Late

Before you say
You are too old to change,
Listen:
Some of these new hairs
Are already
Silver
It is never too late
To climb out
Of your grave.

Latum

That which cannot be carried
Weights
Waits
Wears down the flesh of will
For a season,
Another season,
A knife-edge infinity of endurance.

(It cannot be "tuli"
The problem is in the progressive.)

Bearing

Their eyes ask why
Come out of the cave
If I could
Hibernate
Until there is light

But—

They never felt
The closet's steel jaws
Tasting blood,
And
Silence
Which is—

Transitions

To live life like a pheasant
Scratching the earth in peace:
Until
The sound of the dogs promises
That the hunters are coming
And the targets
Shall
Fly
Fly
Fly

... which I'd mostly dropped out of my life a while ago, but.

Posted this to Making Light, in one of the current discussions of the Sad Puppies slate and the Hugos:

A reader, fit for nominating, I
Cannot in earnest decency assert
Myself to be; that which I seem to buy
Is rarely current, slowly read. I flirt
With reading fiction once again and find
That fitting it is harder than it was,
That research reading envelops my mind
When I have time to read. (Despite its flaws
The internet’s diversions fit my space.)
The book I’m reading is from twenty-ten.*
(When the children leave to me a place
Where I can read it.) So, I find that when
My vote is claimed as good, I therefore go
“It’s nice of you to say so, but, just, no.”

* I Shall Wear Midnight. Came off my fiction-to-read-soon shelf for the obvious reasons after living there for several years.

---

I have more thoughts but I am not sure about actually articulating them. Aside from being darkly amused by the bit in the first thread on the topic having as one of its topics "a sure sign of compatibility with fandom is wibbling about whether or not one really belongs there".

I think, though, in the lack of a directly fandom-related icon, I will use the one based on papersky's "Which Village Are You" (possibly Kentish on the village, it was something more specific and I'm forgetting the details) game of years ago, which at least feels to me like it possesses the correct nature.

That tree which borders on the realm of dream
And brings forth every twilight’s day as fruit,
The gate through which the generations stream,
Star-crowned and with life’s waters in its root,
Its wooden womb the cradle of the dead:
A hornéd lady takes it as her keep,
Her golden cat’s eyes off’ring joy and dread,
Her hair the blue-washed black of heaven’s deeps.
She carries a long wand spiraled with vines,
She wears her robes in green and gold and white,
Her voice intoxicates like ancient wines,
About her is a touch of summer light.
And from her branches she will pluck a sun
Within which seven blessings have been spun.

This is My age
My children
(Each and every one of you an imperishable star).

Your prophets cry that all things are upended
Your families broken
Your poor too wealthy
Your powerful overthrown.
Your barbarians are at the gates
And the downtrodden dare to speak.

Bewail the horrors of My age
The overwhelming chaos of choice
The terrible freedom that let you come to Me at last.

You come to Me alone
As you must
Leaving your kin behind to come to Mine.
You come to Me to build
With the full strength your solitude wreaks
In defiance of prophets and kings.

This is My age
And yet you build
Mighty, despairing works
Aspiring to what is long-lost
In the memory of My sand.

This one for Geb:

I fell from heaven,
My love,
And now can only reach and wish -
My every oak tree striving for her depths
My every mountain aching to stroke her starry skin
Each skyscraper and termite mound rising up
With the force of my desire.
I fell from heaven and lie spent
Surrounded by her luminous darkness.

Stashed here so I can keep track of it in the long run, more or less.

Aside from that: I did something godawful to my shoulder, which is just. Fucking. Fantastic. I hate taking painkillers; I took a full dose of Tylenol (I typically take a half dose) and thus am down to "only moderate pain" rather than "someone is trying to pry off my collarbone with a knife", and thus may be able to sleep. Maybe.

I wish I had the slightest idea what I did. I was sitting on the couch nursing KJ, and then I was in wailing agony, with no transition I could discern. And for once the pain wasn't that she was overnursing and my nipples were bruised. :P

Tomorrow's goal: find a sling for the arm, since supporting the weight of my own fucking arm causes agony.

Mother of the manifest
Womb of the dead
Arched starry vault of heaven
Whose water jar
Holds cleansing
And oblivion
Swallow up the sun!
In your belly
Is making and unmaking
And grandfather dawn is born
Bloody and fragrant
Between your thighs.

(Some work has an interesting effect on my Egyptiana.)

Whitney rereads her Anpu poem and nearly breaks down in tears.
Whitney says, "... okay then."
Tesla [oneironaut] says, "Oops?"
Tesla says, "Is this the one you wrote for Abbas, or another one I don't know of?"
Whitney says, "This one, the sonnet: http://lilairen.livejournal.com/223260.html"
Tesla says, "I know that entire poem off the top of my head."
Whitney says, "... goodness."
Tesla says, "I likes it. ;)"
Whitney says, "He and I wrote a good poem. Still. /You/ knowing a poem."
Tesla says, "I know, right?"
Whitney is kind of floored.
Tesla says, "This reminds me of something funny from earlier. The phrase 'Do I dare to eat a Peep?' drifted through my head. And was summarily squashed, because that way lies madness and terrible, terrible parody."
Whitney LAUGHS.
Tesla says, "I thought you'd like that."
Whitney says, "I laughed so hard teinedreugan asked me what the fuck I was howling at."
Tesla says, "Win!"
Whitney hee hee hee. Do I dare to eat a peep. I shall wear old flannel nightclothes that I bought on the cheap.
Tesla says, "I have created a monster. ;)"
Whitney says, "It needed to have a next line to satisfy the braingremlins."
Whitney says, "But now I'm okay."
Whitney says, "Though considering posting this to LJ."
Tesla says, "Feel free. I think the one moment of successful poetry parody I will ever experience deserves commemoration. ;)"
Whitney hee hee hee.
Tesla finds himself trying to work the line 'when we're here together dancing cheek to cheek' into this monstrosity, forcibly stops himself.
Whitney says, "I do not think that they will dance with me."
Whitney adds those two lines to the entry, posts. ;)