Best Paganism Poems
Beltane’s Night
On the eve of Beltane
The Earth’s call rang across hill and heather, towards ford and cliff
From tree to river the door calls, spirits of earth so fair,
Heard by elf and pixie, awakening the dryads in their trees of old.
Summoning them with rallying cries, to the Seelie Queen in her halls of gold,
While she sits next to Unseelie King in his throne, surrounded by their faerie hoards.
Every day for seven, they war,
On Beltane they pause their unceasing battle, with laughter like glass,
They gather in hidden glen, all those ancient faerie that Midir feared among fair folk,
First came the Bean Sidhe, kings honor guard, followed by the royal house,
Then came the sylphs in their array of colour, and the Leanan Sidhe with their cloaks flowing in the wind
With the elven troops on stags, crowned with roses and thorns,
The goblins’ heave their swords for all to see, the most renowned of smiths.
They all answered to the Earth’s call on Beltane night,
Dancing round these poles brightly wrapped with flowers, with true self sparkling And bright reveling,
On Beltane’s mystic night.
*beltane- ancient holiday now known as may day sacred to druids and fairy worshipers.
*seelie- light fey,benevolent, kind and helpful to humans
*unseelie-dark fey malevolent, mischievous and cruel to human
*Midir- famous druid bard similar to Merlin or Finn maccool
*Bean Sidhe-(banshees)
*Leanan Sidhe ( Vampiric fairy muses)
At Stonehenge poised for morn in deepest darkness,
We beckon Lady Ceridwen, our Goddess Crone,
And mark Samhain’s quiet constant stillness,
To death in Yule we walk with magic to the stone.
Dark mother, wise one, heal us in the underworld,
Where the winter souls find rebirth in breaking sun.
It returns the fecund resplendence that it unfurled,
And warms the blood and bone with hope and passion.
We feast celebrating, slaughtering a spring-born animal,
And dwell where ancestral souls wait solar rebirth,
We call upon sun god Esus to offer light’s arrival,
Brightening, emblazoning the cold and frosted earth.
Ceased in longest night, we linger here in winter death,
That we trust again the power of light, our shibboleth.
Love and loyalty,
You curve about my finger,
A swell of fervor.
[paraphrase of a Svan folk song]
Tamar's mother said, "Tamar,
You were born fully grown.
Child, I saw you in a dream
I looked into the starlit sky and saw
That you were the village
And you were the world."
Athena takes me
sometimes by both hands
and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands
where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting
and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting
and all I remember
,upon awaking,
is: to Love sometimes
is like forsaking
one’s Being—to drift
far beyond any thought,
forsaking the here
for the There and the Not.
*
O, finally to Burn,
gravity beyond escaping!
To plummet is Bliss
when the blisters breaking
rain down red scabs
on the earth’s mudpuddle ...
Feathers and wax
and the watchers huddle ...
*
Flocculent sheep,
O, and innocent lambs!,
I will rock me to sleep
on the waves’ iambs.
*
To Sleep, that is Bliss
in Love’s recursive Dream,
for the Night has Wings
pallid as moonbeams—
they will flit me to Life;
like a huge-eyed Phoenix
fluttering off
to quarry the Sphinx.
*
Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,
Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.
Quixotic, I seek Love
amid the tarnished
rusted-out steel
when to live is varnish.
To Dream—that’s the thing!
Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,
soak by the candle,
aflame in the tub.
*
Riddlemethis,
riddlemethat,
Rynosseross,
throw out the Welcome Mat.
Somewhither, somewhither
aglitter and strange,
we must moult off all knowledge
or perish caged.
*
I am reconciled to Life
somewhere beyond thought—
I’ll Live in the There,
I’ll Dream of the Naught.
Methinks it no journey;
to tarry’s a waste,
so fatten the oxen;
make a nice baste.
I’m coming, Fool Tom,
we have Somewhere to Go,
though we injure noone,
ourselves wildaglow.
sowing a melange
of veined wafers
viridescent shavings
leaves upon leaves
chaotically neat
layered in tranquillity
for the theatrical show
of first feet
premiere wellies
curtain up at dawn
cue the early walkers
after a night’s forlorn
which unseen hand
spritely close
knitted the forest
cross-stitched floor
taking their time
perfectionist
preparing fallen
Jenga sticks
behind the scenes
but never seen
Jack in the Green
you were never properly afraid of my antlers
in the grass that pierced our feet and the trains
kept on rolling by tracks I wished I'd made but
they would have flowed up trees to their branches
not cities where you hid behind walls, you were
never properly afraid of my antlers that I grew
in my dying days to sing in sways of our leaves
acorns and leaves
make up his mind too
as foliage entwines ours
like bridges,
like walkways,
camouflaged in an
every-day of solitude;
these berries may not last;
his thought runs deeper
- deities of the core,
the spirits would say -
to old log fires
by weathered stone,
you, his old flame, share
but only when you think
we're thirsty, that is