Ragnarok

artwork by george wright

Ragnarok

“I existed from all eternity, and behold I am here, and shall be

to the end of time, for my being has no end.”

--Kahill Gibran.

It reappears like gestures-obscene written

in invisible-ink, always after we become

tumult-tired of our gods & lords,

our bile-bankers,

our philosopher-kings,

the piety-privileged;

final-fatigued by temple-promises,

dream-hollows, mandate-mangling,

we have the clarion-dawning, 

& find ourselves wonder-willing

to topple the gold-tables of the greed-hungry

money-changers, after nausea-waves

lead us to nothing-worship.

Perhaps the dust-prophesies,

myth-misinterpretations of antiquity

were not really folly-misinformation,

perhaps the chaos-blossoms surging up

in this moment-presence in each hidden

corner-crumble of this planet, though

most certainly not fresh-budding,

are truly the blood-flowers heralding

that the age-of-axes has returned,

with its peace-destroy, hope-cleaving

buzz-saw at full-rev, because

it does not require angel-eyes

to witness 

children murdering their parents,

mothers killing their infants, 

as incest-waves sin-swirl,

brothers slaying brothers,

street thugees wilding-gone,

border-blindness, sect turning

upon sect, country upon country,

& sadness-worse, upon

its own people;

for most of us lip-serve consent

& knowledge-accept that the oceans

are rise-rapid, that the sea itself

is dying from garbage-ingestion--

soon, too soon I fear,

we will force-hear the hoot-horrible

of Heimdall blowing taps on the blood-brass

of the Gjallarhorn, as mythos-Norse

performs an ice-blood encore, 

& the Gotterdammerung  will lion-leap

upon us again, & the dream-twilighting

will suffer terminal day-loss, where

no one will be solid-safe, as madness

dark-devours our mind’s-eye,

and the armies-many will become two,

before massing-murderous on the divers-deathly,

eternal-vast fields of Vigrid--

where the mingled-white Aesir will be led

by Odin, one-eyed, wolf-flanked, raven-hovered,

thrusting his god-spear Gungnir toward

the Armies-Evil led by Loki, monarch death-fist,

who will gladly unleash the Frost Giants

& Mountain-Trolls of Jotunheim,

the hell-hound called Garm,

the tenfold-terrible serpent of Midgard,

flanked-fierce by the Fire-Giants led by Surt,

spilling magma-scald out of Muspelheim, 

before sending the dragon-dun Nidhogg

to hunger-knaw at the root-sacred bones

of the indispensable Yggrasill;

God-demise will bubble-burst wound-open

like fruit-rot--Odin will be alive-swallowed

by the great were-wolf Fenrir, 

mighty Thor swinging-savage his war-hammer

would ultimately kill the serpent-humungous 

Jormungandr, but even he would hero-stagger

those nine-steps before poison-perishing,

just as Surt sets the entire world ablaze

with his flame-sword as the earth

in panic-recoil endeavors to sink back

into the sea to extinguish its anguish-blue,

as the burning heavens split open

and the insect-people scurry from their homes,

the dim dwarves stand weeping at their stone doors,

the sun turns ashen-black, and every land mass

silent-sinks into the sea-maw, creating

steam-clouds that hiss-holy as they quell

the flame-prodigy that had been sin-licking

the tendrils-tender of Heaven’s-Gate. 

Yet, even yet, as the pulpy-prophets

& the high-holy dead-scroll texts espouse,

ALL will not, cannot be forever-lost,

for as a species we survived the Great Flood,

the sinking of Atlantis, the loss of Lemuria,

& the Ice-Age, so even after Ragnarok

new-life will triumphant-rise out of the 

gestation-boiling womb-wetness of the

oceans-anew,

and as planned, 

the survivors-two, whether

Lif & Lifpucir,

Eve & Adam, or

Sid & Nancy,

will repopulate the Earth-clone,

& their descendants will enjoy a new era,

a full century of peace,

where gods & men will live

without wickedness,

all of them dreaming the impossible dream,

attaining the unachievable--

or not. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

Would you like to hear the author reading this Kenning Poem to you?