"hecate" poems
Published in The Quill on November 19, 2014:
http://www.amazon.com/Quill-Fall-2014-ebook/dp/B00PNVT6PG
...
On being overweight (whatever that means)
Even if you were the moon, they would complain about how much space you took up in the sky, how you were too bright, wanted too much from the stars, demanded more light than the others.
And when you shifted, from waning to full to waxing to waning, they would remind you of how instable you were, how much of a hassle it was to keep track of your instability, your need for attention. Have you tried to be a vegan yet? All the stars are doing it.
You have tried. In fact, last week was your third try – an attempt, they call it – not enough, they emphasize, try again, they say this as if it is encouragement.
That’s when you found them - the celestial crescent, the earthshine, the perilune, how the lacus are lakes without lakes, why the Gibbous is brighter either way, especially during conjunction – all strung together in pearls.
You are a full the night you return.
As you reflect off the lake, you see Selene, Hecate, Mani, Tsukuyomi, Iah, and Thoth. You tell the stars to look, to breathe your reflection, to succumb to the glow and the beauty of it all, that you are not alone—
They laugh.
Say how historical that is, how out-of-touch you are, how myths aren’t mirrors, how you - you are not a mystery at all.
But when you died – if you died – (we still do not know) - they do not wonder where you went. They spin, spin, spin the entire night home, only once confessing to how empty the sky is without your shine.
But every night they burn.
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 4:03 PM UTC
O singer of Persephone!
In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still through the ivy flits the bee
Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O Singer of Persephone!
Simaetha calls on Hecate
And hears the wild dogs at the gate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still by the light and laughing sea
Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate;
O Singer of Persephone!
And still in boyish rivalry
Young Daphnis challenges his mate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
For thee the jocund shepherds wait;
O Singer of Persephone!
Dost thou remember Sicily?
9.5k
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be moved for days from whence it sometime fell,
When last the winds of heaven were unbound.
Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vexed and tired,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody,—
Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs choired!
4.7k
Arrive in a neighborhood not mine.
Phoenix sun splits the mailboxes,
Cracked cement, bald lawns, deflated kiddie pools,
sippy cups gone brittle in the sun.
A toddler screams
until a sibling gathers him inside.
Helios whips his chariot down the street,
steals my parking space.
White Shell Woman hushes the child
with a wind of cool dust.
I buy
donuts, Cheetos, pickles-
eat them in the car.
Gas station sink, hair and grit.
I scrub off orange powder.
Kokopelli swings from the paper towel rack,
flicking drops of water onto my face,
flirting, laughing at my small hungers.
Cemetery, sitting on the hood.
Graves hum in the heat.
Yours more-so.
Hecate steps from the shadow of a mesquite,
offers me three paths,
none of them home.
Coyote pads along the stone wall,
head cocked, grin sharp,
watching my pulse quicken.
White Shell Woman whispers:
_Run._
The blood in me stirs-
knife-bright, restless.
I step off the hood,
already fleeing toward
any other life.
Aug 2, 2025
Aug 2, 2025 at 12:44 PM UTC
I drown
and glimpse Poseidon's kingdom
I fall
and I am lifted by the winds of Anemoi
My heart looks into
medusa eyes
And I run freely about the lair of Eris
I clutch the moon
in the wake of Hecate
as the war is waged against
Selene's solar bounty
Lethe guides my hand into ignorance
Ponos holds my head high
in the face of my deepest fear
Theia bares Eos to me
and I offer the reddest rose
for she is the light
that lets Helios reign
Feb 16, 2019
Feb 16, 2019 at 9:36 AM UTC
By those soft tods of wool
With which the air is full;
By all those tinctures there,
That paint the hemisphere;
By dews and drizzling rain
That swell the golden grain;
By all those sweets that be
I’ the flowery nunnery;
By silent nights, and the
Three forms of Hecate;
By all aspects that bless
The sober sorceress,
While juice she strains, and pith
To make her philters with;
By time that hastens on
Things to perfection;
And by yourself, the best
Conjurement of the rest:
O my Electra! be
In love with none but me.
2.8k
Hecate,
When I was off and gone world weary
Weeping sorrowful in winter
I called on you to help and spare me sorrow.
Now that it is spring, it is now
My duty,
Sweet, sweet magical maiden fair
To grant you help in all you seek.
For you, master of magic, mistress of mythos
Can not fathom that which is the greatest magic,
The one within even mere mortals.
Love, Hecate. Love.
I know that I am one to talk,
Having broken free of the shackles that were formerly Hera’s,
But you, sweet Hecate, must not be mistaken as we are.
In your eyes sits the light of a thousand suns, burning with joy and potential to be,
You cannot subject yourself to these mortal pains, these mortal errors,
These wounds of the flesh as he does.
For he will lead you down a path rarely survived,
Rarely survived truly,
He will walk you into depths of sorrow,
Your own Hades, sweet Hecate.
He will lead you to question the very meaning of yourself,
The very essence of who it is that you are.
You are stronger than a mortal,
As any oracle will tell you,
As any of my court will attest.
He maintains such a level of power over you
That he makes fools of gods and spares no souls,
He has taken you for something silly and of that nature too.
But Hecate, you know this, a spell of love is just a spell
And so driven are you like Apollo before you, so driven with love
That you’ll cast it.
It is not yours to cast, that is Eros’ part and doing so would cause the world to shift out of balance.
But you will do it anyway, Hecate, for I know you well.
I shall leave you with this, and this truly,
Bad things happen to mortals who mess with gods.
-Persephone.
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 6:56 PM UTC
I may be alone but I'm not lonely.
I'm listening to my own noise
while walking ahead.
I'm not lost.
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 4:45 AM UTC
I felt my world come crashing in.
All of your lies were paper thin.
Why did you have to go
And break my heart?
There is a full moon in the sky
Bigger than the hurt you left inside.
Luna, she knows
I was a fool for you.
I know it shouldn't be a shame,
That I have loved your life in vain.
You could never have been true,
No matter how close I kept you to me.
Your heart's been shattered like a vase.
The pieces, like tile, were mortered
back into place.
The slivers of your pain,
Like a window of glass stained.
Fragmented, and frail,
Contagious and strong,
Lacking conviction,
Can't help but be wrong.
Mosaic love,
You've turned your back on me.
Now I'm to blind to see
Just what I've got to do
To get myself over you.
I felt my world come crashing in.
All of your lies were paper thin.
Why did you have to go
And break my heart, again?
Hecate knows that I've been strong.
I should have seen it all along.
We were destined to fail in -
To each other's orbit.
How in the world will I
Get by with this lowly high?
Diana knows
All your changing faces,
Are a puzzle in the dark.
Mosaic love,
You've turned your back on me.
Now I'm to blind to see
Just what I've got to do
To get myself over you.
This is what it is to love,
And be loved,
By someone with a broken heart.
Never to complete,
The cycle does repeat,
Like a beam of moonlight
In a cathedral panel -
Night after night,
Night after night,
Night after night,
Night after night,
Never again to know
A day without a thought of you.
Mosaic love,
You've turned your back on me.
Now I'm to blind to see
Just what I've got to do
To get myself over you.
I felt my world come crashing in.
All of your lies were paper thin.
Why did you have to go
And break my heart, again?
Mosaic love,
You've turned your back on me.
Now I'm to blind to see
Just what I've got to do
To get myself over you.
This is what it is to love,
And be loved,
By someone with a broken heart.
Mosaic love,
You've turned your back on me.
Now I'm to blind to see
Just what I've got to do
To get myself over you.
Never again to know
A day without a thought of you...
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 1:09 AM UTC
When you have met the point of intersection where doubt doesn't exist in the mind
And you have left evil eye and imprints of the dead at the center point
At the moment that the high self is just slightly altered and the total manifestation begins to trickle down into the autonomic functions of the ego
It begins an infantile form of self forgiveness that is void of nested spaces that house an association to the systematic map of words and actions that held trial and judgement
Somewhere in the particular dimension Hecate facilitated the depths of soul to be worn about the outer rims of the aura while fastened securely to the glow of high heart chakra
And the soul can depict the source form energy peering into its center with white eyes
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 9:52 PM UTC
Wild spirit
dancing under
Moonlit sky
bathing in
Her nocturnal
essence
Artemis
Diana
Hecate
Shadow twisting
around the fire
kissing
naked skin
toes skimming
in exultation
Maiden
Mother
Crone
...
Jul 13, 2020
Jul 13, 2020 at 12:18 AM UTC
Dear porcelain, would I were perfect as you art,
Not in dull translucence do you shine,
Gleaming brilliance cloaked yet unmarred,
Mirror mirror of conscious dreams of mine.
The distant chime, chime of deathly knells,
Of shattered pebbles down scented lunar peaks,
Of soft crystal frost into the veil they fell,
Let my masks abscond, leaving eyelids weak.
Such sweet ache plagues my nightly mares,
Loveless lone splendor beneath blacken skies,
Nap 'tween the orchards ripe with pears,
Awakenings torn asunder the happy lies.
Sail-less ketch off candle-lit cavern shores,
Colossal etched symbols of Hecate's spells,
Till desire and woe to oblivion they soar,
Will gladly blunder through all seven Hells.
Absent from day's eye are the auric beams,
Silent be the hymn from above, off-tune flutes,
In motion I stand in fear of reluctant dreams,
Wounded peregrine looking at the open blues.
Oct 10, 2010
Oct 10, 2010 at 3:01 PM UTC
We crossed into Louisiana
Right about witching hour
The energy there
Invades the aura
Years of compacted sorrow
Combined with the
Old ways of root doctors
And esoteric power
You take the Hoodoo
To the crossroads
We're in the back roads
Of Monroe
They talk to you there
Ya know
I put my bare feet
To the swampy grasses
At the railroad tracks
Illuminated by the waxing moon
Hail Hecate!
We envoke thee
Commit this wax and ash
To the earth
Blessed be )0(
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 8:29 PM UTC
the driven snow is driven bleak
and swirls of ghastly gorgeous
swoon in the nubile gossamers
of undulating mist.
she is completely mad.
thought she saw a cat
perched in a quails beak...
singing cordial grimms
in a hologram
of dead love.
what are those petals in the iris
of infinity ? are they her soft hands, or papyrus ?
a sheet of hot winters, crinkling in the twilight
smelling of whale song and apple sauce,
her hair in a braid
of ravens.
Jul 30, 2015
Jul 30, 2015 at 5:57 PM UTC
1. Hecate the great,
A being of magical
Origin. She’ll make
Your crossroads feel clear again,
A kind of sweet sorcery.
2. Guru of healing,
Darling Gula, patron of
The Sumerian
Followers. Nurturing
And motherly, her embrace.
3. Goddess of the pen,
The brain, the stars, all in one.
Nibida reads the
Stars and writes the story to
Keep it immortal and free
Aug 16, 2019
Aug 16, 2019 at 1:11 AM UTC
I. Persephone
Naive girls don't make good lovers
but I will sink into the comfort
of your clementine lips, grazing,
staking claim on my skin —
an offering to your kisses made of molten lead,
oh, how surely, how gently they trail,
like a river following its memory lane.
And yet, I have apologies etched on my skin;
I am a poem that bruises quickly
like petals on the soil.
So much for being the goddess of spring
when all I have are wildflowers
and moans scattered on the sheets of the dusk.
We know naive girls don't make good lovers
so cast me, Hecate, into firelight
where all your daughters burned.
Strip me of this sundress;
my chest was half of Demeter's softness
and half of the underworld's wrath.
And yet, I, too, am made of papercuts
forged to look like carmellia buds
lost and slow dancing in broad daylight,
your hands on my waist —
a quiet breath,
a delicate touch:
such curious ways of coming home.
Naive girls, they don't make good lovers
but I will pick you stray sunlights and goldenrods —
leave them by your bed;
these sheets know that
I belong to no throne.
I belong to no man.
And they say that naive girls don't make good lovers,
but only just;
darling, your walls are an eyewitness
to your gaze and my corruption.
So much for innocence
now neck-deep in mildew and anomalies.
So much for springtime,
its fields, now made
for us coming undone.
And so much for winter, darling —
so much for winter.
It may never come.
Feb 2, 2020
Feb 2, 2020 at 8:10 AM UTC
There is a girl who goes here
who looks just like you
i'm so sorry i didn't come to watch you go
are you now back to watch me through school?
oh hecate, have mercy upon me
and shield me from this bewitchment!
or at least lend her kindness
like she had in this last life
i was too weak to go!
and you too kind to deserve me!
oh please, forgive me
i'm begging you
forgive me
forgive me
forgive me
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 12:37 AM UTC
wild woman
hold me in your claws
tear my heart out
let me bleed for you
show me what happens
when i fancy myself a poet
Oct 7, 2016
Oct 7, 2016 at 10:19 PM UTC
Love, Love, is like a dove,
Its like a treasure from above,
Hate, Hate, is such a debate,
Its like a curse from Hecate,
Lust, Lust, it turns us to dust
Its like we feel robust.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 5:16 PM UTC
I feel the old gods in me breathe.
Subtle hands, contracting intercostals,
feminine fingers that scream and wail when I let men with ill intent come near me -
feminine fingers that announce themselves as Athena, Diana.
Do you have a legacy?
I feel Nefertiti, Osiris, Iris, clench their fists in my gut when I cry in my sleep and wake up angry -
Hecate spits and twitches her paws when my undulating heart lacks the oil that flourished during her reign.
Wings over me, the contorted body of Nike. Protective but irate.
A shout, and a burst blood vessel in the corner of my eye -
by the aging moon this tumult of Dido's wild ichor inside me grows...
Have you ever used your voice?
Athena's words in my head telling me to scream -
Roar of the old gods telling me to run -
Their tongues in the sand and in the grass blades.
Child of flesh and hard times.
An unknown voice from the mouth of my mother commands me - 'take firm grasp of the magic within you'
Perhaps I am too afraid to reply.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 1:11 PM UTC
In this day and age if you are different
If you have longer hair and brighter eyes
If you have learned the math of the universe and understand the way nature works
If you have mastered ways to make life bend to your will
If you know how to listen to the vibration of the earth and march to the beat of a different drummer
You are called a witch
And you are judged and persecuted not physically but emotionally
Women hate you and men fear you
Had you been alive centuries ago you would have been burned at the stake
The memory, the anger lives on
But there is no prouder legacy
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 1:46 PM UTC
She is heralded by
the barking of dogs ,
the triple moon goddess
Hecate , Diana or Lucina .
☆
She wanders the Night ,
the crossroads
three ,
resplendent in moonlight ,
she is keeper of the keys .
☆
In time of Dark Moon ,
through secret doorway ,
protected by
wolves ,
she walks with the dead ,
☆
She wanders the Night .
Sep 20, 2024
Sep 20, 2024 at 7:17 PM UTC
A cold and shackled figure,
Hardly a husk of what once would be,
In the mirror it reflects a creature,
No human would ever care to see.
So distant from all other life,
The isolation has become a defense,
From the twisted world of the living,
So filled with overwhelming strife.
Standing solemn, eyes cast to the dirt,
Shackles secured firmly to the rock,
The birds surround his prison to mock,
The exiled being, and his surrender to suffering.
Alas, with frantic flapping they depart,
A gentle hand presses to the imprisoned heart,
The chains turn to sand and drop him free,
Eyes gazing up to his savior to be.
With stars for eyes, and the cosmos for hair,
How did his troubles turn her to care,
As she came down from her heavenly realm,
To bless such a meager, humble life?
He rose to his feet and without thought, mirrored her,
His hand, to her heart,
"This heart is yours, and yours to keep,
Hold it ever close and find love, limitless and deep."
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019 at 4:44 PM UTC