Posted in Uncategorized, tagged balance, birds, eye, falconry, falcons, feather, Freedom, hawks, lift, owls, photography, Poetry, wind on August 23, 2017| 4 Comments »
LESSON
That little owls
Smell like
Old tea towels.
That barn owls’ wings
Smell of the pages
Of old books.
The weight
Of the night
And the folded green
Of light.
The balance
Of hunger,
And the return
To earth.
Pinion and
Orange eye.
A changing wind,
And the heft
Of an eagle’s claw.
Eight miles
Of sight
In a few ounces,
And a life
Of floating
Between.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, Haiku-ish, landscape, landscspe photography, Poetry, summer on August 17, 2017| 8 Comments »
dark clouds.
blackbird singing.
pure heart
day by day
the rowan reddens –
memories stored for winter.
the old graveyard.
ivy and old man’s beard.
we all cling to what we once had.
morning mists.
a river dreams of seas.
dew in the stubble field.
reading poetry:
seeing the memories
of someone long gone
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged depopulation, desolation, disengagement, duty, entertainment, Mabinogion, myth, Poetry, prophecy, remote control, repeating lessons, responsibility, the future, the land, TV suppers a la Dark Age, vision, Wales, warning on August 12, 2017| Leave a Comment »
For want of anything better
We climbed the hill at Narberth,
Bellies full, awaiting wonders.
But as we looked abroad
The land was empty and bare:
Void and desolate.
The clouds race unremarked,
The fields empty, no drift of chimney smoke,
No children’s laughter.
Because you have forgot the turnings in the road;
Forgot the choices, slipped down the easy paths
And left the future to evaporate,
All this has happened.
Once and again,
The tide of light recedes,
The storm winds roar.
There will be no shelter
But the future we fashion for ourselves.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged a little spleen and spittle, cool and uncool, harsh and slick, mirrored, new poetry, Poetry, Poetry Wales, style, ugliness polished on August 9, 2017| 10 Comments »
SPLUTTER
I tire of these poets’ ragworm tongues.
Words dragged drugged as alibi for art.
Stabbed and stripped, a menu mocked:
One cup of spit, a bucket of bile, wrangled gristle,
Punctuating slice, the wet meat slap,
Served up alleluia teenage grit.
Sneer chant, hooligan thrust,
Smelling of quick ink and sweat.
Educated ejaculate, staccato excess.
Did we not do all that in the sixties, but better?
And Dylan before that with fire and form
And beauty in the boiling of the blood
And its exquisite deadly music
Throbbing word by word.
But it is all too soft now
In the smell of burning plastic
And the falling fruits on flicker screens.
A manufacturing of synthetic ecstacy,
Needled sublime in neon sewer arches.
A scribbled, dribbled sgraffito, rude and crass.
Self-lubricated splutter, skinned, pampered,
Hung out, drying, shrunken, mean.
Slick city strutters, the ravens watch unfooled.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, hills, human nature, kindness, landscape, landscape photography, paying attention, peace, Poetry, sages, Wales, walking on August 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Wandering over miles of sky;
The song of the height of the day;
Thoughts graze on distance.
There are many paths here, many views.
One can but choose this single moment
Where the next step may fall.
The old sages would place their huts
In quiet groves next to some riverbank,
Letting the world sing them to sleep.
Idly doing the will of heaven,
Showing the way by staying still.
Breathing as forests and mountains,
Babies full and swaddled in beauty.
Restless we wander, honking like geese,
Like sparrows in the eaves,
squabbling over straw.
Tears for the moon –
waxing and waning.
The best we can ever do:
To care for small things
And to learn
a deeper kindness.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, distraction, ego, landscape photography, mystery, Poetry, powerlessness, summer, the eternal, transience on July 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »
A Summer Lament
Summer, the dream we so soon forget.
Feeling the bones of winter beneath,
Its bleak branches bleached
Upon a cold, dark sky.
Green folds the small roads here
And the rain is warm.
But in the heart of the cities,
In the hearts of the powerful
Burns always a welded light
Wedded to words of war.
The cold is never far
And simple goodness
Too easy to be proud of,
As simple as breathing in and out.
So on the long days of a short summer
They will still wish for the clear pain of winter,
Something to rail against.
For they cannot let go of being more,
Though they are nothing
That the world will not allow
For a moment or two
In the brief shadowed sun.
To be a cause of pain is not power.
It is a road that promises,
But falls to void and oblivion.
Hedged with narrowing views
When the marrow melts
And blood burns free
To its coagulation
And the bitterness of hollow words
And the leaves curl
And an end that is not peace,
A bitter question, a hollowing answer.
We so float upon this thin skin of summer,
Longing it eternally, and as vague as holiness.
A glorious relaxation of edge and purpose.
The dive and long sighing arc of swallows,
The endless warm rivers of lark’s song,
The murmured chanting of a million bees,
Forgetting ourselves for a while,
Melting into being, nested in spirit,
Lazy in directionless, dreaming light.
Til the bite of the cold night
Returns us blinking
Wondering and hungry
And small in the face of almighty things.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, Brynffo, Crychan Forest, Esgair Fwyog, Haiku, Haiku-ish, landscape photography, Poetry, rain, summer, Wales on July 25, 2017| 3 Comments »
BEYOND SPITE INN (haiku)
Cuckoo echoes cuckoo
Beyond Spite Inn
The road rises into cloud
This valley folds the green road
Rain drips from the copper beech
Grass bends over tumbled walls.
On Brynffo the spirits drift
Light as thistledown between the firs.
The sound of running water is their voice.
On Esgair Fwyog the sheep graze new grass.
The rain has melted distance.
A line of hills rest in sunlight
A sunlit hill.
Clouds shift.
It melts in rain.
Sound of running water
The steep slopes of Brynffo
Pine needles and the smell of bracken
Moving waters whispering
Lost in the dark forest
Whisps of mist drift aimless
Enjoying cool silence.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Celts, landscape, landscape photography, Ordovices, Poetry, rain, summer, the past, thistles, Wales on July 21, 2017| 9 Comments »
THE THISTLES
Cloud is down over the hills again.
It drifts and rolls between field and forest.
The valley is lain out soft and still green;
It does not mind the warm rain.
There is not silence, but it feels like silence.
Sheep shorn and the hay is in.
The thistles have a royal flower:
In deserted places, proud,
Like ancient tribes before the Romans came,
They gather and stand still.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged civilisation, desolation, destruction, Jeremiah, lamentation, Poetry, Welsh on July 14, 2017| 1 Comment »
LAMENTATION
(IN THE SIGHTLESS FOG OF MORNING)
A phellêaist fy eniad oddi wrth heddwch.
A bright white fog is on the morning air.
I will find me a chapel where prayers still hang
As fine as dew-drenched cobwebs on these tall spear thistles.
For the land is broken and only kind words will do.
And the demons are dispossessed and disconsolate,
Outdone and made redundant. The herds of angels
Moo and milk their holy audience for praise.
We are lost. Babylon has fallen, and risen, and fallen into dust.
Proud men of science are peddling their religion,
More vehement than priests. The holy words
Are locusts that eat the grain of our own children.
The Chosen have chosen themselves, pushed
To the front of the queue, happy to now be
In fields of blood and dust and phosphoric rubble.
The cities have fallen. Some in an instant,
Some in slow motion, like ballerinas, knowing
Neither poison nor antidote.
Wailing and lamentation would be some relief
But the clamour of self-congratulatory rhetoric
Cascades with the dignity of football rattles,
Drowning out the rivers that run thin and low
Of sense and foresight.
We are as lost and drained among the cold lidless stars,
Skin burning still with the heat of a midday sun
That shall never be extinguished,
Not in our heart, not in our soul.
A dark mind and sleep is all the dead wish for,
(And their names to be somehow scented
With flowers, and forgiven not forgotten.)
But beneath the earth the giants rise up
Simple and good in their lack of intellect,
And unknowing crush another civilisation,
Bury another bright dawn, the highways broken and empty.
Birdsong silent, then cautious, then glorious.
There will be an end to us,
And goodness shall surely follow.
Am hyn yr ydwyfyn wylo; y mae fy llygad, fy llygad yn rhedeg gan ddwfr
—-
Translation of the Welsh from Lamentations of Jeremiah:
“And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace”
“for these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged evening, light, Poetry, quietness, roses on July 12, 2017| 4 Comments »
Over northern hills ink clouds stain a perfect blue.
They grow dark and slow as the sorrows of others.
The full moon, a young girl in love glowing golden, illuminates all.
Roses dip on warm, motionless thought.
The way the seconds talk, the way the night settles deeper into itself
As if there were nothing else.
The way light turns purple, and the birth of stars.
This house, this little house creaks, its clocks tick on.
One or two slow flies spin the edge of rooms.
Little cat settles at the window; her white paws.
Words disappear.
—
