simonhlilly

RAVEN IS POET

1

I have built my nest in the billowing cloud.

My phurba beak subdues the demons of hunger and despair.

This bright eye measures the generations of worms

And the oracles of shattered bone.

I ride the cracks between worlds on the wind of stars.

Does not my voice peel back all illusion?

What wealth is there here but the wealth of memory?

And I am not unfeeling.

I remember all their names, all their reasons.

Their genealogies are the forests of my delight.

A gathering at suppertime where I cloak the unseeing

In a sheen of knives.

My philosophy, you see, is alchemical, pure and simple.

I shall eat all suns, steal all warmth, reveal all truth that is lie.

There is no sin except satiety.

No song that is not beautiful.

No poet that does not dissect the foolishness of the world

And feed off it.

A long-shadowed cross, I am nailed as a sacrifice and a hero.

Fast, my deep is deeper than all skies.

My deep is the deep within.

Navigator of the impossible, I have the voice of icebergs,

The gravel of continental subduction.

I am generous with praise:

I will laugh joyous at the capers of poets and the drunkenness of heroes.

I wheel and turn patient as the stars,

Wait for the sickle moon to bring it all down to food.

The eloquence of continuance.

The continuance of dreaming.

Consume and consummation, it is all one to a raven poet.

Laughter is the weapon of last resort.

–

2

Snow on the mountain.

Hazels flower in the valley.

Still no signs of any wisdom.

Snow on the mountain.

Silence after the last battle.

The world again

Shall fill with birdsong.

3

Spin in gorse-bright light.

Dance of black cloak, black knives.

Exultant raven warriors.

4

I am Dark Mountain.

My wife is Midnight.

My daughters are Hunger Sated and Sleek Breast.

My sons are Piercing Hunger and Arrow Straight.

We are descendants of Snow on the Mountain

And Utter Darkness.

The Well of Memory and The Blasted Tree

Are our dwelling places.

Soot Black

Ocean Depth

Bright Brow

Radiant Ash Tree

Thief of Knowledge.

Turner of the Wheel

Season’s End

Hunger Abates.

Wind and waters name us thus.

Mountains name us,

The vast sky names us thus.

5

At the end of the universe ( or at its beginning)

There sits a raven-headed god on a stone throne.

I have seen it. It is so.

He has one eye that sees all things.

He has three eyes for the past, present and future.

He has four eyes that roam in every direction.

He has five eyes that glimmer in the dark and see all things.

He it is who makes the eggshell curve of the sky,

The white light of day. I have seen it. It is so.

When the sky was broken open and the earth fell out

That is when the ravens were born – in the space between.

6

From the bird god’s breath there comes a warm wind.

Let it blow the seeds of destruction away.

Let it extinguish the embers of hate.

May the needful dead fall ripe to our praying beaks.

A thousand ages is his out-breath.

A thousand ages he will breathe it all in again.

Sky and land and the holy air

Will wrap in silence about his dreaming.

We shall be named one by one

And nested in the cliffs of his gaze.

7

There is sufficient death.

We have no need

For the glut of war.

Our falling, floating dance

Inscribes the air.

We tumble towards

Our altar, earth.

We rise to sun,

World-filled cries.

This dance we dance

Is for the dance

Of life and death,

For the bird-headed god

At the end and beginning of all things.

For the drink of it.

For the breath of it.

For the bliss of it.

Raven poet I am.

This is the truth.

This is how it is.

–

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