Pagan Poems
#pagan
Paganism was an ancient pre-Christian faith influenced by the natural world. There are a number of contemporary spiritual beliefs based on similar ideas. Modern Paganism is a diverse community, encompassing different religious movements, with core themes of ecology, magic and ritual. Pagan poems includes poetry about the spiritual ideas of Wicca, also known as Pagan Witchcraft.
Hymn to Trees
Black boots leave a bus
as I watch it trundle off
into English dust
I pass through a kissing gate
walk past the orchard full
of Beltane blossom
up a dirt track towards
a meadow full of buttercups
and red clover.
There she stands
Bella, my oak tree
on her own in the midst
of a lone field
she who stands with ribbons
tied into her spindles
markers of every prayer
every thought
every wish ever uttered.
I sit here sometimes
crouching to reach a crawl-space...
as I watch it trundle off
into English dust
I pass through a kissing gate
walk past the orchard full
of Beltane blossom
up a dirt track towards
a meadow full of buttercups
and red clover.
There she stands
Bella, my oak tree
on her own in the midst
of a lone field
she who stands with ribbons
tied into her spindles
markers of every prayer
every thought
every wish ever uttered.
I sit here sometimes
crouching to reach a crawl-space...
#Britain
#forest
#pagan
#prayer
#trees
29 reads
1 Comment
The Sheridan Women
The women of the Sheridan family always disappeared at some point in their lives, normally before fifty but at least once at seventy-two. (She was a powerful old woman called Ma Sheridan, who ruled her henhouse with an iron claw.) Eleanor became dimly aware of this truth when she was seven years old, and overheard her mother explaining family photographs to her grandfather, already short of memory at sixty-eight. His name was Granddad Chips and it would take another twelve years for the old boy to require hospitalisation, by which time Eleanor would have made her disappearance, the youngest...
#magic
#pagan
#prose #witches
#prose #witches
34 reads
2 Comments
Hymn to Blood
i.
in dedication
of the first movement
white cotton on a warm
Summer’s day
churning a stomach
with those first arias
of womanhood
ii.
in celebration
of the second movement
twenty-eight symphonies
played on mournful violins
twelve months a year
where music met in math
in equations of fire
iii.
in anticipation
of the third movement
to over-played strings
that brittle in fraying strands
as battles...
in dedication
of the first movement
white cotton on a warm
Summer’s day
churning a stomach
with those first arias
of womanhood
ii.
in celebration
of the second movement
twenty-eight symphonies
played on mournful violins
twelve months a year
where music met in math
in equations of fire
iii.
in anticipation
of the third movement
to over-played strings
that brittle in fraying strands
as battles...
#feminism
#menstruation
#pagan
#SelfReflection
#women
49 reads
3 Comments
Hymn to Circles
she folds herself
into fragile origami on the chair
hair draped across her cheek
she talks
of everything and nothing
her tiny paw clutching a stone
that gives her words
permission
to leave her throat
to become truths
to birth from her voice
sometimes I find it difficult
to come here at all and others
I watch her deconstruct gently
revealing pieces of herself
over and over
until
she is lighter somehow
until she...
into fragile origami on the chair
hair draped across her cheek
she talks
of everything and nothing
her tiny paw clutching a stone
that gives her words
permission
to leave her throat
to become truths
to birth from her voice
sometimes I find it difficult
to come here at all and others
I watch her deconstruct gently
revealing pieces of herself
over and over
until
she is lighter somehow
until she...
#feminism
#pagan
#women
52 reads
0 Comments
Hymn to Plunderers
When I think of all who have come
to rape this land of its bounties
vikings
romans
tories
I wonder if the land itself
is where we learn
our Britishness:
we do not crumble
in the taking of treasures,
we thrive in times
of deep agony
healing over
and over again
just as she
was pillaged
robbed
sacrificed
in the name of
gold & greed.
There’s a lot to be said
about the spirit of place
how to be British
is to be made of steel
...
to rape this land of its bounties
vikings
romans
tories
I wonder if the land itself
is where we learn
our Britishness:
we do not crumble
in the taking of treasures,
we thrive in times
of deep agony
healing over
and over again
just as she
was pillaged
robbed
sacrificed
in the name of
gold & greed.
There’s a lot to be said
about the spirit of place
how to be British
is to be made of steel
...
#Britain
#courage
#determination
#pagan
#strength
70 reads
3 Comments
Hymn to Druids
That Midsummer evening
I crossed Salisbury Plain on foot
thousands of people
bag checks
sniffer dogs
they blurred into the background
as I saw them there—
the great sarsens, sentry in the Earth
yoked to one another, some toppled
I pressed desperate palms against them
and soaked in all I’d imagined
in every documentary
every school book
felt those blue stones reverberate
as women in red sang melodies
harmonising with the sunset
and the darkness...
I crossed Salisbury Plain on foot
thousands of people
bag checks
sniffer dogs
they blurred into the background
as I saw them there—
the great sarsens, sentry in the Earth
yoked to one another, some toppled
I pressed desperate palms against them
and soaked in all I’d imagined
in every documentary
every school book
felt those blue stones reverberate
as women in red sang melodies
harmonising with the sunset
and the darkness...
#Britain
#pagan
55 reads
1 Comment
Hymn to Witches
Who did Margaret Read see
in her last throes of agony
what must it have been like
to suffer the flames of this world
to fear the fires of the next
the anguish of it,
the terror of such.
As women, it can often feel
as if our choices lie between
shitty and shittier
as if that intuition burning
our hearts and our guts and our blood
is the very thing turning our skin
to ash.
Some nights, my mind finds them
charred in a market square
consumed by ignorant fires
my bones are...
in her last throes of agony
what must it have been like
to suffer the flames of this world
to fear the fires of the next
the anguish of it,
the terror of such.
As women, it can often feel
as if our choices lie between
shitty and shittier
as if that intuition burning
our hearts and our guts and our blood
is the very thing turning our skin
to ash.
Some nights, my mind finds them
charred in a market square
consumed by ignorant fires
my bones are...
#Britain
#murder
#pagan
#witches
#women
77 reads
9 Comments
Hymn to The White Spring
In the beginning I saw nothing
eyes furiously adjusting
between day and night
a woman held my hand down
those gnarled stone steps
as I teetered on the edge
of nerves and darkness
then, as if a dimmer switch
gently illuminated sight:
hundreds of candles
moss covered horns
a huge central pool carved
out of simplistic stone
overflowing with spring water.
I sat a little.
Watched naked humans climb
in and out of that...
eyes furiously adjusting
between day and night
a woman held my hand down
those gnarled stone steps
as I teetered on the edge
of nerves and darkness
then, as if a dimmer switch
gently illuminated sight:
hundreds of candles
moss covered horns
a huge central pool carved
out of simplistic stone
overflowing with spring water.
I sat a little.
Watched naked humans climb
in and out of that...
#God
#pagan
#magic #Britain
#magic #Britain
73 reads
2 Comments
Hymn to The Red Spring
As a child I often wondered
what Narnia must look like
sat disappointed that every
wardrobe door did not unlock
a world of lions and fauns
but I kept dreaming as every
child does of something
beyond this place.
Thought about it as I paid
for a ticket and wandered into
that mystical garden
amongst fountains
& lush grass
pink cherry blossom
carpeting a canopy
a curious tree with ridged bark
surrounded by shoeless devotees
pressing their heathen skins ...
what Narnia must look like
sat disappointed that every
wardrobe door did not unlock
a world of lions and fauns
but I kept dreaming as every
child does of something
beyond this place.
Thought about it as I paid
for a ticket and wandered into
that mystical garden
amongst fountains
& lush grass
pink cherry blossom
carpeting a canopy
a curious tree with ridged bark
surrounded by shoeless devotees
pressing their heathen skins ...
#pagan
#Britain
#prayer
68 reads
2 Comments
Hymn to Words
In dim lit corners
of whisky-soaked nights
she stood in a stained nightdress
stuffing prayers into wounds
she ran
nimble fingers though matted hair
opened up a throat
allowed grief to splutter out from lungs
that choked on midnight’s breath
she stared—
placed her hand on a weary chest
counted irregular beats
found God in the exhale
amongst limitless space
she came without warning
on a barren winter’s eve
...
of whisky-soaked nights
she stood in a stained nightdress
stuffing prayers into wounds
she ran
nimble fingers though matted hair
opened up a throat
allowed grief to splutter out from lungs
that choked on midnight’s breath
she stared—
placed her hand on a weary chest
counted irregular beats
found God in the exhale
amongst limitless space
she came without warning
on a barren winter’s eve
...
#LifeAsAWriter
#WritingPoetry
#pagan
83 reads
7 Comments
Hymn to Destruction
i.
in the end
women opened their throats
loud enough to hear
confessions & testimonies
those words waited for therapies
every Monday with smart suits
and dying yucca plants to write
the words: “never release”
ii.
hibernation with the folks
after insanity blew your fuse,
back to where the forests
were no longer alive
it wore big shirts, found Jesus,
took up climbing and smoking
in a beat up car.
Death with too much to say.
iii.
I never hunted a...
in the end
women opened their throats
loud enough to hear
confessions & testimonies
those words waited for therapies
every Monday with smart suits
and dying yucca plants to write
the words: “never release”
ii.
hibernation with the folks
after insanity blew your fuse,
back to where the forests
were no longer alive
it wore big shirts, found Jesus,
took up climbing and smoking
in a beat up car.
Death with too much to say.
iii.
I never hunted a...
#women
#men
#pagan
58 reads
5 Comments
Hymn to Creation
i.
in the beginning
there was a ram
made of wounds
and starlight
electrical currents
for blood masked
a humble den
of deceit
ii.
the bear tasted
of dark, honeyed pine
forming clenched palms
in the veiled morning mist
carpet burns on knees
that wholly eroticised
the initials carved
into a thigh
iii.
rabbit peered from her hole
flat-eared and frightened,
a universe imploding...
in the beginning
there was a ram
made of wounds
and starlight
electrical currents
for blood masked
a humble den
of deceit
ii.
the bear tasted
of dark, honeyed pine
forming clenched palms
in the veiled morning mist
carpet burns on knees
that wholly eroticised
the initials carved
into a thigh
iii.
rabbit peered from her hole
flat-eared and frightened,
a universe imploding...
#women
#men
#pagan #metaphor
#pagan #metaphor
65 reads
2 Comments
DU Poetry : Pagan Poems