Grendel Upon Hrothgar

I have heard you play the harp 

and sing when the spirit of the Shaper

has entered you and know your songs

of victories and defeats, trust and betrayal

is our story cast on other characters 

in another time.  You cannot sing the song

of here and now and yet you cannot be 

silent.  A pleasing voice.  Tales well-told

and the magic of words has sometimes held

me long enough outside the walls of Hart

Hall for me to cast a reprieve for the night,

a weakness of mine, a refusal to attack.

I go back and leave no sign of my visit;

you know nothing how the words

have moved me, those shared memories

that have made us more than brothers,

those shared memories that have made 

our lives our story – king and monster,

the curse of each and each of us seeking

some kind of victory or defeat to hear

the final verse repeated and the echo

of a final note.  I, too, play and sing

but unheard by anyone.  No-one pounds

tables, calls for mead; I have no hall 

but yours and when I do sing there all 

you hear are screams, the songs of death

you taught me, O brother, O king, hee, hee, hee.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Waking

I opened my eyes and saw first

light and closed my eyes 

wanting a dream to take me 

into the day.  None came so

I got up to look into the mist

of last night’s rain seeking 

something vaguely familiar

like a fallen feather from 

an Angel’s wing, a bear track

glittering with gold dust,

the blues intertwined

with a hymn, some sign of damnation

and salvation and beauty in a seamless

robe, a seamless story, a poem 

with metaphors of love human-and-divine,

bodies as wineskins holding the elixir

of life.  I saw nothing then looked 

at this page and saw I’d seen everything

I was looking for – even the one I 

made no mention of.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Piles of the Morning

Origins of faint sore dust looms in drinking waste

Pockets pretending under soft vigils

Gifts of seeking tundras

Miles of ready tides

Rusty leaves and tired mansions of truth wander into herds left blind

Auroras deny bottled meaning

Tired of want

Ready for rest

Eastern doors making dancing dens

Proper spaces where open coins fall into trance and milk

Piles of the morning

-Cory Tambourine

https://mothlightva.weebly.com

“Fare Thee Well”

 Leaves are losing their exuberance

of green, some trees have given

over to the fall colors, the curling

of their leaves. All except the pines 

are a duller green, the leaves

thinning, more light, more shadows

and the allies of shorter days and longer

nights has struck the chords of melancholy

in this gloaming time of the year,

the sweet sorrow of no longer holding 

what was once held, seen, heard, felt

and memories turning into new dreams

like that water into wine at the wedding 

feast which is what time is and the surprise

the best wine is served last,  So the light

is moving with time and desire, the seductive

right temptation one more time, the sigh

of surrender as one season ends and another 

through the opening of leaves letting light in.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com