Poetry SLAM

Modesto's "SLAM on Rye" is a competitive poetry event held on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at Modesto'd Prospect Theater. Tonight I read there. I did not make the final round, but that is ok. One of the truisms of SLAM poetry is that it is not about the points, but about the poetry. My friend Susanne did make the second round, check her out at http://radooni.blogspot.com/ anyway, the following is the poem I read for the competition.

Seasons of the Cup and the Well:

The world turns and I wake hungry In the Spring, From a deep well inside me, never empty for long,
I fill the cups of Mother, Maiden, and Lady. And I drink from such cups Metaphorically and actually

But it has been long, too long since I found a chalice worthy of spilling, spilling over and over again
and the well is full to overflowing, so I seek the Goddess where I may in the Spring of the Year.

The well overflows with pure spring water, soaking the ground around it and I cry, cry in the wilderness under her moon—under her moon in the spring of the year—I shout her name in the night.

I wear the horns of the Hunter as I dance by the well under her stars—the stars that are her children—
I dance to the drums and pipes of people long dead, and people yet to come, and I crave...

I crave the blessings of the Mother and the Maid, yes, I hunger even for the caresses of the Dark Lady, the Lady of Ravens, though she fills me with dread. Her echoing, cold silences souls sent too soon to the sumerlands again and I know that my time is coming when I am with her.

Yet the well empties itself over the hills and streams, pours down into the valleys in the ripe Spring
and nourishes the moist and fruitful earth that belongs to her, that is Her, and I sing.

I sing of the hidden valleys and the ripe hills as her cup fills to overflowing in the Spring. I sing of even the jagged mountains that are her temper made stone, for I am the Storm Lord and I can still her rages.

I still her rages with that clean water as it runs down, down the hills into the deep valleys and fills her cup so the world is reborn through love, and worship, and endless rebirths of pleasure in the Spring.

Still the world turns and my water nourishes her seeds, the seeds that sprout and flower in the valleys and on the hills around the cups and wells during the summer as we rejoice in the fire of Brother Sun.

The world continues to turn into Fall and the harvest of her belly, harvest of her bounty feeds the children of hills and valleys with the produce of our love as leaves bleed and fall and darkness gathers.

In the Fall I am bearded with age and mistletoe, stiff with the cold as the world turns, spins through its journey around the wheel of the Year and I become the Given Sacrifice as Winter comes...

yea, I die in the Winter, again and again I die in the Winter of the Year and stay for a time in the Summerlands visiting with old friends until again I am spun out, hungry, again I am reborn in the Spring.