tarot-influenced writing exercise

Today was a Tarot-influenced writing exercise - we picked cards off the top of the deck and they 'told stories.' And you know what's funny was this was a hippie kind of deck and we all wrote these new-agey poems. So yeah, another set of poems that have nothing to do with me - I mean, I wrote them, but they actually sort of wrote themselves. And the card they're from is the title of each.


I. The Tower

In the beginning the waters broke
And I exploded. I was cast
Out; I lost my home.
Holding tight to the shell,
Adrift on the waves,
Surrounded by televisions,
Glassware, curtains, rods
And wheels, gasoline canisters,
Old dirty steamers, knives
And dishes, they floated
Every way on the water,
They were lost with me.
---

II. Four of Swords (nest)

Then it was curious how
The waters subsided.
My house-shell rocked
And floated me gently;
My hands were loose, my
Grasp let go, I collapsed
And rocked in
The river. I no longer
Looked at the water, I looked up -
And the night
Sky filled with stars.
---

III. Ten of Cups (calm)

They move deliberately
Away from each other;
I've lost distinction whether
I'm in the sky or the river.
I may be in both places -
I don't look up for patterns
Or faces; I know I have
A destination and a plan.
I've come to love this
Slow journey outwards,
This expansion.
---

IV. Two of Pentacles (root)
I'm feeling snags now
On the bottom, slowing down,
Coming to a rest soon -
And above me, the dawn
Is erasing my little lights
Softly pulling in the bright
Sky-candles, infiltrating the night.
Just above me, I can see
A great-grandfather of a tree
I'm twisting, turning in
Mossy green toes.
And then I come to rest.