Posted in Uncategorized, tagged architecture, art, belief, buildings, cathedrals, Exeter Cathedral, faith, history, internal space, light, medieval thought, metaphysics, photography, Poetry, shadows, skill, space, stonework, time on August 5, 2013| 2 Comments »
ARCHED (Part 7)
Stone
Cast in,
Rippling
Time’s pool.
Outwards
And inwards,
A settled pattern
Of comings and goings.
And the weight
Of the stone:
An anchor, a haven.
Small, still island
In a restless sea.
A forest for song.
A forest for silence.
A carpenter’s house,
A house of edge and curve.
A mother’s house,
A house of succour,
Of promises kept,
Of warm dark.
Artificer’s jewel:
A design
Of forever.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged architecture, art, cathedrals, Exeter, medieval iconography, photography, Poetry, stone carving on July 24, 2013| 5 Comments »
I do not know exactly when I took these photographs, certainly a few years ago now. It is not so easy to capture low light distant images without a tripod. Many were so underexposed so as to be completely black. Quite an interesting process to reveal the hidden images, grainy and so resembling the garish contrast of night-vision goggles. The revealing of distant mysteries. Creatures of the Abyss. Phosphorescent trails. The cave, plant sight lit. Eyes open or shut?
THE STONE’S TALE
1
First Commandments.
The first descent
From Sinai
Tutmoses made,
(said these tongues of stone,
Buried in the vaults of space,
Uprised, upraised, given voice
By faith and silent yearning),
He turned Lord Asar, Green Osiris,
Bursting green fire, plant enthused,
Vegetal, spilt his seed,
Red pomegranate lips,
Entwined his heart and loins
With lust of God,
Forgot himself,
Became unmanageable –
Lightning and cloud –
Unintelligible, a roaring message
No one dared listen to,
So they laughed and kept dancing,
Keeping warm by firesides,
The complaints of camels
And obedient women.
—-
simonhlilly 
Conversing with Invisible Friends (5)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cathedrals, commentary, comments, iconography, Poetry, stone, writing on August 17, 2013| 2 Comments »
Conversing with Invisible Friends (5)
SLEEVES ROLLED, WRITER
Grit and bones
and sharp eyes
poking holes
in the sly fabric
of things.
A thankless task,
but it must be done
and continued to be done…..
—-
WOODLAND SIMULACRUM
A rustle of hymnals
A breeze of sighs
A birdsong of childen’s whispers
A sly, sharp toothed smile:
Reynard’s rising cassock…..
—-
MOTIF MOTIVE
A translation
Of passion
Across centuries.
Careless subtitles,
Redacted, rebranded,
Pre-ordered, double wrapped,
Only
In the deepest bones
Of nightmares
Far from any lights’ switch,
The rumble
Of Doom, a certainty,
So necessitates this frenzied
Juggling of human
And divine,
Wriggling
From flesh
To light.
——
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