As it is almost Autumn Equinox, here are two short seasonal pieces that arose recently.
FLICKER
He cools the air, calling crow,
A rasp of drift, the crisping leaves.
All things desire to sink earthwards
Towards a fitting sleep.
The sky left more void, blue, vast,
Scraped clear – the circling cry of buzzards.
It gutters, flares and flickers:
The nub of summer.
We become atmospheric, vapourous.
We are tumbled down, crumbled to autumn.
Made old, aged again,
Circumscribed, hemmed in
By hours of darkness.
—–
RETURNING
Light pushed at day’s end,
A cold, blue edge.
All hearts, filling, emptying, filling.
The year grows small again,
Summer’s passion eases.
We can go home,
Look inside,
Light fires,
Dream dreams.
—–
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art prints, Autumn, Haiku-ish, landscape, mandala, Poetry, seasons | 5 Comments »
CURSIVE
Once only this voice,
This line of sound.
One unto another
A flow of, a push of,
Outwards reach,
Mind to mind reaching
Like a tide’s reach
Stirring sands
A finger’s breadth
Beyond the possible
And then on again,
Another and another,
Creeping upwards
Into new land,
New not-self.
Rolled out, dragged,
Shaped, explored,
These sounds
Eroding the silence
Of the white page.
—
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged flow of thought, handmade, handwritten, joined up thinking, manuscripted, pensive, Poetry, scrawl | Leave a Comment »
INVISIBLE FRIENDS 6
Time for a new batch of scribbles inspired by other’s words here, webbed together catching jewelled flies, eating or storing them for colder, frosted mornings…
OBIT.
Terse words
for a long peal of time,
a good,
an only, place ,
for such as he to rest.
—-
GIFT
Even so,
beautiful writing,
a dove released,
vanishing into cloud.
Knowing emptiness is,
at least, knowing something.
—
ASANA
My tongue,
a bookmark,
syllabub syllables,
sutras,
plough with brows furrowed,
let us lotus,
pray pray away,
body buddy bodhi,
enlonged lungs,
a crack of knees
( not a new noise, yknow).
A sound stretching out.
—
CASTLE WALLS
The draw of ruins!
What is it?
The harsh past crumbled back,
mulch,
earth music…..
—-
GHOSTS, FLEAS, A MUSE.
We,
Ghosts
Of poetry,
Stumbling lines,
Echoed,
Staring far off:
The effort
To recall.
—-
HAY BALES
Wheels fallen off the sun wagon.
It falters and droops
towards a fall.
——
COMPOSITION, DECOMPOSITION
A dance in slightest sound:
first mind rolling mutters,
then quiets as pen flows scratching,
the silence between words,
a rush of voices.
Silence is not an absence of sound..
—-
THE GREAT WORK
Selecting or not selecting,
wearing a mask,
choosing a mask,
revealing, hiding.
Dipping in a toe,
how deep these black waters of self?
How fast,
how airlessly drown,
out of depth,
no one watching.
—-
AS WELL
As well as can be.
When we fray thin,
with time or weather,
it’s only a sign, perhaps,
to deepen roots
and not mind the storm winds,
nor the thoughts
circling laments in empty skies….
—-
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Autumn, diary, fleeting flitters, gestures, Haiku, landscape, mind weather, momento vita, penmanship, phrases, Poetry, ruins, short poems, William Blake, word tennis, writing | 7 Comments »
HISTORIES
This slight remove,
This passion,
This sliver.
A slide towards,
( but not quite ),
Certainty.
A tumbling
Of eventualities
Concentred,
Piled up.
A manufacture
Of futures.
Debris chelated,
Polished, honoured.
A beginning,
A middle, an end.
Bound leaves,
Fragile and
Shattered.
—-
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abstracted, Autumn, cyclic, justifications, mused., Poetry, reality, records, reviews, rewrites, tyrrany of certitude | 4 Comments »
FIRST SIGNS
The last few days autumn has come with sweeping winds and towering skies. Cold rains between radiant brightness. The birches are yellowing, the hawthorns reddening, the elders turn gold and purple, the swallows have all slipped away. Because it was my habit, a long time ago, to be in the North at the start of autumn, I have felt the pull of the clear cold, the descent of the year, bracken and heather, valley melancholy.
With this sudden,
Southern cold
I would be, again,
In Portree
On a bright morning
Watching the light
Push the small boats
Tethered to the tide
And the gulls
In the upper town calling
From the hills of roofs,
Naming them all :
The clouds and storms
Of coming winter
And with the smell of baking
And the smell of woodsmoke
And the roar of Time,
Shored up by thick walls
And a gathering of smiles.
—-
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Autumn, landscape, Poetry, Portree, Scotland, Skye, weather | 7 Comments »
DAWN PAINTS TURNER
Eloquence of moments,
Tuned, fascinated.
Time when time
Turns visible.
Unfold the dawn:
A wooded hilltop
Crowned with
Swaying light.
A tentative colour
Of cloud,
An increase.
A commitment
To form,
A dance.
A fugue
Of entities,
A cascade
Of certainty.
Quiet
In the windless valley,
Soundless,
But for birdsong.
Spacious and vast
This becoming
Is.
Gaze
On the face
Of delight.
—-
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged dawn, Haiku-ish, landscape, moments, Poetry, sunrise, time | 7 Comments »
DREAM WORKS
Dark moon
Ripples through
The world.
Strong winds
Along the coast,
Fires pushed fast.
The buried stir,
The sleek hoarders
Of wisdom, stir.
Next to nothing
Is the answer.
A satin edge,
A mighty stillness
Witholding breath,
Inner heat.
Abiding
In emptiness,
The dragons of formation.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged dark moon, deep consciousness, dreams, fires, Haiku-ish, moon, night, Poetry, symbolism | 2 Comments »
Just got a small pile of hardback volumes of my long poem, “The House of Trees”. Quite pleased with how they have come out. After a few false starts, I went with Blurb. Having a solid book with paper pages is a joy. Not aiming for any mass market ( wherever that is ), particularly with poetry!
If anyone is interested, a few copies are available from http://www.greenmanshop.co.uk so please go and have a look.
Each spread has an image page facing the text pages, derived from photographs I took in Skye last autumn.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, design, hardback, new book, Poetry, publishing | 18 Comments »
simonhlilly 