simonhlilly

Fires within the world – summer’s ending.

I

Bank the fires
Hum the lullabye
End the world’s work
Weave a breath of dream.
Tree shadows on the wall
Watching the flicker of eyelids.
Who is awake?
Who is dreaming?

————

II

The fast, turning wheel
Of the northern year:
warm honey summer air
Sunk now
Deep within the nested chambers
Of swelling berries.

Still
Golden days.
But more insistent now:
The filigree of stars
That thin the silence.

Shadows lengthen,
Edges turn pale:
Fragile are the hours,
Well-wrought
The gathering in.

The sutras of Time:
A balm,
Most beautiful elegy.

Never weep
The drained cup:
The wheel of the year
Is the beat
Of your heart.

——-

III

No moon
This Lammas Eve,
But all along the path:
Bindweed,
Yarrow
And silver mugwort.

——-

IV

( upon the increased beuracratisation of personal choice, living, breathing, eating, dying, thinking, choosing……)

A drift of angels:
All smiles,
Cudgels behind their backs.
“Do what we say –
message from an Almighty –
or creation will crack.”

Thugs of theocracy,
Regulators of vocabulary,
Rhetoric of righteousness,
Statistics of placation:

A bad smell
Rebranded.

Hoodwinked,
The viral notions
Quietly take charge –

We succumb to apathy,
A belief in benificent power.

“This is all for your own good,
Protection
you cannot afford to ignore,
Advice
You will be ill-advised to question…..”

———–

V

(upon a sudden plague of idiots with circular stupidity…)

And I shall not smile
To keep you merry-
You who go round
In the same ruts endlessly,
Congratulating yourselves
For the new views,
The progress made.

Deeper and deeper
In muddy mire,
With tawdry mawkish ballads –
Hymns to mediocrity,
Platitudes that destroy
The truth of language…..

——–

VI

“Blessed be.”

All summer
I have been dreaming –
Up to no good,
Saving up time.

An ocean of words
Ebbing and flo-ing
Just beyond reach.
A roar of voices,
A hiss of whispers.

Dabbling my fingers
In shallow, warm waters,
Bemused by sunlight,
Waiting for a signal,
A start,
A point to begin.

Upon a lake
That is not a lake
There is a boat
That is not a boat.

Not doing,
But being.

———–

VII

Fragile:

If you try
To grasp reality
It is crushed
Beyond recognition.

Just wait
With hand outstretched
And beauty
Will alight,
For no reason –
Only because
it can.

——–

VIII

The spice of death
Is on the air:
Reddening brambles,
Crisping, fading bracken.

Edges turn brittle.

Earth and grasses turn damp.
Damp seeps
Into the bones of things,
Like darkness
Eating the edges of daylight….

————

IX

And then,

One calm,

Blue

Evening

We realise:

The swallows

Have all gone!

Silence descends

With the blossoming

Of autumn stars.

————-