January 13, 2016 by simonhlilly
SCARECROW
this
my transparent, liquid window
give us our dreams
our daily dead
sound without meaning
words without end.
sweep this.
collecting debris
for the sake
of some little gravity.
this shaped pattern:
small notion wrapped in upon
ghosted misted identity
forgetting sunsets
to inhabit the dawn,
a superstitious equation
bequeathed a pulse.
lay it down,
lay it all down,
open and dancing
up to the mountains.
this thread now,
this chariot –
broken star fragment
drowned in salt.
lay the fire to the green fields
flesh in new colour,
frost-patterned, cool.
still the eye, the tongue, the demon.
still the angel,
still the urgent bright ones.
still the whispers,
still the memory.
this house perched high,
this sunlit porch
this upturned story
this dewy claxon.
give us our dreams
our daily dead
sound without meaning
words without end.
amen.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, body, consciousness, landscape, mind, Poetry, prayer, Winter | Leave a Comment »
January 12, 2016 by simonhlilly
ARTIST DEPARTS
1
Snow falls down, the dead begin a new dream.
Their words, sweet and bittered breath
Beneath roots of moistest tongue, a tree of old passions,
Cross-tied upon new cardinals
And drooping with melancholy.
The forest shifts gracefully in rumour.
One has left, they say, who chose his own way
And chose his way of passing.
No greater gift than this: to bequeath us his good death
And a long, slow, fading song.
Every language, a mysterious stream.
—
2
Rain turns snow in darkness.
Across the valley, farmhouse lights prick emptiness.
In the deep below, the ever-river tumbles.
There is news of an old man leaving,
Turning to dream another dream.
His quickening smile, (the birds of dawn
Forgetful of darkness), now the singing sun.
Up the hill the moon sinks backwards, thin and white.
It will linger a while with his words,
Longer than most, will not be forgot so soon
Sunk in knotted bones of generations,
A certain look, smooth-gestured.
Carried on, carried down, the river’s song is the same.
The farmhouse lights one by one blink out,
The stars darkened, the dreamers shift
And turn onto their sides, facing the change.
As the rain becomes snow,
And the river in darkness,
And the song becomes somewhere else to go.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged change, David Bowie, death, landscape, night, Poetry | Leave a Comment »
January 5, 2016 by simonhlilly
THE ART OF SILENCE
folded breath
a volume of murmurs
that is all
an understanding
discarding options
so as to mimic peace
to sleep, dream or wake.
to turn away from friction –
a wishful free flow
to harmonise, to disappear.
the River of Milk,
our mother’s beneficence
for this dream
the old man, the prince,
the returning journeyman,
rise quietly in the night
to gaze at the moon
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, awareness, definition, landscape, language, metaphysics, mind, night, objective -subjective, peace, Philosophy, photography, separate-entangled, silence, sky gazing | 7 Comments »
December 28, 2015 by simonhlilly
this sky:
a pool of milk
and a pearl moon.
each breath begins
and ends with pause.
each word with memory
of its music.
we are fools who think
there is more than this,
not to see
the gorgeous depth
of each moment.
howling winds shudder
the ringing trees.
in the North, the sky
pours down upon the land.
rivers splay through hearts.
what was ours, swept away.
a little time, after all,
is all that ever remains.
a glowing tempest
wheels over winter.
a lie and a dream
is the peace within.
we become torn apart
only by beauty.
light split by tears
piercing the hills.
the roads are swept away,
the bridges broke.
we lose each war
that starts within ourselves,
each life
that is not lifted up
from the waves
with love.
—-
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, art photography, floods, landscape photography, night, Poetry, rain, reality, sky | 1 Comment »
December 23, 2015 by simonhlilly
ADVENT
1
A bitter edge.
Two ravens
Smudge motionless air.
A blessing it is
To have breath.
2
The slant of rain
Roars on rooftops again.
The fire, though, burns bright.
A blessing it is
To have breath.
3
A slow dawn.
The hills have yet to return
From their night journeys.
4
Oak’s iron hand.
Black veins
Holding what remains
Of sunlight.
5
A thousand galaxies
In the old man’s beard.
Sudden brightness
On a winter’s path.
6
A knot of dream,
Tangled,
Sinks down into darkness
Still wriggling.
7
Mercury and lead
Are the roads leading to emptiness.
Puddle-edged, empty,
They rise and fall
As if someone
Were watching.
8
Time slows,
Withers and stops.
Solstice.
Only the rain.
A blessing it is
To have breath.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, Haiku, Haiku-ish, landscape, landscape photography, photography, Poetry, Wales, Winter | 6 Comments »
December 15, 2015 by simonhlilly
SCRIBBLE RIVER
1
The trees bend low,
The hills, open, roar.
The world spins fast
On its way to war.
2
Drenched in
Their own silence.
The hills.
Made cool and
Winged to the sky.
3
Tongue numbed:
The eloquence
Of tumbled waters.
4
Wind harp in melancholy minor
Sweeps, weeps and fades
Across the roofs,
Through the forest.
5
A flint
Struck from verse.
Bright words
Fly splutter
In endless rain.
A breathing on the roof,
Laughter soft in the gutters.
To measure out a little time
Upon this place.
6
By here we wander
Sullied by reason
And the oldest of stories.
Chained and unchained,
Livers pecked-
Our own hungry ambition.
7
We, unbecoming all,
Scatter aimless,
True to undiscovered dream
And the whispers of the greedy dead.
8
Here they speak
One long river of words.
A thrush by the waterside
Cracks a snail on green grey rock.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, bleak, Elan Valley, habit, landscape photography, light, Poetry, Prometheus (the arrogant), rain, river, storm, Wales, war, Winter | Leave a Comment »
November 30, 2015 by simonhlilly
NARAYANA
Over time
We shall fly over time
As cormorants skim
Fast as black light and suns
Watching pattern ripples daze
A dress of taste
In another’s dream
Who sleeps
Near eternal, an
Ambient drone
Slow exhaled life
As warm as
Revolving about that
Dim heart distant
So constant to be forgot
And we
Floating as hawks
Tragic as angels
Longing to dip and fish
Those exquisite ripples
Understanding
But not caring
The illusion that is
Neither wave
Nor part
A weighing of not
This and not
That
Dazed by art
Longing to
Drown in it
Over time
We skim and hover
Become dream
For want of anything
More particular.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged being, days of rain, dream, dream worlds, evanescence, immanence, mind, Narayana, poetry.time, Purana, quantum state, transcendence, Veda, weightless, who rests upon the waters, witness | Leave a Comment »
November 28, 2015 by simonhlilly
REVIEW
Ice moon
Punches light
Through brittle
Smoked sky.
Nothing is revealed
By word or movement.
Body’s aching
All the time
(As the song says)
As the song.
City words.
Skinny,
Low-fat language.
No need for pause
Or repeat.
Socio-
Political,
A smatter of
Classical reference,
Footnotes,
Hand gesture,
Erudite,
Excusing
All manners of
Genocide.
Overplayed is
The well-suited
Dictionary.
The poet
Understudied.
The poet
Misunderstood.
Trope, trapped
And clichéd.
Time to sink
To anonymity,
Forgetting,
Forsaking this clamour
For another, yet another
Point of view,
Validation.
Worms wriggling
Upwards to
Drown in puddles.
Picked off by
Black birds
With golden
Beaks.
A
Metaphor
Too far
Perhaps.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged city poetry, comment, comparison, contemporary poetry, criticism, doubt, fashion, individuality, judgment, myth of, Poetry, slick, style, tone of voice | Leave a Comment »
November 26, 2015 by simonhlilly
So fragile
Is beauty.
That
Is what
Every song
Says.
Fragile as a single breath
On a winter morning:
A mist flowering out
On settled air.
The slightest murmur,
Whisper without word,
A readjustment of time
And space,
A coordination atomic.
A new chord
Tasting the intervals between.
A settlement of sound:
Snow on the ridge edges.
Colour flees through the sky at dawn.
So, then, it grows colder.
There is sound.
There is silence.
There is
The dance of light
Between them.
Some time,
In the small hours,
The fire will die down
And we will dream.
—
Beauty is our food.
We hunt it out
For sweet sustenance.
Gathered, it is
The honey
Of our memories.
Clear and golden,
A long summer evening,
Just before the stars appear.
The moths,
The small things
That delight in edge
And shadow,
Where softness
Calmly billows,
Inviolable.
—
The way
That words fail
Upon sudden,
Harsh beauty.
Hardly moving
This slow, congealing
Blood of dawn.
Congregated, coagulated,
The most slight timbral vibrating,
This metallic air will disengage,
Withdraw to its smirked edge.
Unsupported,
Things fall motionless
To frozen earth,
A whitened mist,
A cloud of ice,
A stutter.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Ancient Welsh poetry, art, black and white, cold, dawn, ink drawing, landscape, nature poetry, Poetry, printmaking, snow, Wales, Welsh language, Winter | Leave a Comment »
November 25, 2015 by simonhlilly
LLYM AWEL verse 12 Improvisations
(Part One)
Gvenin igogaur, guan gaur adar;
Dit diulith….
Kassulwin kewin brin, coch gwaur.
“Bees shelter in winter quarters, the weak noise of birds;
A bitter day….
The ridge hill cloaked in white, a red dawn.”
The hives silent.
Bees shut up in winter.
So too, the thin voice
Of birds.
A bitter day of it,
So, too, words fail.
Gagged, gaunt,
All declines to murmur.
The hill ridge
Is cloaked in white.
A red dawn.
—
The hunters for gold
In their hollow halls
Gather murmured dreaming.
Summer is far away.
The dawn flowers red,
But still the birds are silent.
—
The beauty of it:
A silent red dawn.
River murmurs under ice.
—
Their laboured breath:
A cold wind sighing
Through bare branches.
The gold of victory
Keeps not cold
From the heart.
They will dream of
Summer and a summer sky,
And the dance of victory
And the boasts of heroes.
—
This verse has the second half of the second line missing. Rather ironic, as one of its main themes is silence, or comparative silence. The inactivity of the hive I have taken to be a metaphor or parallelism for the host of warriors, inactive, in their lord’s hall. Hence, the imagery of hunting for gold, the warrior’s prize, and bees in summer hunting for pollen.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Ancient Welsh poetry, art, black and white, inactivity, landscape, Llym awel, pen and ink drawing, Poetry, printmaking, silence, Wales.Cymraig, Winter, withdrawing | Leave a Comment »
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simonhlilly 
Review
November 28, 2015 by simonhlilly
REVIEW
Ice moon
Punches light
Through brittle
Smoked sky.
Nothing is revealed
By word or movement.
Body’s aching
All the time
(As the song says)
As the song.
City words.
Skinny,
Low-fat language.
No need for pause
Or repeat.
Socio-
Political,
A smatter of
Classical reference,
Footnotes,
Hand gesture,
Erudite,
Excusing
All manners of
Genocide.
Overplayed is
The well-suited
Dictionary.
The poet
Understudied.
The poet
Misunderstood.
Trope, trapped
And clichéd.
Time to sink
To anonymity,
Forgetting,
Forsaking this clamour
For another, yet another
Point of view,
Validation.
Worms wriggling
Upwards to
Drown in puddles.
Picked off by
Black birds
With golden
Beaks.
A
Metaphor
Too far
Perhaps.
—
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged city poetry, comment, comparison, contemporary poetry, criticism, doubt, fashion, individuality, judgment, myth of, Poetry, slick, style, tone of voice | Leave a Comment »