Ancamna

Forgive me as death comes, Goddess,
For I have done wrong and unless
I have your protection, I'm lost;
I need always your forgiveness.

I can now sense death's warm nearness,
So it is time that I confess:
I have done so many things wrong,
I have not always been blameless.

Once I hurt a child; more, not less,
I have lied, I have stolen; bless
Me, mother, for I will still sin
Before I die, I am excess.

I am responsible, distress
Is what I have given - express
No shock that I am guilty of
All that I finally express.

I turn to you, our protectress,
My wrongs I seek to now redress,
Before I die or in my next life
Let me undo, never regress.

Abnoba

River bursting out, damp splashing, coursing
down from mountains falling, hunting the sea;
living Goddess pulsing forward towards
the telos, the cause and the effect, bring
all of us into being, returning
us back again whence we came, from the sea
which gave our birthing, to the sea again
for our dying. We are yours when living,
and we are yours after. There is no in
betweening, we are always yours, always.

Alaisiagae

I call to thee for protection,
dispatching terrors,
wet with battle-sweat,
all-victorious,
eagle-feeders.
Guard my family and me,
black singers,
blood-ember wielders,
holders of the light of battle,
senders of war needles.
Turn back my oppressors,
fellers of the life web,
wearers of bear shirts,
shield-gnawers,
sisters of battle.
Thwart my enemies,
makers of spear-din,
you who give the sleep of the sword,
who impart the flame-farewell,
whose works call the swan of blood.
I praise your aid,
ladies of the blood-worm,
of the wound-hoe,
of the leek of battle,
of the weather of weapons.

Buy My Fourth Book of Poetry

My new book of poetry A Few Principles of Dream Logic is now available on Amazon as Kindle eBook and paperback. The cover is my painting "Windowpain," one of my personal favorites out of the hundreds of artworks I've created so far.

The blurb: "The fourth book of Gwenhwyfar Rhwwttchen's poetry explores our nightly inner worlds and what she calls 'dream logic,' the rhyme and reason of dreaming which seems to lack logic entirely. Rhwwttchen offers a careful mixture of free and fixed verse in ten chapters ranging from principles, corollaries, and axioms to the dream world itself. Each chapter contains fifteen distinct poetic formulations of dreams and concepts related to dreams, including title poems. Here Rhwwttchen studies symbolism, mythology, alchemy, Jungian archetypes, Freudian wish-fulfillment, dream yoga, divination, and omens. Look for a sonnet redouble, rhyming couplets, tercets, quatrains, waka, blank verse, and what Rhwwttchen calls 'open meter,' which rhymes and where meter is unfettered by convention."

Ayizan

Lwa, Loa,
first Priestess, first Mambo,
Initiatrix in a white dress,
may She bless
all who go
to market, who hem and haw
over the prices of the bourgeois,
pockets deep to give to those who have less.
Saint Clare, gently grow
our compassion and press
us to help those whose raw
wounds and mess
come from those who oppress:
the old, the rich, the strong, the spouse, the status quo
and impress
us with the need to help the young, the poor, the weak, those in woe.
She will possess
gently, quietly, in kanzo,
never violent, never raw;
Her open palm hides no claw,
even in age She shows no flaw,
nearer to Her let us draw.
Earth and oil and frond of palm, to those who know
Her mysteries will show;
the rest of us can only guess.

Autumna

Autumn comes on fiercely when love dies aborning;
The harvest goddess is colder in the morning;
Though warm enough midday, nights bring us her warning:
Store harvest for winter.

But let us not for summer be ever mourning,
Nor the flowers grieve when bushes are now thorning;
Much is to be had from the fruiting and corning -
Be steady, no sprinter.

Nor should we the long, cold, dark nights to be scorning,
For the trees will soon find frost and snow their adorning,
And these replaced with buds and blossoms in horning;
Change is but a splinter.