.
And her arms enfold me,
I lay my cheek
against her breast.
The shaking starts,
the tears fall,
as sobs emerge unhindered.
Cries from way down deep,
and I hear her heart,
slow, steady, metronomic.
So I follow its rhythm
along a path richly bathed
in warm sunlight.
Through an archway
and across a threshold shrine,
the cemetery of the Ancients.
A hundred thousand names,
carved in marble,
adorned with statues and plinths.
Holding knowledge of old,
and the sound of silence,
like an abandoned library.

The shadow of love hovers close,
driving through midnight mists
and leading me on.
Practising narrative necromancy,
reanimating old words,
giving them life newly born,
upon the first carved marbles,
its names burnished with wisdom,
and the anonymity of obscurity.
There glows one name
in forgotten script
and I know my deepest identity,
the weight of the aeons
flows free into my mind,
histories of the millennia.
I know
my Forest Lady holds secrets
that belong to me.
And she gestates them all,
a coveted pregnancy.

A path-working, an etherical dream,
and her heart skips a beat,
as another part of me
crumbles and dies,
to mingle with the dust
of ancient knowledge.



© Pagan Paul (11/07/18)

If we poets are sad
No tears fall from our eyes
Words fall from our hearts
That brings the blank sheet
And the pen in hand to life
They know how we poets feel
Because they were always
In good and bad days there
Like best friends for life.

The road was all mud
she slipped with the drizzle
and you couldn't tell
the color she wore
but her big awed eyes
colored the land in all colors
making her lose breath
gazing at every little thing
till over the noise of lightning
boomed her father's voice
be fast girl before the rain is harder
when she would run for his hand
and slip again and again
counting fun at every fall
her eyes a glowing island
from the mud scarred face.

Once in the market
the man gave her a good wash
little knowing she was drenched
with all the dreams
eyes could ever see.

To this body
Death does as it should,
Consigns the shell
To the firewood
And sets the spirit free.

Close to the fire
the heat singes me.

I know it's only the prelude
to the fiery furnace
licking my skin with flaming tongues
reducing me to powdered ashes
disappearing and in no time fading
what was me but in an instant
dusts in urns and upon wall
and years after maybe one's
untimely rains of dusty memories.

Raggedy barefoot children in the five and dime
With a Saturday morning quarter each
Plastic toy soldiers, Nazis and Yanks
Or a wind-up car – but that’s a dollar

Whitman adventure books for fifty cents
If nothing this week, then maybe the next
The Call of the Wild, with noble dog Buck
But what about marbles in a little net bag?

Tables of treasures at the variety store
Aladdin’s Cave (with a swept wooden floor)