There is liquid smoke in the mead,

Charcoal,

The taste of burnt rubber

And ground-down jotunn.

The bitter dregs deepen

The yeast upwoven sap,

And blood, blood is in the honey.

And blood, blood is in the honey.

There is murder in the mead,

A grisly death, the taste primeval

Of injustice, the dwarf-lobbed head,

The once all-wise blood spills out,

Spilling, the wise blood, gushing,

The thick, bitter salt coagulate

Rushing into the dingy kettle.

And blood, blood is in the honey.

And blood, blood is in the honey.

The old, dusty taste of roots,

Damp cellars,

The sprinkled loam of graves

Within that sweetest syrup ferment.

And every uplift on pinions’ loft

Wafted on the winged billows of rhyme

Sublime-reminds the deepest mind

Of once and near-escapes from death,

And those who did not reach escape,

And some of them the worthiest.

And blood, blood is in the honey.

And blood, blood is in the honey.

There are unseen, burning embers

Far beneath the deep, and smothered,

There once lay the precious mead,

Locked and guarded, slowly flavored

Chalk and metal from the mountain.

A thousand shades of bitter mixed

With darkened fire-sparking spice.

And oaths were made, and oaths

Were broken. Tears are there,

Within that salty, sweetest mead.

And blood, blood is in the honey.

And blood, blood is in the honey.

Boil of carmelized sorrow sombred,

Breath of the neck having found the earth.

Treason and peace that was stomped into nothing.

And body of wine that cries out for wergild.

These you will flavor your tongue in lees.

In shadow that hid,

and was brought out to daylight,

lingers within the pungent savor.

For blood, blood is in the honey.

For blood, blood is in the honey.

You wish the waves of welcome heaven

Ever overwash your soul,

But you are boy, or girl, perhaps,

And have not tasted what that means.

For cynicism has been sweetened,

Rough been smoothed, and made mature.

And so must you, if you would taste

That sweetest brew of billows’ rhyme

For blood, blood is in the honey.

For blood, blood is in the honey.

The great, poetic mead tastes more than sweet. It cannot be savored without its bitters. Its bitters are what make us mature.