave me
here burning in this desert without you" (Sarah McLachlan)

[Ash Wurthing]

Promise Not to Tell

There’s a crease that runs across my cheek --
Hard to determine how many smiles or sadness etched
the flesh in such a way, but it’s the lines around the eyes,
that tells the real story;
Searches into skies and sunsets, the squint into daybreak,
the curiosity of a lover’s dimple.

Some fill their history, a desperate try to erase what is
into what was, but no one is fooled, flesh holding plastic,
plugs trying to resurrect an Elvis pompadour.

I like my lines; they hold stories some will never know,
Friends they are, holding on to the promise of never tell.

Friends like that are hard to find.

[NancyGene]

Wry*
by NancyGene

When a lassie meets a laddie, one of them will die.
When the laddie spurns the lassie, can she say goodbye?
This fair lassie cursed that laddie
And she has her eye
On ending laddie’s life today
As Halloween is nigh.

If a laddie tells a lassie falsehoods just to lie
With the lassie, who’s a maiden, who could wonder why
Lassie’s da did strike the laddie
When he would deny
He was the cause of lassie’s ruin
And blamed the peddler, Guy.

If a body’s found in sod, he’s likely to be lad.
Disembodied wails and cries--what lass would not go mad?
Although this lass attends each Mass
And says that she is glad
That laddie’s dead, cannot return,
She sees his ghostly plaid.


*With thanks to “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye,” by Robert Burns (1782)

[Ash Wurthing]

//after a long delay: something that was informal and impromptu but NancyGene coaxed me to make it more//

WRITE FOR ME

It would please me for someone to write about the starry night
To ease me of the haunting of my unfortunate plight
For you see, their light has been snuffed out from my sight
Leaving me and pale Luna alone in an empty night
Bereft of a heaven that once shone so bright

~~Ash Wurthing

[Michael Pendragon]

BEFORE I WAKE

Before I wake into a waking dream
Where colors fade and love is just a word
That dreamers speak to make the hours seem
As bright as dawnsongs from an unseen bird;
Lie by my side, and tell me once again
Of crystal streams that wind through Summer days,
When dragonflies paint dazzling drops of rain
That catch the wanton breezes in their play
And touch the flowers twined around your head.

Before the morning drags me from my bed
And pasteboard worries push me through the morn
To take my place among the working dead
Who totter down the streets like bondsmen born
Into a world of servitude and strife;
Before I dress myself in other clothes
Take up my mask and journey into life,
Hold me with words that only true love knows
Then pull me down beneath the silent waves.

There, deeper than a thousand nameless graves
I'll slumber wrapped in peace men fear to claim,
Where, less than shadows on the walls of caves
We care not where we are nor what became
Of anything beyond the here and now…
Tear down the sun and moon, lock up the sky
And let me sleep long as the gods allow;
I hope to never wake -- or, waking, die
But lose myself in time till time is still.

Fast in your arms, I'll hold you fast until
The darkness swells to swallow up the sun,
I'll close my eyes and let my spirit fill
With dreamless sleep, now that my dream is done.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[Ash Wurthing]

Into the Void

I shall wander and wonder
what awaits my fate –
Soon I'll sleep on the other side of dirt,
until then, I'll try to capture
everything sent my way,
from joy to sorrow.

~ Reverie

[NancyGene]

Life Cycle
by NancyGene

You are the morning of my dreams,
The noontime of my youth,
The sunlight of my bloom,
The evening of my close,
and the midnight of my death.

[NancyGene]

Marriage is a Compromise
by NancyGene

She wasn’t made for the real world life;
Her nature core was different.
The law of her being couldn’t be of a wife--
The time I spent in bed with her lent

A must-do, had to, did do
Interpreting of her acts
And as my love for her still grew,
I knew to use another tact.

She’d leave without an explanation,
Come back and make wild love to me.
I could not make an accusation--
I wanted her mine so desperately.

I followed and watched her perfect slide
Into a cave, Echidna!
So beautiful was her human side,
The green-scaled, snake half not a stigma

To me, who loved all creatures, when,
Surprised, she leapt at least 10 feet,
And showed to me our precious children—
So smart, home-schooled, great athletes.

[NancyGene]

Black Cat
by NancyGene

Don’t look at me like that, Black Cat,
Like you want to wear the hat, fat cat,
Of witches, goblins, bats, and that
And lick the blood that’s spat in scat,
From frenzied lips of rats that sat
In pumpkin patch dark habitats.

Don’t hiss at me, you autocrat--
Tomorrow you are just a cat.

[Michael Pendragon]

NIGHT MOOD

The hours just sit here, crowded 'round my bar
And staring at my glass like broken men
With bleary eyes and pockets stuffed with change;
I meet their stare and wonder if they are
Dead set to waste the night with me again…
But words don't come, and thoughts turn dark and strange
And swirl around my head like bourbon dreams.

Night lingers, as the hours have come to stay
And seconds pass like years with leaden feet,
I knock one back, but still the words won't come,
And wonder if I've nothing left to say…
Lost in my thoughts where past and present meet
My forehead pounding like a voodoo drum,
As once again my best-laid plans and schemes

Slink off like frightened mice to die unheard.
I raise my head and down another shot.
I search the hours' faces for a word…
They stare into my soul, but answer not.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[Michael Pendragon]

AUTUMN LANDSCAPE

October skies are misty, cool, and grey,
The stubbles emptied of their latest sheaf,
The meadow of its mounds; a noble grief
Has beautified the woods in their decay;
How many colours on the falling leaf
Encurtaining our solemn hills to-day,
Whose afternoon is hush'd and wintry brief!
Only a robin sings from any spray.
And Night sends up her pale cold moon, and spills
White mist around the hollows of the hills,
Phantoms of firth or lake; the peasant sees
His cot and stackyard, with the homestead trees,
In-islanded; but no vain terror thrills
His perfect harvesting; he sleeps at ease.

-- William Allingham (1870)

But as he slumbers peacefully in bed
A set of measured footsteps can be heard
Nearing his forest cot without a word
Rustling the fallen leaves of brown and red,
It lumbers ever onward, undeterred --
A woodsman with a curse upon his head,
Hellbent upon his course, by demons spurred.
The startled peasant wakens from his sleep
-- A hatchet striking thrice upon his door --
He staggers blindly 'cross his earthen floor,
"Who's there?" he questions in a frightened peep
"The hour is late and dead men walk once more."
Yet did the woodsman still his silence keep.
And struck the door just as he'd done before.

The peasant struck a match as if the light
Would somehow keep him safe within its glow
For little did the trembling peasant know
What horrors lay in store for him that night;
The hatchet struck, the wood door took the blow
Then splintered, cracked, split open 'neath the might
That fell upon it from his unseen foe.

October skies grew black as pine tar pitch
And dead leaves crept like rats across the land,
The harvest reaped and gathered by his hand
The peasant's corpse lay strewn about a ditch
Deep in the woods where no one ever goes,
And how he got there, heaven only knows.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

HARVEST HOME

The earth lies torn and scarred as scattered scythes
Lie strewn about the field like fallen grain,
I walk around with jack-o'-lantern eyes
And watch the stormclouds growing fat with rain.
They buried him beneath the April seeds
When laughing crocus welcomed in the Spring,
The young boys raked the field of last year's weeds
And listened to the thrush and robins sing
Their welcome song to youthful Proserpine.
But harvest's done and soon the dead shall roam
Across the land while jack-o'-lanterns shine
And reapers bring the past year's harvest home.

-- Michael Pendragon

*****

[Ash Wurthing]

The Visit

She died in October, '99 –
I imagine her fingerprints still remain
as witness to her visits throughout life –
her beloved cold cream
showed the swipe of two fingers,
left open on the nightstand –
the nightgown, laid out on the bed,
showed preparation for the final
goodnight.

I touched the walls, the vase, framed art,
leaving my prints as witness to my visit –
I was too far away to hear
her possible call.

~Reverie

Posted with author's permission.

Boo

All that frightened as children is now here – lobotomy
at breakneck speed dressed in masks with blank faces –
How easily those silly tentacles of stupidity
reach out and strangle all rational thought –
block by block, a village becomes the walking dead,
replacing barking families with push button answers
under the guise of artificial intelligence –
cars driving themselves to the pumpkin patch,
the brainless bathing in public parks, as all look on
with trick or treat smiles, happy with bubble gum thoughts
rather than questions of why.

~Reverie