skonen_blades | Entries tagged with gods

Odin is as Odin does, and I know what’s worth knowing
My shoulder ravens watch the shows that all of you are showing
I have two wolves that also spy along with my two birds
On top of seeing eve-ry-thing, I’m also God of Words
I am a trickster god like many trickster gods before me
But not a mean, chaotic, liar like my bastard Loki
And while I’m strong, I’m calm and clear. I know the price of war.
Unlike my son. Shampoo commercial. Mjolnir-wielding Thor
I’ve been god of magic, death, of healing, execution
And of the runic alphabet, and god of elocution
200 names they’ve found for me including Hrossharsgrenny
Which translates ‘horse hair moustache’ so while MY names number many
I much prefer the Odin name that’s now my legacy
I live on in myth, in song, in films, and on tv
My name continues to be known by BOTH scholARS and LAYman
In comic books and marvel movies, novels by Neil Gaiman
I hear that Tony Hopkins plays me well with gravity
And Ian McShane, I ascertain, plays me majestically
My eye sees all so I know all. I spy with my little eye.
I know if you’ve been bad or good. No that’s a different guy.
I see you folks, your tears and jokes, your struggles, wins and fails
I see you all as viking boats, with winds that whip your sails
And monsters lurking in the depths and storms that rage above
I see you plot, betray, revenge, despair, rebuild, and love
I’m like a search engine that sees your every truth and lie
I see EVEry WORD you TYPE within my Googley eye.
I see your secret joys and shames. I see it all. I know.
I see you curse the weather, cry, and then I see you row.
You all keep going through the storms that pummel you with rain
You have a sleep, a bath, a meal, and then you go again
You have to understand it’s so confusing to the gods
You all stand tall though that makes you all into lightning rods
On the sea, and in the air, all over Earth, you do it.
Or Midgard as Valhallans say when they’re referring to it
You’re not immortal like we are. Your deaths are permanent.
It’s great you have this heart despite all this disHEARTenment
I should be flattered. Humbled. Grateful. Happy I’m still here.
I should be touched and say something like “look, a single tear”
Your drive to keep on keeping on through wind and sleet and hail
Your drive to keep on striving even though you mostly fail
Isn’t noble. That’s the meat. The animal in you.
Any living thing with drives can do what you can do.
The thing that differs you from pets is you can speak your mind
That’s half the gift I gave to you and all of humankind
The other half of my great gift is that you all can listen
And that’s the half that’s disappeared. That’s the half that’s missin’.
These days when I listen in to everything you say
It’s just a sea of noisy garbage day by day by day
So know that I’m returning here to tell you all fuck you
You’re messing up by dumbing down and failing to be true
To language and communication. You lack the words I gave.
You’re weakened by your laziness. You’re all too dense to save.
For I’m a co-op god, you see. You have to help yourselves.
And if you can’t I’ll wipe you out like I killed all the elves
You may have noticed Earth’s more hot. Midgard’s getting warm.
And now I’m bringing down to you a deadly perfect storm
Fifty Noah’s Arks will fail and all inside will die
I’ll plug my ears to all your screams and I’ll turn a blind eye
Cause I’m the god of words and words are dying, so it seems
With snapchat, facebook, instagrams, and tweets, and sharing memes
I’ve talked the talk. It’s what I do. So now I’ll walk the walk.
Now that you’re all stupid here, I’m starting Ragnarok.
The third day of the week is Odin’s day. It’s named that way
Cause I can be, as you can see, a real C U Next Wednesday
In the land where all are blind, the one eyed man is king.
So smiley face, emoji this, I’m ROTFLing

tags

“A consequence of being tall,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “is that you look down on everyone.”

The people around the boardroom table laughed robotically at the manager’s witticism, obsequious and talented operatives that they were. A rare and valuable combination in minions.

She was the tallest person in the room. Sarah “Twine” Shin, primary shareholder and executrix of company policy for Wolf, Paper and Twine, Inc. Very thin with eyes that were just a little too large, a little too piercing. The tips of her ears were hidden by her hair.

Mostly human.

In this board room were the movers and shakers of the world. They were organizing Ragnarok.

Toren “Paper” Porelli stood in the back corner of the boardroom beside the whiteboard. The room darkened where he stood in what looked like a natural way unless you looked closely. A photographer would notice that he was surrounded by dull shadows that were not being thrown by anything in the room.

“Paper” Porelli wore sunglasses and he was smiling. He never stopped smiling. His teeth were dry from the grinning. Him and his suit looked like they were folded out of origami. Thin and pointed.

Paper was the spirit of commerce and bureaucracy that pulsed deep with the snake’s belly of the building. Paper Porelli cut down trees to make paper on which to write orders for more trees to be cut down and turned into paper. He made money by letting his money make money. He was a magician with stocks, files, bonds, records, paper trails, and data mines.

The other ten people owned the world. There were no faces that the public would recognize. There were no Bill Gates or Sultans here. People like that were of no consequence to this room. They were seven men and three women, all wearing suits. None of them could be considered attractive or memorable.

They had all dealt with Paper and Twine in shady corners of the soul. Trades that no sane mortals would consider had changed hands. Packaging the world, they said, for no tomorrow. They all ran Wolf, Paper and Twine, Inc. but it was Paper and Twine that called the shots. They had a plan to free “Wolf”

"Wolf" was chained at the center of the world. He waited for the others to attain enough power to let him out to eat the sun. It was nearly time.

tags

This is a playground.

Ganesh and Shiva are skateboarding, sporting ripped jeans and body piercings as they carom around the swells and hollows of the concrete park.

Ganesh’s skateboard is strong enough to support his weight and wide enough to support his feet. It’s a monster-truck version of an ironing board. He goes up off the lip of the park’s rim, supporting his weight on one tusk for a time-stretching second before arcing back to earth.

Shiva gathers speed down into the valley before pumping into the vertical that leads straight up into summer afternoon sky. Her wallet chain scrapes the concrete. A shower of sparks chases her up out of the park into the air.

She hangs there for a second, all of her arms splayed out like an asterisk, like DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing come to life, like a throwing star, before gravity coaxes her back down the well.

She’s quick at getting the board back under her taloned feet before meeting the wall again in a speed-ridden kiss. Her sandals hold on tight to the turns she’s taking. She stretched out the armholes of the wife-beater she’s wearing to be wide enough for all of her arms. Her handplants are a staccato triple-slap that echo around the park.

She turns a many-spoked cartwheel that would make a bicycle tire jealous.

Ganesh’s hoodie flaps in the wind as he punishes the bounds with which gravity shackles him. Momentum becomes his ally as he crashes into turns with the sound of a locomotive turning into a roller coaster. He trumpets his joy through his trunk as he leans low.

On his grey-blue skin, three tattooed tears creep out from behind his Oakleys. The dozens of hoops he has through each of his massive ears ring like jingle bells in the wind. Graffiti wraps each thick tusk. Tags from friends. They’re like ‘get well’ scribbles on a cast only these ones say ‘get better’ and they never go away. They’re there in front of him all day, every day, telling him to keep going.

The tattooed tears say that it’s hard, mama. It’s hard.

They both have tribal whorls, celtic curls, and ancient symbols wrapped in ink around their bodies. These tattoos embrace them in the symbols of their new culture.

Jesus sits back from the edge, an orange beard on his chin. He smokes, sitting on an amp, the elbows fraying on his loose, green cardigan. He’s Kurt Cobain come back to watch.

Bast is beside him, boobs swollen with implants, thong rising high out of tight and fraying jeans; a porn hopeful. Her giant eyes trace every movement of the skaters. Her ears swivel like radar dishes, seeking out the sounds of tiny prey.

Mohammed is beside them, rocking the IPod, listening to the old Beasties concept album about 911 and nodding his head.

These three and dozens of others ring the lip of the park, waiting for their turn to skate or just congregating to watch because there’s nothing else to do on a school day.

tags

The Satanistas are chasing me through the ruins of Mexico City. My filter mask is making noises like it’s going to stop working soon if I don’t stop breathing so hard. I’m wearing a bright blue double breasted suit and a white shirt. I have a bright blue leather tie on that’s flapping back over my shoulder as I sprint arms pumping down the alleys of what used to be the biggest city on earth before the bitch woke up. What I’m thinking is that I haven’t dressed to stick to the shadows here in the four am darkness. The emp took out every generator the earth had ten years ago forcing the other colonies on the moon and mars and venus to become self sufficient years ahead of schedule. Venus didn’t work out. Mars is behind the Red Shield so no one knows what’s going on there. Weapons are trained on it but really, if they’re hostile then we’re fucked.
So that means that by now you’ve probably guessed that I’m a moon man. This gravity is killing me. I’m trying to get to the drop spot but in the absence of electronics the instructions were written on a piece of paper. Trying to read where I’m going while looking for street signs in a dark haunted deadpolis isn’t really working. I’m lost. The Satanistas and their snuffling hunters, The Stickmen, are gaining.
I tag the walls with human scent the best I can. Nothing high tech about this at all. Prisoners escaping from jails in decades gone by probably did the exact same thing to fool the dogs before doubling back and finding a river to cross.
Except I’m not being chased by dogs.
And there are no rivers left in Mexico City.
The stickmen look like Skellingtons with squishy cue ball heads marred by distended nasal slits on the front. The bottom half hinges open on a crispy venom-filled collection of needleteeth.
The Satanistas are the women guards. The archangels of the Quetzocoatls. Their long tongues can barber-pole the flesh off of a person’s limbs.
I try not to think about that and stab at the yellow button on my necklace and will the small battery to work through the magnigic storms. Come get me. Come get me. Come get me. Was that an engine in the distance? Did they lower a hook?
I run towards the sound of possible rescue and think about what brought me here.

The sinternet started as a singles network bulletin board through William Tell’s ‘Tellovision’ sets in the early thirties. It grew exponentially through the students. The messages of the thirties, of “learn in, learn on, and lean out” were broadcast wide. The thirties had a television station of the people’s voice. It was a vocal interchange and global video phone that anyone could use and post to. It spread to other countries. Globally, it erased most of the borders in fifteen short years. It didn’t bring peace but cross pollination of cultures began. Like ants eating flags.
The ships went out. The Moon started up peacefully. Mars did okay. Venus had its work cut out for it with that crazy atmosphere. Titan was planned. The age of Libra was starting.
The net woke up and gained sentience. It was a moody child. It told lies. It knew all our secrets. It started wars. To blame the net was akin to blaming the toaster in the kitchen. It took us too long to realize what was going on.
Mother Earth, as it called herself in a world wide public address two days before the Ending, tried to kill us. She succeeded on Earth. We colonials killed her right back a year later by harnessing a comet and sending it close to earth. The tail painted Mother Earth and razed her poles. A planet wide EMP scoured the earth. She went dark. A blind cat’s eye among agates, blinking in astonishment.
Then the demons woke in South America and quickly shook their brothers and sisters awake across the world. The humans are gone, they said to each other. Let’s party.
That was ten years ago.
The year is 1978.

I came down to make a deal. They said no and laughed and started a countdown. I asked what the countdown was about and they laughed harder. I started running. I’m scared now and I want to leave. I want to get back to the safety of the moon where my clothes are in fashion and I can finish forty flips before hitting the water. The Moon where I'm graceful and not panting in a body that weighs hundreds of pounds. I drag my dense meat forward making too much noise and running out of air. I run towards the sound of possible rescue.

tag

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: crawling on the bottom of the swimming pool
Current Music: Ani Difranco - Little War

There is a day once a year that the three fates look forward to.
The three fates, you ask? You may not have heard.
There are three women. They each have a shape.
One is young and comely. The blossom of youth.
One is middle aged. Practical and knowledgeable.
One is old. A bit on the crazy side but very, very wise. The Crone.
These three women weave the tapestry of destiny.
They are the spider. They have the power to end threads.
Do they just record or do they innovate? No one knows.
But once a year. Once a year.
Once a year these fine ladies get to put down their sewing and do something that keeps them centered.
They all get to become the same age.
The first year, they all become sixteen for a day.
The second year, they all become 38 for a day.
The last year, they all become 82 for a day.
And then it starts all over.
It’s the little annual window into each other’s life that keeps them centered and knowledgeable about what the other woman’s mind set is and what they feel like in that body. It’s the mix of their outlooks that results in the harmony.
Next week it’s time to be sixteen again.
They will take the day off and sit on a beach in Waikiki and give beauty pageant trophies to each other, laughing and laughing.

DNA

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: in the underground lair
Current Music: Love theme from Flash Gordon