Donations are essential to keep Write Out Loud going    

Popular last 30 days

love Poem poetry depression sad life truth death nonet War

Popular last 12 months

Love poetry life poem nature death Hope war loss poet

myth (Remove filter)

Recent Comments

Manish Singh Rajput on Sitting To Write
3 hours ago

Manish Singh Rajput on Peninsula
3 hours ago

Carpe Diem on Breathe
3 hours ago

Tim Higbee on Peninsula
6 hours ago

Auracle on In memoriam...
8 hours ago

Auracle on Fred's dilemma
9 hours ago

Auracle on Another Shadow
9 hours ago

Auracle on Soulmates progress
10 hours ago

Auracle on Eradicating an old flame pain
10 hours ago

Auracle on Peninsula
10 hours ago

The Betrothal

You kiss the tops of my closed hands, the mottled scarf round, a hand-fasting

Where little triple diamonds sit, it stands like a marriage 

Our walk round the sea brimmed with its longings and its blue remedy 

I am peering into our brief lives like Ægir’s wife and her sea fury

what’s lost is lost 

May the mead of poetry find me still 

I make a new dream for us to take refuge from ...

Read and leave comments (1)

Seawild seamythloversmarriage

The Modern Myth

No-one's happy with their life.
Someone, somewhere, was telling you stories.
No-one's happy.
If you are lucky, you'll do alright.
If you are lucky.

There's a way to be.
There's a way to cope.
Where's the God that's supposed to help us?
Where's the love that's meant to guide us?
Where's the hope?

No-one's meant to have it easy.
Someone, somewhere, must have been crazy!
Nothing's eas...

Read and leave comments (2)

love's tempestdepressiondisillusionmythpath of life

Green Man

The Celtic Spring begins today, so Happy Imbolc.

__________________

 

Green Man

on a ceramic head

by Paula Zimmermann

 

 

I know that you must be there,

innocent divine,

although at first I cannot see;

your martyrdom, daily,

amidst brick, steel, and glass

goes almost un-noticed

and has made us blind.

We have all but buried you.

 

But then I find ...

Read and leave comments (0)

folkloremythlegendEngland

The Raising Of The Trickster

The Raising Of The Trickster

 

When the western sky turns slowly into the colour of an old bruise

And the last orange streaks of daylight bleed from the setting sun

A cold white vapour swirls through the fields of corn its fingers prising apart the stalks

As the lands of Albion darken and strange noises start to crawl from the mist.

 

At the edge of the fields there sprawls a ...

Read and leave comments (2)

CrowLoreredemptiontricksterscarecrowprophecyfolk talefolk loremythgothic

Corruption

Corruption

 

Here in the verdant meadows

All on a summer’s day

The dreaded army of the dark

Met with the noble fey

They fought until the long sundown

And the lost blood of the dead

Soaked into the sacred ground

And turned the roses red

 

When the fight was over

And the legion of the flies

Had swarmed across the corpses

Stealing hope from sightless eyes

...

Read and leave comments (2)

CrowLorecorruptiontemptationtheftregretscarecrowmythfolkloregothichorrorfantasy

CrowLore

Crow Lore

 

We sit and watch the world go by

On fences long and oak trees high

The waxing moon the setting sun

We are the crows of Albion

 

We chronicle the human ways

Their restless nights and confused days

Mother, daughter, father, son

We are the crows of Albion

 

Our stories written down in books

Guarded well by crows and rooks

And no one knows what we ...

Read and leave comments (1)

CrowLoremythfolktalecrowsstory tellinggothic horrorfantasy

Apothecary

Apothecary

 

Beneath the ancient gallows tree

There sits an old apothecary

Where deep within its ancient rooms

Resides an old man selling ‘shrooms

That he has harvested from soil

Of graveyards where the serpents coil

And if the ache screams in your joints

Just follow where the way-marker points.

 

The place smells of dust and moist mildew

And the foul dark liqui...

Read and leave comments (1)

apothecarycurefolk lorehealingmythnatural highprice to pay

The Mandrake Curse

The Mandrake Curse

 

I spied the purple mandrake flowers

Sitting in their nest of green

And foolishly looked to rip them

From the earth they serenely sat upon

And everywhere a shriek echoed

Across the woods and leafy vales

and to my weary eyes I saw

The bulbous body resurrected

 

A face demonic in its glare

For being torn from fitful slumber

Wizened arms of k...

Read and leave comments (0)

napowrimo2020day 11mandrakemythpoisonflowerfantasyhorror

Anticlimactic

I know I traded something

A part of me

For the splendid splendour of money

I did that thing you shouldn’t do

I gave myself to him

You know, the soul

Cut a piece of myself out for him

You know, the heart

I cut a piece of myself off for him

(You know which part)

But I didn't feel a thing

I'm waiting to miss it

Miss this

Thing

I'm waiting for the pain

You...

Read and leave comments (2)

mysteryunderstandingconfusionmythanticlimacticanticlimaxtraumareactionsupriseuniquepainsexethicsinternalempty

sea to song

effective myth, metaphor, & mysticism transcend

semantic efforts to articulate dynamics erupting

dreamlike amidst more trusted, linear conceptions

of reality, imagination, experience, & being

 

by presenting arrangements so engaging, uncannily

familiar, irreducibly insightful, idealogically slippery,

that the foamsplash suddenness of its crashing

across a previously unnotic...

Read and leave comments (0)

metaphormysticismmythoceansoulspiritwhale

Soft Spirit of the Night

As I leave my home behind

To walk the far farm fields

The spirit of the land enfolds me

Its silence becomes my mantle

While I alone hear

Those wafted word

As the wind caresses the treetops

Whispering englynion

To lure me on

Through woodland and moor

Beyond fences, ever deeper into a land

Clothed in swirls of radiant mist

Rising from plashy pools and tarns

Amo...

Read and leave comments (2)

Blodeuweddenglynionlovememorymistsmysterymythowl

Eostre

Eostre

 

Not the cross or the thorns

or the blood or the nails,

not the spear or the whip

or the rumble of stones

from the mouth of a tomb.

 

Not the hatred and bigotry,

the small minded hypocrisy

of this clan or that clan

whose father is biggest

or most feared or cherished.

 

Not the myth and the fable

espoused by blind acolytes

heaven bent on venge...

Read and leave comments (3)

alternative viewEasterEostremythPaganpeace

Fairies

 

Like grains of rice, her love it grows;

Forms a crown from lush meadows.

Beneath their skulls with blooming fields,

Dandelions caress skin, living shields.

Arrays of light pour onto ivory,

Little, brown connect-the-dots scatter accordingly.

With envy in their eyes, the fairies hover,

Frowning between one another;

Wondering how they lost their glen

To a pair of human...

Read and leave comments (0)

fairiesmythmagic

Dockery Plantation Blues

Dockery Plantation Blues

In a Mississippi graveyard,
as the midnight hour crawls,
sits a young boy and his guitar
wailing tunes at the moon.
He prays his fingers faster
as they dance across the frets,
weeping at his inability
to speak in tongues from the strings.

He is lost in a fugue
of chaotic chords and strumming,
as the Delta Blues pour muddy,
like the churning brown river,
fr...

Read and leave comments (1)

robert johnsonclarksdalecrossroadsdevilmythdelta blues

A Tree In The Elephant's Graveyard

A Tree In The Elephant’s Graveyard

It began with a pen
and paper,
beneath a tree.
Carried here
upon a rat
to rest awhile.

The paper was white
and stared at me
insolently.
The pen hovered,
dripping ink
like tears.

A serpent
coiled itself
around My neck.
I thought of stars
and dreamt
of gouache landscapes.

Still the paper
would not
fuck the pen.
My thoughts
were clear,
...

Read and leave comments (3)

richpixelephantParvatishindu culturemuseGaneshatreedeathmythwriters block

Blood Mage

Twisted Maleficarum turned abomination

desperately seeking a return to one's humanity.

Expelling demons,

pumping passion like the blood that summoned them.

 

Bleeding tears, sweating fears

soaked in trepidation.

 

Summon some feeling

no time for healing

when paint is just pain with

twin pronged brush strokes.

 

Tattered, trying, tonal

...

Read and leave comments (0)

Dragon AgeBlood MageMagicPoetryArtPsychologyEmotionsMythLegends

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Find out more Hide this message