Four Poems by Louise Ceres (MT Ceres)

 

Charyia Seastorm’s Shanty – short version.

Now here’s a tale both sad and true

‘Bout a flaxen haired babe with eyes of silver-blue

Charyia birthed from the heart of the storm

Charyia, King Riamh’s first-born.

A ship adrift on a restless sea

Cosan Realta cried once in pain

Then stood apart from the life she gave

When she turned her face toward the Flame.

Flaxen-haired and silver-eyed

Her lungs full of life as her mother died

The heavens turned to see the child

And the whirlpool began to spin.

Riamh gave his wife to the ocean deep

Her mortal remains in Lady Mara’s keep

While under the salty-moon’s shattered light

He called for balance, come due from the night.

The storm returned when the moon sunk low

Hell’s own breath behind the blow

From the maw of a cyclone that sundered and slew,

The whirlpool turned as Fates own hand

Spun the ship and shook her crew.

Onward, toward that fateful sand

And into the realm of certain doom.

Flaxen haired and silver-eyed

Her lungs full of life as her mother died

The heavens turned to see the child

And the whirlpool began to spin.

The Never-Dead-Witch waits upon the lee

Her magic aglow with goddess fire.

‘Life for the price of blood and bone?

A boon I offer thee.

One soul for all is my desire.

The hand of your King, the Eternal Tree.

Say it or begone for good, but

Crann Og Riamh belongs to me.’

The captain stood upon his deck

and held his daughter tight,

‘For seed, my crew, and my ship,

I’ll marry you this night

But Witch, this must thee know

Love like trees takes time to grow.’

Flaxen-haired and silver-eyed

Her lungs full of life as her mother died

The heavens turned to see the child

And the whirlpool began to spin.

The witch clutched her chest when she espied the babe

A dark heart softened, blossomed, gave.

‘The planets have aligned,’ she cried,

‘The silver-eyed daughter forbidden me

With my Destiny has arrived.

Chariya is most welcome on my shore.

Now let us away, my Lord, my King

The Shadow foretold in Gaiadon Lore

Is upon our horizon, and we must prepare for war.’

Flaxen-haired and silver-eyed

Her lungs full of life as her mother died

The heavens turned to see the child

And the whirlpool began to spin.

 

Bone Song

We have forgotten the answer to the question

Hidden inside the song

Silence speaks in bones

Inhuman beauty,

Trapped in calcified tome.

Exposed and eroded, the truth

Turns out to be everything that remains

When all was said and done.

Where Earth and Sky meet

At the edge of a hard white cloud

Allusive thought is foraging memory,

Evanescent.

But same as it ever was - embered to ash

Death is the end of dying

When the Bone Song is sung.

 

The Western Gate

I see you striding toward the Sun

Nomos flying by your side

But the prophet is not beneath that stark and leafless Tree

Dressed in white like Destiny

Nor the black horse foaming, but still.

Saddled and bridled in old-gold and fathomless-red

This is not your mount nor your path to tread.

Turn, turn,

Slip away toward the Western Gate.

And the truth

Has been wrought into a slimy mucus thread

The lie, unwieldy like the serpents on Medusa’s head

Not a gorgon but a winged horse instead,

Guardian of the Western Gate.

 

Eleri Imole

I saw the light of a solitary star in your eye turned inward

And it whispered to me,

Eleri Imole.

And its fire was memory, a great snake unfolding.

Then, the Heavens were not without, but within.

Louise Ceres was born in 1966 in the North of England and is the author and creator of the Gaiadon Universe body of works, where she writes under the pen name, MT CERES. A previous contributor to Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Fellowship of The Pen, the following poems and a sea shanty are the result of her current work on Book Three of Gaiadon Lore, a work of epic fantasy that explores life-death-life.