Tarot Suite ~ The Magician

Let the wind die down. Let the shed 
go black inside. Let evening come.
Jane Kenyon

Copyright Kerry O'Connor
Nexus Cards
@nexuscarddesign

X
The Magician

Let the flame rain from sky
as consorts of creation. Let the earth
be as a womb awaiting conception.

Let the storm plunge its hands
into the ocean. Let the night
invite the stars to bloom.

Let the honeybee find the flower.
Let the wind sleep. Let the seed grow
in the heart of god. Let sun awaken.

Let us be without fear of manifestation.
Life quickens even as it dies, so let it come.
Let mantis become man.



Work still continues on my African Tarotscape Deck. This is my latest piece with accompanying poem, inspired by 'Let Evening Come' by Jane Kenyon.

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.

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.

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.

Tarot Suite #5

The High Priestess
Original Tarot Card Design
Kerry O'Connor
@skyloverpoetry

V
The High Priestess

As warden of Nyx-door,
I have discovered
an aesthesis for the heavens
so elementary and profound,
I can pluck the chords of stars
with an edge of my fingertips
or plunge head first into
the moon waters of esoteric language
and turn the tide of perception.
Held in my mind is the light
of ancient nova long extinguished.
There is matter yet to be revealed
and energy streaming
through me as an infinite loop
of all-time’s most creative intuition.


For Get Listed! in The Imaginary Garden.

Tarot Suite #4

The Devil Tarot Card
Kerry O'Connor
@skyloverpoetry

IV
The Devil

The details are meticulously clear:
red embers, smudging coils of smoke,
the grit of yellow ochre under my fingernails
and the bitter gulps of fermented root
from a black clay pot.
There is an art to madness
and I paint it on the cave walls
of my subconscious.
Scenes of violence, in which I excel
or fail to save the innocent.
Even my words are weapons now
and poetry the grinding stone
of my fatal disillusion.


For Time Travel/ Flashbacks with Bjorn who is our weekend host at The Imaginary Garden.

Tarot Suite ~ Card Designs

Tarot Card ~ Original Art
Kerry O'Connor
@skyloverpoetry

Tarot Card ~ Original Art
Kerry O'Connor
@skyloverpoetry

Tarot Card ~ Original Art
Kerry O'Connor
@skyloverpoetry

These three tarot designs are based on African Folktales:
Strength ~ The Love Potion
The Tower ~ The Honey Guide
The Sun ~ How Jackal Got His Stripe

The poem in three parts, which accompanies these illustration,  can be read on my Skylover blog.

Dreams of a Passing Season ~ A Tarot Reading

Run Moon run Moon Moon 
I hear the horses’ hoofs 
Leave me boy! Don’t walk 
on my lane of white starch.
Federico Garcia Lorca

"The Shell Deck" @ellasedge
Tarot Cards by Nicoletta Ceccoli
Fair Use

The boy emperor rocks
on his little wooden horse
and fights the old demons
of his seasoned imagination.
The man loves this small
wounded boy inside himself
as he rocks back and forth
on a journey through her dreams.

Through her dreams the girl embraces
her own fragility and clings to fear
of leaving all she has loved behind
to face the sorrow of abandonment.
The woman is in love with her
own dreams but wings have sprung
from her ivory shoulder blades
in this nesting place of an old season.

An old season has shed its leaves,
her eyelids are open, all tears spent
and her heart, she keeps safely tethered
high above the world floating free.
And the man who was her emperor,
he waits behind the empty doorway
of her final dream, awake at last to
the notion he has lost her forever.




This is my reading of the Shell Deck Tarot Cards provided by Ella Wilson as today's Guest Host in The Imaginary Garden. As I contemplated the cards, a story of past, present and future emerged.
My spirit guide was Federico Garcia Lorca, born 5 June 1898.

The Wheel

@skyloverpoetry

The wheel is no measure
of civilised thinking:
not much of a leap from rolling rocks
downhill bemused by momentum
when fear persists, turning
quickly to blood
but we learn to wake
and sleep,
count the days,
scratch our names on stone
while fine philosophy burns out
against a murky backdrop
of human history.

This is a rewrite of an older piece, which I cut down considerably.