Arianrhod

CONTENT: POETRY / ADULT
Over the last year or so I have begun writing a new collection which I'm between calling Pantheon or Goddess (it'll probably change again!) Each sequence of poems is named after a goddess. I'm publishing this one on this blog to share some of the ideas that have been drifting in my head during lockdown. The focus of this sequence is the frustration lots of artists have felt during lockdown. The pressure of creativity is a constant but when your outlets have been shut, your audiences missing, and everyone seems to be producing more and more, it can be overwhelming. The images of this sequence centre on staring into the moon and seeing into an alternate reality. It considers the writing process and how somedays, there is nothing, and other days... the same again. There is explicit content in this sequence and therefore the age rating is adult. - Thom

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Arianrhod
Goddess of the Moon

1.
The sky holds the gods.
Exalted exile; exhausted edge.
 
Stare long enough at the moon,
and you’ll notice the shape more,
have you tried to go mad?
 
Look longer, beyond the shade,
glimpse into variants,
moonbathe in the moment,
drenched in the reflection,
 
you’ll be able to walk the many.
 

2.
Words fail me. I am searching for a description of that moment when the river drops, bends over and flows in to itself, the point where it shapes and releases. I need a word for it yet I can’t find its real name so perhaps I’ll try and borrow one.
 
Writhe?
 
The writhe of the water.
 

3. 
He came armed with a squashed circle,
waved it proudly in the air and called it ‘egg’,
 
there were no pennies to pay the orchestra,
all misshapen in the penny press machine,
 
elongated faces stared and congratulated,
they clapped by smacking their lips together,
 
dirty hands reflected in the glass ellipsis,
each blemish trilled a traveller’s tale,
 
a bar of wet soap slipped out of his grip,
cracked tiles before absconding out the door.
 

 
4.
Did you hear the one about the girl
in the garden with the snake? No?
It’s a real rib tickler.
 
Old Pygmalion, pudding and pie,
kissed his statue and made her die.
 
What did Enki think he would achieve
eating enough cannabis to make his
limbs numb? Ninti played doctors.
 
In Japan you can marry a video game,
but evolving from disk drives is limiting
any chance of consummation.
 
Monroe and Miller, sitting in a tree,
F-U-C-K-I-N-G, first comes lust,
then comes marriage, American goddess,
 
which one suffered disparagement?

 
5.
Yesterday, I did not write a poem.
Nor did I write one the day before.
 
I take solace knowing that in one
of the many worlds that I live in,

I did write yesterday and before,
and it was the best poem to date.

 
6. 
If you stare into a meme long enough
it will reflect who you really are,
learn that
 
since the dawn of capitalism, man
has dreamed of a soaring economy,
our race,
 
born from the silica sands of computers,
wishes to rule all three realms,
 
but does not understand that
these three realms rule us.

 
7.
Daedalus, one foot on the threshold,
lost in a complex rhyme of linear thought,
 
the reverie cannot last forever for over
in one palm is a thorn; the other a grain,
 
licking blindly will offer even chances
of nourishing or starving the argument.
 
Were he to seduce the active dimension
then his lips would taste of chalk or paint,
 
with decorated lips he could role play
a damsel and swoon onto the parallel,
 
though likely squash his face into stone.
Years will pass by like fallen eyelashes
 
and the growl of the creature will keep
him captive to chaos, a prisoner addicted
 
to palliative promises, and when the stars
expire, there he will remain, entrenched
 
in the scholarly definition of a labyrinth,
never realising he could coat his arms
 
in wax, and escape to a halcyon sphere.

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