Monday, August 10, 2009

I and Ragnarok

Read Write Poem's prompt this week is to repeatedly use a vowel. The technical term for this is assonance. I thought it would make an interestingly non-traditional vehicle for a look at Norse mythology: Norse/Germanic/Old English poetry used a lot of alliteration, but strictly based on consonants.

This poem also borrows elements of villanelle structure.

Ragnarok, the Norse end-time,
when gods and giants meet to fight
is equal parts of ice and fire.

As when two continents collide
and crumpled edges slowly rise
to mountains tipped with ageless ice

or are forced down, out of the light
to join the mantle's molten tides
that feed volcanoes spewing fire.

Or comets, in elliptic flight
through frozen trans-Plutonic night
slow-spinning balls of dirty ice

are drawn, like moths to something bright,
down, sunward: frozen flesh sublimes
with every kiss of solar fire.

A slow, but world-reshaping strife,
a sudden shock of comet-strike,
or mythic battles ending life?
New lands rise in fire and ice.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

7 comments:

poefusion said...

What an interesting prompt and you've brought it to life with the Norse mythology. Well done.

Anonymous said...

"frozen flesh sublimes with every kiss of solar fire"

I love that.
Like how you handled the prompt.

Tamra said...

Such a stately cadence to this poem. I like it!

D said...

Tiel, I believe this is one of the finest pieces of your work I have read. I love the melding of myth with the tyrants of geologic cataclysm. Thanks, good piece.

Anonymous said...

I love how your villanelle flows so easily and doesn't get hung up on it's end stops.

udernation said...

I love this :). I can't even pick out one phrase I prefer. Full of gorgeous imagery, and it's perfectly timed. I imagine it must have taken a lot of fine tuning.

Wayne Pitchko said...

im a dummie re norse mythology...but this is well written as usual