#28 - skindeep

The Bannik is a bathhouse spirit in Slavic mythology. The imagery it sparked led me to some interesting places. It's also the second sonnet in this year's cycle to (obliquely) reference Led Zeppelin...

We dig our claws so deep into each other

that life becomes an ecstasy of blood ‒

the wordless canticle of heedless lovers

to raise a charm against the coming flood.

We prophesy in childbirth and in water,

equivocate through fantasy and pain ‒

together we will give the world no quarter

but slide our claws under its skin again.

And when the levee breaks we flee in fire,

preferring to incinerate in style,

yet still the blazing folly of the pyre

provokes a sudden unexpected smile ‒

some understanding born out of desire,

a whispered kiss for every lonely mile.

RJT

#24 - Call Me Rita

The Kraken is a legendary giant sea monster in Scandinavian folklore. In reality, it is deeply misunderstood...

Impersonating islands is my game,

according to the sombre lays of doom ‒

my nostrils sit like caves upon the main,

enticing sailors to an icy tomb.

If that's a game, then it's not very good ‒

who uses nostrils for nefarious ends?

Like many who have been misunderstood,

I've only ever wanted to make friends.

My list of names runs like a dreary jig ‒

hafgufa, sea-mist, crab-fish, twisted one ‒

but you can call me anything you dig,

as long as we have wild aquatic fun.

While fishes frolic on the foamy brine,

come waltz with me ‒ we'll have a Kraken time!

RJT

#20 - Burden of Proof

The Flying Spaghetti Monster was created in 2005 as a riposte to a decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to permit the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in public school science classes. See also Russell's Teapot and the Invisible Pink Unicorn

A lonely teapot orbiting the sun

is unobservable from anywhere ‒

created by intelligence for fun,

impossible to prove that it's not there.

She calls to us, and we cannot evade

the paradoxes into which we sink ‒

a goddess out of naught and colour made,

a unicorn invisible and pink.

His noodly appendages reach out,

enfolding everyone in pirate cheer,

as he proclaims ‒ to circumvent all doubt ‒

"Just tell me to my face that I'm not here!"

Three entities connected by one truth ‒

it isn't science if it's beyond proof.

RJT

#16 - Fourteen Doors

In Greek mythology the Minotaur dwelt at the centre of the Labyrinth. This sonnet was directly inspired by the Jorge Luis Borges short story 'The House of Asterion'

My house is infinite, and all its gates

admit to every temple, street and strand ‒

a model of the universe, a plan

of unremembered worlds which I create

for wanderers, that I might lift the weight

of evil from their hearts and from their hands ‒

where bodies rest, to mark at my command

the tangled lines of geometric fate.

But now my own redeemer stands without

these countless walls ‒ as sunlight falls to shade,

his lover draws a thread to comfort me

and gently still all traces of self doubt.

The princess prays, the killer slips his blade

to cut the cord and finally set me free.

RJT

#12 - Through the Looking Glass

I started off thinking about Grendel and Beowulf, then ended up falling down an Oulipo rabbit hole...

The mirror proves a hero in us all,

reflection of an archetype within,

our psyche magnifies that quiet small

desiring to escape from mythic sin.

Then recklessness inflames and sets the beast

on every paradigm that we hold dear ‒

the mirror cracks as hubris start to feast.

The mirror cracks, as hubris start to feast

on every paradigm that we hold dear,

then recklessness inflames and sets the beast

desiring to escape from mythic sin.

Our psyche magnifies that quiet small

reflection of an archetype within ‒

the mirror proves a hero in us all.

RJT

#8 - though we are dead we still know how to dance

The Ahkiyyini is a skeleton spirit in Inuit folklore

I beat my shoulder blades with limbs of ice

and sinew like some twisted tambourine,

a drum whose syncopation lies between

those tangled realms of hell and paradise.

For when I dance the spirits roll the dice ‒

the waters crack, the mountains shake and scream,

the waking world becomes a fading dream ‒

and those who hear the drummer pay the price.

So dance, you drowning pilgrims, dance with me

a pirouette, the pulse of life and death,

the rhythm of the vagaries of chance

that drag you down beneath a sunless sea.

Remember, as you draw your final breath ‒

though we are dead we still know how to dance.

RJT

#4 - The Waters of the World

Vritra is a Vedic serpent or dragon in Hinduism, the personification of drought and adversary of Indra

Vritra lay around the Indus curled ‒

a serpent gaoler of the rivers' foam,

first-born of dragons on a rocky throne ‒

till Indra's gleaming banners were unfurled.

The new-born king of heaven rose and hurled,

with Vishnu's help, a thunderbolt of bone

to break those nine and ninety forts of stone

which captive held the waters of the world.

But dragons rise and heroes fall and still

the waters of the world flow endlessly ‒

for what you cannot catch you cannot kill,

and what you cannot kill is mystery ‒
the rivers of the soul define free will,
which shapes the crooked course of history.

RJT

#26 - Her Smoke Rose Up Forever

Alice Bradley Sheldon (1915 - 1987) - science fiction author

"I know goddam well what's out there, under all those masks. Beauty and Power and Terror and Love."

And I awoke and found me here alone

still dreaming on this gleaming alien shore,

compelled to document and to explore

the monuments and signs of the unknown ‒

where love is love, on winds of whimsy blown,

where love decides exactly what love's for,

where love is hope and fear and peace and war,

where love abides, so many years from home.

Decipher me with someone else's creed,

project on me the prejudice you hide,

embody me with myths on which you feed ‒

the grizzled veteran and the modest bride.

Give me a gun to kill the one I need,

then lay me down upon the cold hill's side.

RJT

#22 - Fiat Lux

Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753 - 1784) - first published African-American female poet

Aurora rises swift across the plains

and forests of a land that's left behind ‒

once sold across the western sea in chains,

she holds that childhood vision in her mind.

And where white men are fighting to control ‒

by whips and laws, by bible, hymn and psalm ‒

all aspects of another person's soul,

the wonders of the classics are her balm.

So Virgil, Horace, Homer, Milton, Pope

bring consolation to a suffering heart ‒

for though the saviour might yet give one hope,

humanity lies at the crux of art.

The Lord is master of all cruelty.

But maybe, maybe, He can set you free.

RJT

#18 - The Girl in the Fireplace

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (1721 - 1764) - Marquise de Pompadour

The clock is broken, embers crack and hiss,

no language can interpret what occurs ‒

she gives a lonely traveller one last kiss,

then steps into a future that's not hers.

The war is endless, internecine strife,

nobility's outsider at its heart ‒

a friend of kings, but not a kingdom's wife,

a patron and practitioner of art.

The bells are silent, rain falls like a shroud

as Voltaire muses on inequity

which wears away at beauty, drip by drip.

The grief of kings is rarely sung aloud,

the deluge whispers as it meets the sea ‒

"she will not have good weather for her trip."

RJT

#14 - Burning Down Convents

Julie d'Aubigny (c. 1673 - 1707) - swordswoman and opera singer

All opera needs a bloody heroine

to face down malice and hypocrisy,

to drink and love and fight before she dies ‒

une amoureuse who fills life to to the brim

with all the joy and pain that make us free ‒

she knows that faintheart seldom wins the prize.

So if you want to gain a boy's devotion

with something that will hook him nice and quick ‒

unsheathe your sword in one swift fluid motion,

then stab him through the shoulder ‒ that's the trick.

And if you want to grab a girl's attention

with something more than just a winning smile,

there really is one thing I ought to mention ‒

go burn down convents baby ‒ that's the style.

RJT

#10 - shadow master

Caravaggio (1571 - 1610) - artist

I've fucked and fought my way across the south ‒

a bloody trail from Naples back to Rome ‒

a shadow master with a gobby mouth

and never any place to call my home.

The patronage of power is my shield ‒

dissolute behaviour is no bar

whether it's a sword or brush I yield ‒

but murder is just one small step too far.

So courtesans and young men heed my call ‒

there's always room for revels at the inn

where Holofernes screams down from the wall

and John the Baptist wears my broken grin

where Judith prowls the campfires like a ghost

and shadows fall as fever on the coast.

RJT

#6 - Ishiyama-dera

Murasaki Shikibu (c. 973 - c. 1014) - novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting

I am novel ‒ scripture is my blood,

Ishiyama-dera makes me whole ‒

the clouds of cherry blossom newly-bud

a floating bridge of dreams across my soul.

I am violet ‒ colour is my code,

calligraphy and woodcut shape my name ‒

the future is a winding forest road

where waters mirror patterns I became.

But I am woman ‒ language is my child,

struggling into myth behind a screen ‒

a lonely daughter still unreconciled

to all the words of men and what they mean.

The priest bows low and strikes the temple gong,

for I am singer - Genji is my song.

RJT

#2 - Little Ax

Willmer Broadnax (1916 - 1992) - Gospel singer

From Houston onto Phillie marks a trail

of brothers bound together by the past ‒

those golden echoes ringing down at last,

as axes crack the fear and rend the veil.

That Memphis spirit tells a gospel tale ‒

small-framed but with a mighty vocal blast,

a tenor voice, so clear and unsurpassed,

transforming to a preternatural wail.

So sound the trumpet, bang the drum, proclaim

humanity in each and every guise ‒

our imperfections all mapped out in scars,

our virtue burning like a holy flame.

Eternity may face us down with knives

but words will never cage just who we are.

RJT