Fenrir - A Poem

make of it what you will

Where do poems come from? Well you see, when a man and a woman love each other very, very much . . .

When it comes to writing poetry, I usually begin with a single line or image, something that gets stuck in my brain and won’t leave. This poem began with the image of the great shaggy cloak. I thought to myself that sometimes I can wear my sadness like that.

I am often drawn to the myths. Writing that is personal has a way of bleeding out into something more universal (or is it the other way around?) and sometimes without really meaning to, I’ll find myself wandering up the steps of Olympus, or into the hall of some musty god. My last poem, getting eden, began as a meditation on death and, as I wrote, took on a new shape, dipping its toes into biblical waters. That was Genesis, this is more Ragnarok. The alpha and the omega, as it were. Fenrir, the monstrous wolf of Norse mythology, devours the sun and Odin along with it, and I liked how this image unfolded in my mind. This werewolf transformation breathing fire into something so cold and lifeless.

But enough rambling. Here’s the poem.

Fenrir ~ by erik kain

Wake up from the sinister
black spider dream, heartsick,
a terrible empty
dull fever ache
like vines in my chest
thorny fingers 
rooting around my lungs
bones in my throat
sleep in my eyes.

The fire’s withered down
to an emberous nest
I should leave the cabin
put on my boots
there is nothing but sorrow
in the cupboards
nothing but memory
in the timber and
smoke in my eyes.

From the window
a panorama of space
earth and sky entwined,
snake eating snake
a vast plain huddled beneath
a heaving hungry storm
lightning drags its 
fingers across the chalkboard horizon
scraping thunder from the dirt.

I stop at the door, take up
the walking stick, gather
the great shaggy wolf cloak
around my shoulders
grey as stone and warm
as pity
wrap myself in
willowbark
and dogwood

Set out for the treeline. 
Alone.

I've walked this path before
past the woodshed
where the spiderwebs grow
someone has carved runes
of woe into the gate.

I remember leaving.
ash in my teeth
bound in fur and shadow 
and blood
hoary and ancient
smelling of sickness
like wet dog and licorice.

But this time the beast
is still alive
it whispers secret incantations
in my ears
old wolves’ tales
that curl and billow
like roiling black fog

I can feel its hot breath on my cheek
and the ruinous
sludge beneath my feet.

Come now, old friend,
lope beside me
across the steppe
toward the wild 
tangle of oak and briar
and flame
the sky is a black
tinfoil carapace.

In the distance, wolves
howl under a fallow moon
and we howl back
crouched now on all fours
we burst, bloodthirsty,
through pasture and prairie.

Artificial stars
blink and scatter
like startled constellations
as we pass.

And somewhere in the night air
on a high hill
the old one-eyed man
grins out from beneath his hood
and waits for us there.

---

Thanks for reading.