simonhlilly

February is month of silence, of purification, of beginnings. White days, black nights. A hunger to be started, a hunger to remain at peace……

I

Silver and still.

A geography of birdsong

Shaping the silent air.

Continents of cloud

Laminate the day.

II

PILLOW

The full moon,
Like a gentle rain:
Honey to the soul.

Sweeter still
The sweet music
Playing in that vast silence.

On the tip of the tongue:
How cool the roundness of it.
On the pillow where I rest my eyes,
How fragrant that single flower of jasmine.

III

THE AVENUES OF EVENING

A thousand stars
For each man’s eye.
A thousand stars
From each night’s vigil.

There is fire
At the centre of everything.
Fire beneath
The cool breeze of evening.
Fire in the white cherry’s breath,
Fire in the poet’s head –
The crazed poet lover
Strumming his heart.

In the heart of each man
A thousand stars.
In the heart of the night
A thousand antiphonies.
Mars’s red eye cools:
He drinks
The white cherry avenues
Of Aphrodite.

The world,
The round world
Spins through fragrant air.

Fire in the worm
Fire in the well
Fire in the garden
Fire in the eyes of the cast out.

Looking out-
As if for the first time,
(every time, the first time)….

Fire in the cold woman’s dream
Fire in the forest.
Fire and flood spreads spinning
In the woman’s womb,
In the swan’s rustle
By the water’s edge.

The nipple of Life shoots milk in fire
Through blank blindness.
A thousand stars spread in each drop
Flung free in distance.

Fire that burns
And fire that answers,
Freezing the spaces in between.

Fire that falls on the thumb
Is sucked without thought
Transforming fire to word,
Word to illumination.

Fire running through each beast,
It courses the veins of each child.

Each glance: a thousand stars,
Each familiar in the memories of a million souls.

A thousand stars for each man’s eye
In the cherry’s breath,
In the avenues of evening.

IV

TWO WOMEN

Now they lie, one and two
United in oblivion,
Comforting their powers.
Moth white, moon pale,
Sleep’s hills and valleys
Slightly rising, falling.

They know it and
Do not know it:
Measuring the world,
Wrapping it in movement.

Breath fills the room
And whispers through the house.
The seed falls through its golden cloud.

And now the cat prowls
Where no cat is.
Cat of desire
Purring at the bedhead.
Cat of darkness
Wrapping around its warmth.
The Familiar of the Female
Measuring the world,
Wrapping it in movement.

V

ONCE ONLY

In the grey dawn the honey kiss is hers
That made you shiver.

You do not know her name
You do not know her face,
Coming to your dreaming.

Her scent is summer
Her skirts sounding seas.
But she never waits for you.
But she never waits for you.

She will wait for you but once.
Only once will she wait for you.

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