A Skylover Wordlist ~ May

May Day!

Beltane!

Worker's Day!

Call it what you will, this is a day to celebrate life, rejuvenation, the old gods, our beloved ghosts, holy day. With that acknowledged, and the marathon of April poetry behind us, I am offering my monthly wordlist for anyone who is looking for verbal inspiration for poetry.

@skyloverpoetry
#skyloverwordlist

The prompt is open from 1 - 14 May here on my blog (4 - 14 May on IG).
Select three or more words and use them in a poetic interpretation of your choice. Derivatives of words may be used and you may link up as many poems as you write in the comments below. If you are sharing on IG, please tag @skyloverpoetry and use #skyloverwordlist so I can read and comment on your post.

A Skylover Wordlist ~ Sufferance at Dawn

Sufferance is contained
in dawn’s uncomplaining hour:
as sunshine broods in the east
early dressed in mourning weeds,
unrequited hope seethes
on a newer horizon.

But such foolishness
will be relinquished
when the faint crescent moon
slips west into the underworld,
silver diminishing
beneath the blue colonnade
of endless days
waiting to be lived again.


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

This poem is written with words from my Skylover Wordlist for February
and in reply to Joy Ann Jones' call for Flash 55 Fiction at Verse Escape.

This is also an open invitation to anyone who wants to join me in writing poetry from this list of words. If you would like me to read and comment on your post, please paste the link in the comments section below or you can tag me on Instagram.

@skyloverpoetry
Kerry O'Connor

Untitled (Eulogy)

@jasonlimberg
Used with Permission
"The raven claw is a wick of an eternal flame, forever holding the gift of life, a flower."

A solitary lily cannot take root
upon the grave of one
who snapped her
from the growing stem
for an instant of bliss
brief as a candle flame
guttering away the gloom -
nor the raven of nightfall
canary a eulogy for one
who could not strive
beyond the barriers
of his self-composed cage.



A poem inspired by the art of Jason Limberg which includes words from my Skylover Wordlist.

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.

In My Absence

Misplaced
@mc_monster
Used With Permission

This fallout-shelter mentality requires
a love of three things:
Bedrock, can-openers,
and the odour of dirt in confined spaces.
You should comprehend the virtue of trauma,
know a certain risqué joy
in the unashamed sacrifice
and thrive on toxicity, unafraid to measure
the half-life of your human heart’s slow decay.
And forego a happy ending.



Prompts, I have missed....

Guest Listed! with Helen Dehner, Monday, September 9

Out of Standard with Izy Gruye, Monday, September 16

.... In 55 Belated Words!

Atlantis Found

@skyloverpoetry

I have chosen my exile.
It is the sum of all fears to be stranded
but in crossing boundaries
I have traced my own reflection
with eyes of darkness –
We are water.
Our hearts are naked
Our souls are serpentine.
I have a birthright to change with the tide
or remain just as I am.


Once again, I have raided Margaret's La Catrina list of book titles to write a poem for Sherry's Wordy Weekend in 55 words.

Frankenstein's Death Note

Frankenstein ~ Mary Shelley
Art by Lynd Ward (1934 Edition)
Fair Use Principles

After the fifth season of his infinite
aloneness at the end of the world,
the man without woman
reached deep into the confines
of his cramped bonsai soul and created
the gods as hard-boiled,
invisible magicians, travellers
of a separate reality, given to jest.

He longed for them to worship him
as antidote to self-loathing and fear
on this last night of the earth, prayed
that one pleiadian seed would take root
in dark matter and a spiritmate grow
to warm his blood and bones.

No voice spoke from the stillness:
no whispers of I see you, man of humankind,
no eyes to ignite an ocean, no chronicle
for the book of his own burial rites.

The Froward Tongue

The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom: but the froward tongue shall be cut out.
Proverbs 10:31

Gustave Dore: Death on the Pale Horse (1865)

I have been to the dream-world
and returned lucid with visionary dread.
There is nothing demure about Death,
who rides a slipshod horse, and fist pumps
when he gets it right –
tending the acreage of humankind,
willingly blind to carnage, deaf to hunger,
immune to disease in others –
There are signs, here, in this alternate realm
of hashtag messages momentarily
flickering across every hand-held screen
but the language of prophecy is arcane,
rendering young brains witless.
Believers are few. Wrist-bound, tongues
pulled, they have learned it is better not to pray.



A rather bleak, Blake vision bred of medieval torture, Biblical tracts, contemporary disinterest and Get Listed! with Fireblossom, whose words were altogether more promising than I have given them credit here!

Untitled (This flabby life)

Death of the Myth
@skyloverpoetry

This flabby life slinks into a quaint story
of a gorgeous book, undulating in plain time.
A drab home may be beholden to magnificent things.
Clean nights will long for this place
of bald days, alive with unsightly study –
fancy eyes arising in an unkempt world.


A late entry for Magaly's weekend prompt: Exquisite Corpse Poetry

Unweighting

The memory is no friend. 
It can only tell you 
what you no longer have.
 ~Margaret Atwood

David Bulow
@bulow_ink
Used with Permission

It is better to forget
me, you say, as soon, I
will have forgotten you.

Burn my poems,
if you prefer a pain
both fierce and brief.

Do you imagine, I ask,
that will help you feel
less alive? Or less lost?

as I fold his torn pages
into paper kites and we
take turns at the window.

Better to leave words
to the whim of the gods.
And love no less for their loss.



For Art FLASH! in the Imaginary Garden, which features the art of David Bülow. Visit Bulow Ink to see further examples of his work. David can also be found on Instagram (Link under picture).
This poem is inspired both by his image and the poem A Visit by Margaret Atwood.

Untitled (Written)

In the face
of these conflicting realities
Time melts to nothing –
dull lamplight
stutters in empty rooms –

your presence
lingers
closer than shadows
and I cannot dismiss
what has already been written –

no turning back the page
or relinquishing
the task –
no point in serenity
if even one shred
of you turns away
or fades –



For The Friday 55 hosted by Hedgewitch