BLOOD MOON

Your Pearl of Hope and Peace

is this night a blooded

Harvest moon, child. No claret

rose in Night's tresses 

am I, nor the keeper of dragons, 

sigils and eldritch incantations, 

nor a harbinger of cosmic

wrath and damnation.

I do not blush for shame, nor 

bleed my anguish, nor am I with

rage afire; Earth's shadows

I bear this night, my white seas

and plains tainted carmine, 

my ivory face eclipsed, for I align

this moment with the god

and goddess, that man may see

his deepest self.

A crimson glass am I this sacred

hour upon a dark vault,

bound by the Red of Life or Death,

after man's own choice.

The spirit's joy would he perceive

upon my sanguine sphere who

preserves his fellow man;

an ocean of blood confronts one

who spills his kindred's own.

My form wears your 

soul's Harvest.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: thenaturalistscorner.com

AUTUMN MOON

Upon Autumn's esplanade, I

steep myself in your

silver anodyne; life and death, 

tranquility and turmoil,

swirl and surge in the sliding 

satin of your sanative song,

a translucent alabaster

entity of light and tone, gentle, 

as the embrace of a divinity.

As a wind from the beyond it

blows through my spirit, 

driving the dust and webs of

illusion from my dark

soul-scape, draining spurious

chill and warmth from 

its vital centre, renewing its

columns and plinths,

its architraves and vaults.

By the hand you lead me home,

past the abodes of 

seeking spirits who worship at

your altar with hymns

and incense, with quill and brush,

by the light of hearts

that hear your own heartsong.

One such would I be, 

great goddess, for then would I

never know loneliness.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: MOONLIGHT ON THE LAKE, ROUNDHAY PARK, LEEDS

Source: www.the-athenaeum.org

Artist: John Atkinson Grimshaw

DARK WATERS

Dark waters stir in wrath alone;
Life's pinions battle
their cumbrous, treacly vapours,
shedding Her white 
feathers upon hoary, haunted 
banks amid grey marshlands.

Through a miasma of despairing
pasts and present I
ponder the seething reflection of
my lifeless presence,
its black tentacles stabbing
through dank air, piercing
my heart, leeching my blood.

My vampire shadow burrows into
my spirit, drawn to
swathes of swelling rage, feeding,
growing, in the liquid dark,
filling its dead vessel with the
terrible animation of
desperate fury.

My bitterest truths float upon dark
waters, submerse their
congealed mordants within its
voracious, viscous crypt. 

And I shall catch a floating white
feather and quest after
nurturing waters that would mirror
a wholeness that could still be.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: ru.freepik.com

MISSING 

It is as though it had fallen
through a gash in
the womb that cradled my 
spirit into the tarry
cauldron of a singularity.
And here I stand as a sky
at noon with the 
sun cut out, a lifeless
cyan glow. 

I hear it whimper beneath
the wind and rain,
this phantom limb of my
forming spirit, 
flawed, insubstantial, yet,
its absence filling
my soul as a gaping hole, 
a visible, palpable
emptiness screaming 
‘Should have!’ 
‘Could have!’
'What if...?'

A white carapace encloses
this vacuum, its chalky
brittleness distends my skin,
revealing living veins
with dead ends,
an immured, expanding
vastness seeking to erupt
through this too thin
integument.

Pulsating pain perforates
its black spaces, 
transmutes into a life-force, 
nourishing this wishful 
abode of my soul's 
missing piece 
that claims the immensest
portion of my being.

And I, a foolish child, shall
scour the skies for a
dead star that conceals the
pulse of my anima,
never to reveal its soul to 
one maimed as I.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: AMONG THE LILIES
Source: www.the-athenaeum.org

Artist: Anna Elizabeth Klumpke

HEATHER

Violet and Rose in their graves lie,
as 'pon the heath I tearful sigh.
The north wind harps a solemn strain 
to the dull weeping of the rain.

Whither go your ashen spirits
after skies your scents inherit?
Do you count melancholy days,
ere Autumn sets the yews ablaze?

Do your hues flood yon barren swathe,
in Spring to tinge her blossoms rathe?
Or swirl 'mid greening, preening pines,
ere they haunt the goddess' shrines?

Do you pause by autumn fires,
glide o'er airy, fragrant spires...
or dance as a gay rainbow wight
thro' palls of smoky golden light?

Do you drift o'er browning meadows
into Winter's darkling shadows,
for 'pon her death-white form to rest
as Earth she coddles in her nest?

Songbirds to fairer climes have flown;
the raven calls from elms forlorn.
My blooms the frost shall ochre stain;
yet Spring shall in my heart remain.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: commons.wikimedia.org

SUMMER DREAMS

 

A storm of cicadas shrills

through Summer's

lush, cloying sweetness,

bedevilling the dense

verdure as furies, as spirits 

of tortured mutes

who find a collective voice

in death.

Screaming blossoms haunt

my Summer garden,

Summer dreams,

I dream screaming dreams

in gardens of

slumberless Summers amid

blooms bleeding,

streaming strident strings 

into red synapses.

Her dead image they immure

in cold silver-framed

glass, in dusty, lifeless

memory books, bestowing

smiles denied her in life upon

her lightless likeness. 

Summer shall return, my sister,

weeping for those

whose tears no longer fall,

raging for our tongueless dead

amid wine-laced laughter

and feather beds.

They, who measure the fading

of hothouse blooms

and plot the contours of

gold-scented candle flames,

shall not hear those they failed

to see. My Summer's

light shall ever hold the waning

luminous emittance of your

dying eyes.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: YOUNG GIRL WITH A VASE OF FLOWERS

Artist: Théo van Rysselberghe

Source: www.artscroll.ru

WARRIOR

Little warrior,
naked, nameless,
from your cosy hull
they tore 
you.

Little warrior,
sacred, blameless,
it was your slayer
who bore
you.

Little warrior,
Goddess, abyss,
it was her helpmate
who begot
you.

Little warrior,
sinless, helpless
a blight on Earth
they thought
you.

Ruin and woe
you spelled.

Hopes and dreams
you felled

From maternal 
womb into 
Mother's own
you pilgrimaged,
breathing Her
dark brown
blood.

Nor sun, nor moon
shall you know,
nor stars,
nor little battlefields,
their deepest scars.

Little warrior,
Great light,
now Angels shall
adore
you.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: fineartamerica.com

AUTUMN'S CHILD

Leafless hollows shaped this

child, her lightless lure

born of sere woodlands and

shrivelled anemones 

beneath blooming grey skies,

baptised amid frosty violet winds. 

Her chill green irises shunned

the gay brightness of

Spring's blossoming, favouring

mazy spreads and 

veiled moonlight, the quieter

shine of twilight and

ice blue waters.

Armfuls of gloom she gathered

unto her as an infant

her first wildflowers. As a cold

island she stood amid

June's sun-drenched spaces, 

as though fettered to Mother's

wails, to Her lament.

Through the seasons she lurched,

as though bound to an unseen 

force that seemed

to reach from Earth's 

bleached bones, drawing her 

to the penumbral frontier her heart

alone sought to erase 

from memory.

Black shivers and roots she prised

from all she touched with

eyes and hands, with words and

rare smiles, her spirit's unspoken

mission defining her

aspect and gait, tinting her every

hour, her work and repose.

Into the realm of eternal Shadows

she stepped, 

this youthful deliverer,

upon its threshold to lay her

Harvest of Darkness.

Autumn's child

now lies upon Summer's bosom,

for the gates of Light alone

yield to all beauty.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: Cèleste

Source: www pinterest com

Artist: Herbert Gustave Schmalz 

CAMELLIA

An artless blush nestled in 
pale green, quilted air
illumed the lonely garden's 
hoary nook. 

A petalled ingenue tiptoed
into the Dawn, whorls 
of shallow, frosted cups her
raiment and chaplet.

Whence emerged this rarity,
this miracle garbed in 
June's hues and September's
dew, a tuft of growing light
'pon a bed of shadows?

'Twas as tho' Summer's last
wish to Autumn's heart
had called in a borderland of
shorn orchards and 
nascent red-gold.
 
Blooming and Decay, warmth
and chill, radiance and
mist, entwined in felicitation
and commiseration,
in oneiric communion, sending
forth a mutual dream
to Earth.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: www.codiferro.it

AUTUMN'S SONG

'Neath blanching Gold my yarn I spin,

'mid harvest season's cheer;

all toil, for Summer's fruits to win,

ere skies grow drab and drear.

My umber loom deep gilt warps span,

bronze wefts my shuttles loop;

with russet tawn the Deity's plan,

'pon mists to her realm troop.

The growing Dark his shadows casts

o'er Purple, Fawn and Red;

their warmth they tote thro' frosty blasts,

such stain my silken thread.

My themes I sew 'pon hills and meads;

my essence bittersweet

to shrouded swathes guides ripened seeds,

where Birth and Death shall meet.

The woods in jewels I array,

that soon to Earth shall cleave,

for rich brocades 'pon Her to lay

thro' waning days I weave.

My fabric whirling winds enlace,

blooms' tears its folds adorn;

their silver thrushes 'pon it place,

the God's Light marks its bourn.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: framingpainting.com

Artist: Thomas Moran

HOUR

The wych elm is his soul's clock,

its falling leaves stalling

Time's flow, protracting seconds

and minutes, marking a

division known to Creation alone.

The artist's Eye lingers upon the

horizon, as Night lures the

Moon into the maze

of an early Autumn sky, his spirit

aflame in anticipation of

a timeless vision, of a fathomless

pool into which he would dip

his palette and brush.

The eternal dichotomy of epochal

hours leaves mortal signs

in the grass; dolorous heart and

soaring spirit crush and

caress blades of brittle, bleached

teal in the stony chill.

Yet, he prevails, this intrepid reader

of the silver union of the

firmament and ripened radiance,

though neither heart nor eyes shall

see the light-scape his

inmost canvas holds; his soul

apprehends the synergy of memory

and recurrent evanescence.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: archive.moe

Artist: John Atkinson Grimshaw