Removal Day

We take up the pen
to deconstruct our psychic comfort
and use it like a broom
to sweep the dust
from forgotten corners
into the centre of the room.

So much is stored in boxes,
taped shut and packed away
on out of reach shelves
until removal day comes round
and words break the seal
of abandonment.

And ink will get under our nails
as we fill the page with memories
we take with us, and fingers ache
to let go of the old wounds
that possess us, until we learn
to leave them behind.



Izy Gruye invites us to Chew Through Your Own Chains, my first choice for Play It Again! with Real Toads. I have been a teacher since the age of 21, and I love my job but a task I do not enjoy is moving house, but I guess we poets are in the removal business.

Izy, we met in 2010 - a different online space and time - and we have weathered change, distance and the ebb and flow of the online world of poetry blogging. I do hope we will continue to remain in touch in the years to come.

Tarot Suite #9

Original Tarot Card Design
Copyright Kerry O'Connor
@nexuscarddesign

Wheel of Fortune

I sense the universe
with the soles of my feet,
in the elements of starfields
wherein I, and all, find means to grow.
There are things I cannot move
by will alone. Things deeper
than forgiveness.
This Earth, this planet, is part
of a wheel turning
within infinite wheels, a cog
of cosmic ecology, and I
am revolving through
a synchronicity
of inner space and time,
with no more weight
than a single grain of sand.
There is healing to be found
in acceptance, in letting go.



Written for the final Wordy Friday with Wild Woman, Sherry Blue Sky, who has been a constant source of inspiration to me from my earliest days of online poetry blogging. Without a shadow of a doubt, none of this would have happened without her. The Wheel of Fortune brought us together. Now one cycle may be over, but a new cycle will begin in the fertile grounds of the old - such cosmic energy cannot be destroyed.

Dysmorphia

It’s been a long slow swing
in retrograde through the garden
of my soul’s imaginary dysmorphia

There is a callous comfort
in my latent childhood dreams
which lull me through recurrence

Each is neatly parcelled
to tuck away the vicious claws
and hairy eyes of my familiar demons

A path of no return is visible
but I suspect it will lead back
to the root of the poisonous tree

and the pendulum motion
of the swinger because the truth,
the snake in the garden was always me.



A poem suggested, in part, by Margaret's final challenge in the Imaginary Garden: Artistic Interpretations, in which she asks us to contemplate the theme of comfort in the context of childhood.

Prayer to the All-Father

In Mid-Winter

Odin ~ Quincy Washington
@albanusdesign
Used With Permission

God of my shadow self, you see
the implacable nature
of my intransigence:
My raven-beaked memory
pecking at old scars
and black thoughts on the wing
through the thunderstorms
of my own self-conception,
my wolf-panting anger
and teeth that tear flesh
from bone of my own demons.
Your gaze is a reckoning:
Knowledge demands sacrifice,
an eye, a befriending
of the severed head,
the subconscious voice
confirming my worst fears
that shadows have more substance
and weigh heavier than the light.


A poem for the last solstice of the decade, in honour of the Old Gods and Yuletide, inspired by the art of Quincy Washington.

Tarot Suite #8

Kerry O'Connor
@nexuscarddesign

VIII
The Lovers

Love flames to the brink of black
in this cosmic forge,
where the absence of light
is not void, but cogent, beyond
visible perceptions of you and me.
We could not choose but to embrace
secrets of ourselves we found in each other.
I will love you in this darkness of soul.
I will love you as time forgets to count.
I will love you when my substance frays
into the matter of all things
and you, forever counter-weight
of our mutual annihilation.
Merged, we burn
brighter than any new star:
Imaginable.



Written for Marian's Last Word: Imagine.
Also using another line suggested in Magaly's final Weekend Challenge: "I will love you in the darkness of soul"... for old time's sake.

Another part of my African Tarotscapes series of illustrated poems. All illustrations can be viewed on my art blog Nexus Card Design and for behind the scenes footage and storytelling, visit @nexuscarddesign on Instagram.

Ever-Rising Star

Collage created by Kerry O'Connor

Let your face be a canvas

An ever-rising star

Radiant!

Make a bold statement

In black & white

You are unique

Born to express yourself

Trust in every new tomorrow

Discover the secret of Love

It’s your time to smile

Say goodbye & live well

A dream come true



I had to create something special for the final Music with Marian challenge in the Imaginary Garden. Thus I set upon an old magazine to find a poem amid the words.
Marian and I go back to before the inception of Real Toads. We met by total accident, or fate.. bumped into one another on the blogs and stuck together through thick and thin. Her blog runaway sentence is one of the first I discovered, when I was entirely new to the forum of online poetry publishing. It has remained true to Marian's vision and her writing is a constant source of  inspiration to me personally, as well as to countless poets and fellow toads.

Thank you so much, sister-poet, for all and everything you are.

Tarot Suite #7

VII
Temperance

Temperance Tarot Card
Original Design by Kerry O'Connor

This is a cautious balancing act,
one foot on the bank,
one in the stream.
I feel Earth’s clasp on my ankle,
and hear clay mouths pleading
with me to stay
even as riverine energy tempts me
to give in to its flow.
I dwell in these wetlands, the days between
then and now, but the future
arrives just as water, rising above
the mark of expectations,
while I attempt to cup my intuition
from palm to palm,
or save at least the dregs.



A new installment in my Tarot Suite Collection of poems and illustrations, written for Magaly's final Imaginary Garden prompt 13 Poetic Bits of Kerr, using the line "the future arrives just as water" from my poem, A Painless Day, available in the Objectivity Chapter on my Skylover Blog.

Tarot Suite #6

VI
The World

The World
Original Tarot Card Design ~ Kerry O'Connor

This Earth is old, and as heavy to turn
as life, which falters
on the road to resurrection.
There is nothing spontaneous in birth,
nor tragic in death more than a sense
of something no nearer completion.
And the man will trudge beside
the bull to pasture, unaware
that tradition does not invest
existence with meaning;
the lion will evade extinction
but the eagle will feed
on carrion all the same.
I have laid out my funerary garb:
let the lazulite  scarab seal my tomb.

Death by Serpent

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety."
Antony & Cleopatra, William Shaekspeare

Death of Cleopatra
Kerry O'Connor

Haunted by relics of bygone age,
slabs of stone, hand-hewn, a painted frieze against the wall

All that endeavour and detritus,
it is ground to a fine dust beneath the heel of time.

What were we to each other more than
spark to dry tinder? We consumed ourselves

Twin flames in the eyes of Ouroboros,
until we choked on the dismal ashes of defeat.

Now history has traced my eyes,
with black kohl, and placed two serpents in my hands.

I see cracks in mortal foundations
but know not how to make order out of anarchy.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This poem began as a companion piece to my illustration of Cleopatra, but was quite hastily written, without much thought for form or meter. Sanaa's last prompt in The Imaginary Garden, to write poetry in the Landay form, sent me back to my poem, which I restructured using the guidelines. I much prefer this version and shall return to the form again because it is very user friendly.

My original free verse poem:


I am haunted by relics
of a bygone age
slabs of stone, hand-hewn,
painted frieze against a wall,
all that endeavour
and the detritus it is ground to
beneath the heel of time.
What were we to each other
more than spark to dry tinder?
Twin flames in the eyes of Ouroboros,
we consumed ourselves
until we choked on the ashes of defeat.
Now history will trace kohl around my eyes,
place serpents in my hands.
I see cracks in mortal foundations
but know not how to mend.



Historical Blurb

Cleopatra VII was the last Pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, 69 - 30 BCE.
Lover of both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, whom she married in 32 BCE, Cleopatra was a major influence on world affairs during her lifetime. As joint rulers of Egypt, they were defeated at the Battle of Actium, by Octavian. Mark Antony fell upon his sword. When Cleopatra learnt that Octavian planned to lead her in triumphal march through the streets of Rome, she committed suicide rather than surrender, traditionally by asps smuggled into her chamber in a basket of figs.

Haven

Pharos ~ Kerry O'Connor

When all the lights went out,
I looked for you
but you had already left me,
taking yourself away in the confused
aftermath of your own self-doubt.
And the nights seem endless now,
the starred sky, a bed of nails
and every stabbing wound,
the pain of sabotage.

Wherever you are, out across
the grey wasteland of sea and stone,
you are not asleep either.
I hear my name on the salty wind
and it is your voice calling.
I have fuel enough to ignite the lantern
one last time, to set the beam
and guide you home.

But I do not know when to strike the match.


Art FLASH! in December
The symbolism of the lighthouse which I used: It is feminine, reminiscent of an enclosed area, a walled sanctuary, and a safe haven.

A Skylover Wordlist

Brief Candle

“Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow”
Macbeth, William Shakespeare.

Death of Lady Macbeth
Kerry O'Connor
@skyloverpoetry

Never was night so stripped
of its own illusions,
never the lambent stars
such needle points of ice,
as now in this fatal hour
past indecision.
This is no false step
I take upon the parapet
but perhaps I am a curiosity to you:
in my full and naked power,
nothing left to lose.
The horizon is at my feet.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This poem is written using words from my Skylover Wordlist for December.

#skyloverwordlist

If anyone would like to join me in writing poetry from this list of words, and would like me to read and comment on their post, please paste the link to the post in the comments below or you can tag me on Instagram.

Death of Ophelia

Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Ophelia in Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Death of Ophelia
Kerry O'Connor
@skyloverpoetry

You believe you know all the essential things,
like a name, how long it has been since the first day;

Yes, you may know where you are, and how
you arrived at the shore, recognize even, the divide

But, you do not know the water’s depth;
you find yourself too cold to cross the river.

You do not understand how my soul streams
from the unseen world of infinite dreams

Drowning you in a vision of what may be,
what has already been and what exists now, always.



A poem, quote and illustration for Rommy's Challenge in The Imaginary Garden.