WHAT THE GODS SAY
1.
These,
the ghosts
adhering to inner walls,
stains and smudge,
scribbles in haste
‘remember me’.
Words that leapfrog meaning, bray and boast their sounds, exultant cascades untranslatable, insubstantial, picked out, chosen, chaos bouquet, emphatically vague. They are summoned and summon yet more. A duty, to weigh the grains and count.
Enumerate.
Embody.
To be,
(that’s what the scholar said),
to be, only the purpose, the desperate clutch of the sliding mind, the seed to puncture shell, to push aside soil, to explode in cellular satisfaction,
only for a moment,
only a fragment spinning from sight,
(a haze of insect wing, moth dust, singeing carapace),
quick fizz of smoke
before a new
silent morning.
___
2.
The gods are talking and
who, now, will listen?
( except the still heads, still ears of cats, furled limbs, breathing soft).
The songs drunken with time, beyond reasonable explanations, beyond vocabulary, even.
A world rhythm,
geologic heart,
solar wind tatters,
a raiment of light.
Bruised and blue, bullied, subdued with belief, the weight of knowing, the want of neat ends. The jazz ravings disdained, we stutter, scatter, mutter into neat insanities, inexcusable attrocities, the most urbane deniabilities: accepted gospels, ( polite murmur, a scatter of slight applause).
Damned, chained,
not fit for consumption,
bagged, tagged, dumped.
Peeled back, flayed, hearts melted, livers liquified, bones removed, it rattles yet: the endless excuses, one more throw, red or black, no more bets.
Certainly, a certain outcome.
These flickering words dissappear.
Peals of laughter.
Exit stage.
Silence.
—-
3.
The giants, ensorcelled, (confined to the bitter end, the edge, paled and wan)
Believe they begin to believe they doubt their own existences. Instead, we have designed
Towering tree houses, worlds on a toothpick, serpents performing charity,
Clever monsters spruced up, natty dressed, elocuted, certificated
Charm themselves into, insinuate, invade and invalidate the belated wakers.
They are now the boys in charge, elegantly rewriting memory,
Railroading necessities. The taste for giants long past, evaporated ice.
——
4.
Shall I list the devatas, the demons and angels, ( who bear the identical of names, who bear the burdens of our blame). Pinned out, wings splayed, members politely erased, genders hushed up. Who strode worlds: now only the names of new cars, lines of fashion, confections. Reincarnate as pet dogs and cats, the endless dreaming of glories, biding time.
—-
the images are taken from a longer sequence of drawings, yet to be titled and still ongoing, an animation of stillness, a shout of silence
simonhlilly 
This is quite interesting, I don’t think I’ve read any poetry like this before. Who are your main influences?
Really not sure when I write in this particular way. My ranting shadow or a tide of ancestral yammerings. Tends to build up and rush out. Couldn’t name any specific influences. my more lyrical pieces come from the rhythms of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Japanese writing, as well as magical and religious chant I suspect. But these’dream streams’ are more a deep shamanic vocalisation flavoured by images and memories, Glass Bead Games that flicker around my brain in these particular mood states…
a deep shamanic vocalisation flavoured by images and memories
I think that this line not only summed it up for me but gave me a true insight to your admirable psyche ha ha
Admiral Psyche and the Wave Harvesters
His Admirable Psyche, Shades of Hades
The Admirable Admiral and His Frayed Hausers
The Fleet of Whales and The Ship of Fools
Kit and Kaboodle Cross the Equator
A Compass Never Lies
The Shaman’s Electric Fire
Return of thr Comedy Kraken
Shades of Misspent Chemicals
The Forked Tongue of Sunlight
Newton’s Little Secret
One Prism Too Far
An Elegance of Frozen Photons
That Insistent Voice
Very thought provoking especially when paired with the images.
Thank you, Cynthia.
Simon this is like shotgun blasts of mythic shards cutting at the sky and ground beneath our feet., >KB
Just the ricochets of someone else’s gunfight I think. Harpies and Valkyries flapping through my domesticly neat little mind field.
Yes, I agree.
There are flashes of things which your words bring up, not all solid, not all quite within reach, or maybe I’m just reaching in the wrong direction…..
I’ll have to take some time later to try and really understand this – but at first glance, this is stunning.
Don’t try too hard! A mingling of sense and nonsense I suspect ( both being equally real). View as a landscape, some bits clear, some bits obscured and distant…….
Just re-read this and the intricacy is just…that’s the really wonderful bit for me. Everything weaves together and I think that it’s spectacular
Thank you so much!
Ok, now I have seen your words, I don’t need to search any more.
🙂
Reblogged this on Spoondeep and commented:
A scattering of notions in motion….
really really like this
Thank you, Sir Scholar!
I find myself at a loss for words, Simon. I hate when you do this to me! I am moved but I do not know why. Do I feel bad for the gods of the past? How can I feel bad for things that probably never existed to begin with? By projecting anthropomorphic values onto them, does empathy automatically commence its torment on my heart? Perhaps this simply reminds us of our own limited time. When we are gone, who will remember us? If no one does, why does that hurt?
Well, I suppose the ‘gods’ of the title were to some extent a projection (real or imagined) of ‘my’ thought processes, or the voices in my head, the automatic, self generating rambles or flow of imagery. My allusion, i suppose, was that this uprising from the unconscious was once equated with the inspiration of the divine. ( and i have no desire to deny where ‘my’ thoughts begin or from what they arise.)
Then there is the whole issue of psychic archetypes and their continuance. Then there is the temporal validity of ‘ideas’ that extend many times longer than any ‘human being’ or any one culture ( your intimations of mortality). Is an idea less ‘real’ , even if it has existed for thousands of years, than a human being who is unlikely to be remembered for more than one hundred years?….
No, I don’t think one can equate realness to anything solely by its longevity. What constitutes reality anyway? An idea is abstract, yet it has influence on the material world. Likewise, the material world can influence ideas. They interact symbiotically. Which, then, has more of an impact on humanity? The man, or the man’s ideas? But just as longevity cannot be the sole measure of realness, impact too mustn’t be our only measuring device.
From our personal perspective, we cannot know whether the person or the idea has greater significance, but to bear that posssibility in mind might ameriorate our tendency to be rather prideful beings…
It might indeed…
I think of the ‘poetry Gods’ here; all the greats like Eliot, Mitchell, and Hughes (to name a few of my favorites), and how their words live on. But this goes much deeper than that – traveling almost into different realms and thought processes. I like the nature of it, and appreciate the intellect.
e
That’s a nice idea! And how can it be anything else? What impresses on our minds, remains and influences everything that follows. We can forget about the stones in the stream, but they are still there, influencing the flow of the waters forevermore. I suspect our greatest influences are not those we remember and cherish – those are probably the second or third levels, drawn by the pre-existent gravity of those prime influences that hit us soon after birth. My memory for names is lamentable, but to your list i would add George MacBeth…
Prime influences; wonderful!
Something I will think about for the rest of the day. Many thanks.
This Saga: A trip through the unconscious…….