Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, had a hammer named Mjölnir. Mjölnir was considered a fierce weapon that could level mountains and summon lightning with every blow. In this poetry blog, every Thursday, (Thor’s Day), Mjölnir will forge only song - sing of the mysteries and beauties of the world.

Thursday, April 25, 2019

THE BOX

There are bones in it,
a set of lungs,

a beating heart, a mass 
of gray matter.

Flesh encases it all.
It carries itself

dutifully across time,
until one day

it can't carry
what it once carried

any more. If it only 
had a mind it might

think: I want to be outside
myself and empty.


Thursday, April 18, 2019

THE CAVE

It was always there.
The mountain

just concealed it
with its rock.

What remains is
the gaping hole,

the darkness
that moves haltingly

about the day
like a mouth

full of anger and hunger,
that swallows

everything
in its path

with a punishing
silence. Its sole purpose,

if you can call it that,
is to stitch itself

shut, silence
the sadness

once and for all
so it can know a sleep

larger than the mountain
it once called home.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

THE COURIER

I have carried
a great many things
in this life
while on my way
to one place
or another.

There is no cargo
more precious, however,
than one’s own parents
on the long journey 
back home.

Nothing prepares you
for such a voyage
or for how heavy it is
on the heart.

Thursday, April 4, 2019

SUN-KISSED

In high school I was an easy target.
Small, frail and afraid. Utterly breakable.
A field day for bullies.

One afternoon during lunch
as I stood among friends outside the gymnasium
it entered our little circle like a comet.
Hurled by one of my tormentors, the orange
exploded on the side of my head.
Juice and rind sprayed everywhere.
I staggered to stay standing.
My comrades took hold of me
and hurried me to the bathroom.

What I saw there horrified me:
a face all red, eyes bloodshot,
hair a pulpy mess.
I was a gruesome sight.
Unrecognizable.

While washing, the image in the mirror
delivered this command:

Change your life, now!
Show them how big you really are.

I heeded the advice.

In a year’s time I turned a paltry frame
into a suit of armor 
by obsessively lifting weights 
and eating like a hungry ghost.

Brawny, twice my original size,
and as strong as a forklift,
no one dared to taunt or cross me ever again.
Bullies were fawning to be my friend.

You can add mass to anything, if you will it. 
This was what I learned that day
when the little ball of sunshine
smashed into my skull. All these years later 
my ears still ring with this lesson 
like a melody as familiar and as foreign
as the music of the spheres.