I Read Books: Postcards From Ragnarok

Postcards From Ragnarok

Imagine nursing
such pain
such quiet purpose
that you’d gladly turn on your own future
toss the brand that sets your roof alight

Our versions of the Norse gods includes their endings, Ragnarok. They have always been meeting their end, the doom overshadowing all their actions. Their world has always been destroyed.

By the time we noticed the ripples
We were already in its grip
and a great eye had blotted out the sun

That world is gone, and only their shadows walk with us now. But that’s always been true. Ragnarok has always been coming, has always been here, has always happened. The world has always been on the verge of destruction. Our lives are always being built in the aftermath of apocalypse.

I think about the weight of the water. I am heavy as a lead idol,
when it should be the easiest thing in the world to float.

That’s what Postcards From Ragnarok is, the Norse myths are dead, and live with us, apocalypse haunts us at home, on our commute, everywhere we go, Loki is always tricking us with mistletoe, always giving birth to the most glorious horse, always refusing to cry. Katy knows that the myths are dead, and they live, and so she wrote this down for us.

Read This: Because then is now and the darkness and joy of life can be found in Norse myth
Don’t Read This: Ragnarok has come and gone and we should just get on
Full Disclosure: Katy Naylor is Editor of Voidspace and has published my interactive fiction; also I never know how to talk about poetry without getting deep down in the structure and that doesn't tell you if you want to read it or not