RISING

 

When Ragnorak comes, says Snòrri,

Roosters will desert their farms

And crow in graveyards until

We dead folk wake up. It's not quite clear

What our role's meant to be; the scheduled battles

Seem mostly to involve gods and monsters. 

It may be we're to fight the heroes

Who've been training for centuries in Valhalla 

Or the b-team heroes from Freya's Hall.

If so, don't bet on us; we're not the ones

Who got buried in armor with swords and war-axes

And spears and seaxes and shields

With twisty dragons painted on them.

Perhaps we're meant just to watch,

Making a knowledgeable comment now and then

"Well hammered, Thor! Nicely bitten, Fenris!

Ooh, bit of bad luck there, Odin!" 

If roosters try to wake me I mean

To throw a shoe at them and go on being dead.

PICTURE

 

Yes, we know that we

Are Tragic Lovers

Whose Unfortunate End

Is Inevitable. Still,

There's no reason we

Cannot pause to watch

The sunset and have

A quiet smoke together.

ASSESSORS

 

Five of your old teachers have summoned themselves

From the darkness -- two women, two men 

And a kirk grim who is both and neither and, disguised

As a mouse-brown woman with sharp eyes, taught literature

In a girls' boarding school. They are, of course, discussing you;

Almost you can hear their words. They seem to be set

For a long session, lolling or sitting up too straight

In comfortable chairs. Two of them have a chess game going.

They've all apparently been watching you closely

One of them leans forward, as he always did

And holds one hand flat, tapping his palm

With two fingers of his other hand as if some truth

Will skitter away unless he nails it down with smaller truths.

The kirk grim shrugs and grins -- what a lovely

Yet in the end irrelevant truth. She's waiting her moment

To tell a lie worth all the truths in the world.

THE REASON WHY

 

The three great Norns are named

Was, Is, and Will Be but, while master weavers,

They don't weave the lives of ordinary folk.

This is left to crowds of smaller norns;

Some of them well-skilled but many

Just muddling along, barely knowing

A warp from a woof. This is why, like as not,

Your fate has loose threads and perhaps

A patch or two, snipped from another's destiny

And sewn on with huge, uneven stitches.

CIRCUMSTANCE

Wrapped so heavily against the cold
I no longer know which one of us I am.

VISITING

 

Every time Innana, goddess of love,

Sex, war and politics visits her sister

Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld,

She has to gradually divest herself

Of pretty much all that makes her Innana -

Her jewels, clothes, and then her body

Except for most of her bones. When she arrives,

Ereshkigal will strike her dead (It's a sister thing)

And hang her skeleton from a hook for three days.

By now, Innana's used to this and makes arrangements

Her reflection sits on her throne and answers

Emergency prayers. On her way down to Hell

Her shadow follows, carrying empty boxes

Into which it will neatly stow her jewels,

Clothes, flesh and stray memories. She also

Carries a light lunch for when Innana wakes up.

Having been dead for more than a hour or two

Always makes Innana hungry. 

WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO NOTICE HER

Harunobu's Woman With a Black Hood
Slips into a Kuniyoshi print
Of the Forty-Seven Ronin. She's looking
For just a little conversation;
It's all very well being
The Woman With a Black Hood
Bur she gets lonely.