outsider

                                                  photo: Denise Jordan Finley

what is on the outside of the Order

we make for ourselves?

what fragile dreams Abide

outside the dark interiors of the spirit?

the Mysteries aren’t afforded

by the priestly class

but exist at the edges of vision

through a glass frosted

by the breath of prayer

by the music of the heart the hearth

the heat of Life shared

songs offered

community restored

walk out into that white world

cloaked in diamond sparkling ice

breath visibly rising to the firmament

in-spired

by us all

© 2014 pamela twining

dinner in the boneyard

a light snow falls on the day before Gathering begins

more than a state sanctioned permission to gorge on food football family and friends

an instinct to gather and celebrate survival

the taming of the wilderness – ah, yes! there’s the rub!

celebrations of exterminations

the arrogant purposeful destruction of an indigenous race of people

in the name of Destiny and divine profit

our groaning tables weighing on the stones the bones

of the descendants of this land – “cut the bird & pass the mashed potatoes!”

what are you thankful for this year? too many things? or do you have to think hard?

the weight of betrayal sits heavy on the brow

of a celebration that should honour a communion

not built on broken promises

and the sorrows of a civilization not known or understood

convert or kill primitive slave material

driven out annihilated at the altar of Moloch!

and then here comes the new Pope, Francis

speaking words i never expected to hear from a Pope of the Catholic Church

and the conspiracy theorist in me has a million questions

why now?

why so antithetical to ratzinger? and why did ratzinger resign?

Popes don’t ever resign!

equivalent to the disgraced businessman/politician

who leaves his job to Spend More Time with his Family

but Pope Francis, Pope Frank

 the Workingman’s Pope the Champion of the Poor the Scourge of the 1%

(they must be Stammering!

  so unable to verbally abuse the Pope

  who is saying everything that must be anathema

  to the last more 40 years!)

and thinking people must Fear for him!

the trust (there is none)

is breaking between the governors and the governed

the threads unravel day by day like an old ship’s cable

rusting untwisting rotting separating from the whole the body politic  

turning back on Moloch has ever been at one’s peril

a meal with loved ones can never pay the price of blood

but we acknowledge that the fertility of our present lives

depends on that ancient sacrifice

 the food we eat

grown in the soil of those massacres

both bitter and sweet, the fruits of our Pride

we eat and drink and laugh at the Gathering time

to celebrate the Future on the bones of our Great Fault

how to honour the lost ones?

tell the story! break the myth!

reparations are due!

what can blindness ask of us but deeper insight?

eschatology

                   

                         

for Barbara

I laughed at Death again today

I laughed as only Life can laugh

snatched tomorrow from the jaws

of the bone collector

burning torment music scorching veins

the Dance not done the feet still pound

the red road, swirling cosmic dust

not bound to Earth so much

as leaping flying through 

the round of days

Fell sorcerer wielding wand of endless sleep

sends Winter's Aweful minions riding Hard

down frozen corridors of time unspoken

screaming imprecations 

hooves striking blue steel sparks 

from her milkless breast

they aim to take us Down

but at last moment we dodge aside

wresting bubbling Springtime 

from the mouths of their Dreadful weapons

and chuckling rills guffawing mountains

dancing hillsides clothe themselves again

in vibrant hued defiance

creating the universe again and again

from a wisp of idea to the plunge 

over the lip of the abyss

a Thousand tiny deaths!

a Hundred Thousand!

grasping at Life like the ring 

on the merry go round

following golden promise and

Completion

I laugh at Death, not hubris

Celebration of the life and love

of this here/now

born again in every instant

Explosions among the planets

giving birth to Stars

© 2014 pamela twining

testament

it’s one for the ages

a hundred years a hundred times

and more

to live in memory to go forward

in the world unsheathed

in flesh

the bones of stories left under trees

eyes empty bruised with tales

that whisper in the leaves

like silk

like sandpaper

deep ache of stillness forced

silence stretched beyond bearing

No Words

who can hear anguish on the swirling squall

who can taste the gagging liquid

the honeyed phrases

truths unvarnished

cassandra’s awful words belling

in the hollows of history?

will you be known by what was not heard

remembered for no thing

celebrated in your absence

sung in nonsense syllables

slipping down the rabbit hole

of forgotten dreams?

or is that light

shining through the windows

eliminating space

collapsing orbs of consciousness

in upon each other

the variegated luminous beams

of early dawn amongst encroaching green

is that light

a rebirth that the motes will tell

in dancing dusty urgencies

everything that must be remembered?

i leave my bones

my eyes and flesh picked clean by the dakini

wrathful worms

eaters of the past

dark consumers who enable the light to shine

i leave my  words

my tempest travailed tortured musings

my golden whiffs of cosmic beauty

whatever deliberations seemed important

at the time

weightless in the afterworld

the idea of self

remembered and forgotten and remembered

the mysteries of life pulse

in the blood

and of my blood

mortals grow forth upon the land

and each is Memory and each is Spark!

© 2013 pamela twining

She

and eve rose from the deep
from lemuria
long lost
buried in Ocean’s terrible roar
when cities slid beneath the waves

the fire rising from the core
soft skin just broken through to life
She awakens
and Crone dissolves in last of winter’s mist
not letting go easily

but She awakens
this fire will not be denied