Andalus' poetry

[Andalus]

I love poems about bridges. I don't know why, but they always seem to be the very best of topics. 

Ha, that does seem to be true.

Fingerless Gloves

To turn the page of a book
I can read in the dark.
To cover the holes of the flute
And awaken the mute metal.
To feel the bark of the twig,
Read the stumps of gone leaves
Where new life will spring,
And sing, come spring.

Fingers of life, like light,
Like claws reaching out wide,
Ripping out fabric eyelids,
Tearing out my blind eyes,
And wiping away disgrace
From the eyeless face.

[Jubal]

That one turns from very happy to very violent imagery quite fast, which is interesting.

Well done on the Triumph. 

[Andalus]

Yellow Lines

I snatched two yellow wax crayons,
Strapped them around a two pence coin,
I slashed them across the tarmac,
From roundabout to three-way junction,
I striped two violent yellow wounds,
Strewed ribbons down a one-way street,
I laughed and lit the yellow wick
And beat my quick retreat.

[Cuddly Khan]

I well given triumph. Your skill at this never ceases to amaze me.

[Andalus]

Twisted

There is a beauty still in ugliness,
The eyes must open twice to see.
In the absence of perfectedness,
In all the lack of symmetry.
In the suffering and twistedness,
In phobic visions dark and cold,
There is a beauty still in ugliness,
That shines through from the soul.

[Andalus]

Crowns

A temple and a crown is found
On every man and woman's head.
Why then should either bow their brow
To any king or priest instead?

[Andalus]

That one turns from very happy to very violent imagery quite fast, which is interesting.

Forgot to reply to this before, but I just want to mention that this was intentional. It is a sonnet, albeit one not following the traditional metre. You may be familiar with the 'volta' which is when, to quote Wikipedia, "The third quatrain introduces an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic 'turn'". That's what I was doing there, so I'm glad it worked.

Anyway, new poem.

Fragment

When my rose-tinted spectacles, you've taken, wrecked, and smashed,
It's so much easier to see the truth of you relected in sharp glass.
To leave me like a jagged mountain standing abandoned and alone,
What a sculptor you must be, to carve a heart from shapeless stone.

[Andalus]

Reawakening the Son of Ra

My face is reflected in the glass, while you stare through basalt eyes.
No pupils within the lines of kohl, no cheer in the sculpted smile.

My image reflected in the glass meets the lines of a dead king's face,
So that I see my own curious gaze, staring back and into space.

In cold, dark eyes, silent and deceased, my own beating heart shines through,
Placing my ideas inside your head, and reading them back from you.

Where your striped nemes headdress rests, my mane falls in the same place.
Where your twice false carved beard hangs, living hairs spring from my face.

The lines of shadow and mirror blur, until I can hardly see between,
And one quiet face looks back at me, a ka summoned from reed-field dreams.

And in your lined face, in my face, I see tired cracks emerge;
From brow to nose, from eye to lip, temple to jaw, they all converge.

Where time has played its mischief, eroding all the dignity and calm.
Imprisoned eyes cry from the void, jagged cracks lit by the morning star.

Startled eyes afraid to feel again, as my nerves tumble into your skull.
Dead eyes ignite with Khepri's light, rising from your deep millenial lull.

The dawn-flame stirs the sleeping Wadjet; the cobra guardian springs to life,
Tearing the ankh from deep within me, spitting fire into my eyes.

From my open mouth comes the breath of Ptah, carried to your lips on falcon wings.
Maat's feather strokes the ancient scars, and awakes the fossil king.

[Cuddly Khan]

What is: ka, Khepri, Wadjet, ankh, Ptah, and Maat?

[Andalus]

Wikipedia is your friend. Or a textbook on ancient Egypt.

But to put it in very basic terms:
Ka: one of five parts of the soul, the 'vital essence', which travels to the afterlife
Khepri: Deity of the dawn/the dawn aspect of Ra
Wadjet: Cobra guardian of Lower Egypt, the one you see on the pharaoh's crown
Ankh: The symbol of life, often seen held in the hands of gods
Ptah: Creator god, who gave life to the world
Maat: Goddess of justice, whose feather is significant in the afterlife

There are many more references that you won't get unless you know about Egyptian mythology, but it is essentially funerary imagery in reverse, combined with a dawn metaphor.

[Andalus]

Liquid Skin

I feel like there's liquid in the place of my skin,
A massive melting glacier, slowly caving in.
My bones are mazed with crazy paving,
And my remaining nerves are paper-thin.

[Andalus]

Drums in the Mirror

Crack the mirror that sees into the past,
And leave that haunting man behind.
His fleeting lust for you could never last;
He'll drown in memory and blood wine,
As the mirror's shards leave red wounds,
And you'll be born anew from that cut womb.

Bury him deep, deep in a bloody tomb,
With no companion but the sound of a drum.
Undeserving of a hand to hold or have,
The ceaseless beat will echo through
All the caverns of his voidish grave,
As he curses himself for losing you.

And in the scarlet chamber of your heart,
Where he lies buried, we will forget him,
As the quavering hide of the drum's raw skin
Pounds its new embrace.

[Andalus]

Ritual

Pour the poor young milk on your sacrifice of flakes,
Feed the greed of the beast inside who now awakes.
Glean the last dark beans from the bottom of the tin,
Command yourself to stand and summon morning in.

[Cuddly Khan]

You should make another poem story like 'The Culver and the Culverin'. That has always been and always will be my favorite poem of yours.

[Andalus]

I have a number of incomplete ballads in progress, it's just finishing them that's the trouble.

But in the meantime, here is another one about a bird for you!

Zebra Finch

By the exotic aviaries' kaleidoscope hexagon,
I watched the labour of a captive zebra finch,
His clown face make-up offset by that 80s print,
Gauding his patterned tail feathers all along.

I watched him try to drag a ragged stalk of hay
Four times his length, pulling it across the dirt,
Obsessed with what a nest he could gain for his perch,
Desperate to achieve some lift, to carry it away.

It made me think of a zebra ignoring all the herd,
And hauling a tree trunk across the savannah all day,
To build a log fortress, to keep hungry lions at bay.
Such an image of mad fancy seemed no less absurd,

No less vain than this feathered dandy and his dreams
Of haystack mansions for his clown-faced finch queen.