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Autumn Squall

September 14, 2017 by simonhlilly

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AUTUMN SQUALL

There are few words here.
Bleak hill, cool breeze.
Iron hard is the ground
Of the present –
It will not give way.
Seeing is the stark choice
Of poets,
Dreaming of what was and is
And feeling the bones push
Through the thin skin
Of the day,
Sky-bright and bitter-edged.
We will grab what we can
And always wish for more.
Certain hunger there.
Sharp breeze, bleak hill.

–
A short reprise on ‘llym awel”. As days grow shorter it may be that I will continue my explorations of this oldest of British poetry, so akin to the nuances of T’ang poetry and the haiku of Japan. I am about half way through. After a year’s break it will be interesting to see how the verses get assimilated.

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Changes

September 11, 2017 by simonhlilly

Book of Changes

I
Wind river
Ocean airs
Clouds race
Birds watch
From shelter
With anchor feet.
Sounds stretched thin.

“The Creative is heaven.
It is round, it is the prince,
The father, jade, metal, cold, ice;
It is deep red, a good horse, a lean horse,
A wild horse, tree fruit.”

II
News from far off
Sorrow and treachery.
Collecting radish seeds
As they ripen
Between the rains.

“The great prince issues commands
Founds estates, vests families with fiefs.
Inferior people should not be employed.”

III
Dawn already in the east.
Rain in the west.
We wait for news, and names.
The kettle bubbles.

“The well. The town may be changed,
But the well cannot be changed.
It neither increases nor decreases.
They come and go and draw from the well.
If one gets down almost to the water
And the rope does not go all the way,
Or the jug breaks, it brings misfortune.”

IV
Standing still,
All the flock, backs turned
To the wind.
When the storm is over
The grass shall taste sweeter.

“Innocence. Supreme success.
Perseverance furthers.
If someone is not as he should be,
He has misfortune,
And it does not further him
To undertake anything.”

—

I recently picked up a copy of Richard Wilhelm’s “I Ching or book of changes”. I had it many years ago, and though it is probably not the best translation, it carries a certain, stately grandeur in its language. This morning, in stormy weather, I decided to see what happened combining a few short verses I had written with random selections from the book. Meaningless and meaningful. Everything becomes oracular. Juxtaposition revealing the mysteries of the mundane.

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Remembering Of A Something

September 7, 2017 by simonhlilly

REMEMBERING OF A SOMETHING

I shall not remember this,
Nor shall be remembered for this.
And yet for a moment I am here,
Settled between grey hills in slow rain.
My love, still sleeping, her dreaming breath
A slow mist down by the river.

Where did it begin?
Moving on, just so,
As a shifting sunset.

Stone stretched thin until it admits hollowed light.
Dark cliffs wane, and here we are:
Saints as numberless as sheep,
Sheep as numerous as clouds.
Clouds piling to heaven then whispering to nothing,
Pushed by hills older than themselves.
The river runs thick and dark, naming each stone.
It is as easy to forget, sometimes, as to remember.
(Bitter ashes, black soot, husks huddled that once had faces).
How fast the grass covers it all, takes away cause and reason.

Here we are:
A silted green valley down to the sea at Llantwit,
Where the giants watch a slow eternal game of gwyllbwydd,
Playing out to itself between the ruled lines of cliff and ocean.
In the sunny town, eating pizza, we watched the wheezy trucks
Squeeze between the kissing buildings.
And the church bedded there, clutching the old stones removed
From rain and birdsong, mute and sullen awaiting uncertain resurrection.

Palaces of remembering are the storehouses of forgetfulness.
Dust and regret and time running on empty.
Familiar roads have become strange,
For we have wandered too far, and run out of words.
Nor have we yet forgiven the fools that led us here,
Nor the fools that followed.

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Ink wash

September 4, 2017 by simonhlilly

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INK WASH

open window.
now and then:
sighing cars
roll by.

gutters muttering
in light summer
rain.

time caught
on cobwebs,
lost in cloud.

sedge grasses flower,
green trees
statue-still.

Li Po hums
and sketches
silence.

—

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Lesson

August 23, 2017 by simonhlilly

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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.

—

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Late Summer Haiku

August 17, 2017 by simonhlilly

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

—

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Vision Hill

August 12, 2017 by simonhlilly

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.

—

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Splutter

August 9, 2017 by simonhlilly

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.

—

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Miles of Sky

August 4, 2017 by simonhlilly

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.

—

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A SUMMER LAMENT

July 30, 2017 by simonhlilly

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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.

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