Not wondering what shall befall us if we anger or stray.
That knowing vanquishes fear.
That naming disarms the fact.
.
I would not pit the gods of cities against the gods of the world.
Though the god of money enchains us to its tumbling promises,
Though we are comforted here by the law and order
Laid out in concrete streets.
.
The breath of time we measure, but the god of Time is not of us.
The god of storm, the god of light, the god of life, the god of death,
The god of twilight, the god of decay.
They are all no smaller now than they were before.
Tame the weather, and there is a greater weather.
Cage Time, and there is a greater Time.
The gods are those against whom we dare not compete.
The sky towers we have built of swaying, rickety philosophies are no match.
The chiselled, honed words, all the equations, mean nothing
But a murmur dream.
.
Is there anything more poisonous to the soul than competition?
The battle for worth, the war for best?
Listen! I am the best at sorrow, the best at melancholy.
I am forty days of rain. My bitterness, a pointing finger
That wipes the slate clean. Above all. Below all. Separate. Distinct.
In the flood I am the spark that burns down the one remaining boat.
Sneering at lesser things is my entitlement.
First among the angels. Too great to fall.
The Elders lined up there on their thrones, counting points, counting scores.
Chosen by the chosen to join the ranks of the chosen.
–
Offer up your pious praise to God and deftly gather up the gold.
We honour the first, the second, the third (with a shrug)
Wave through the beautiful, wave through the best.
Wave off the rest. Judge and separate.
–
Gwion was a pauper, grabbed by the ear and told to watch.
Afagddu, the soot black sullen shadow, was the chosen one,
Born for greatness, a certain destiny.
Taliesin: best at bragging –
I was. I am. No one better than I.
The stunned poets casting up their eyes to
The heaven he says he comes from,
Packing their bags, looking to find less glamour-filled halls.
–
He knew a thing or two:
Please the crowds and praise the kings.
A bawdy innuendo, a prayer, a vision of glorious death,
And for the quietly watching intellectuals, ambiguity in spades.
A foundling of dubious parentage, brought up by rivers and seas.
A certain affinity to water, like Moses: cool fountains and dowsing
The springs in burning deserts, slaking thirst with words and glory.
How many streams are there? How many rivers?
Following the frightful pillars of smoke, the pillars of flame,
The burning bushes, the falling star.
–
There is a green land, and a green hill far away,
And the best of the best shall find peace there.
Across the river to the green lands for your sorrows.
A green hill of suffering for all your good works.
You shall become forever now, a constellation
Of the revolving fortress of glorious night.
–
I, not I, the river that is your awen,
The best, displayed in shining light,
A rainbow promise.
A slight and glorious
compensation
for past and future horror.
–
This is the second poem that was written with Llanwrtyd Eisteddfod in mind. Not one of the finals I chose to submit: too long a rant and not so obviously following the theme, though it continues and develops some of the threads found in the other seven parts.
A lot of my writing this year has been towards an art/word project inspired by The Black Book of Carmarthen, a small, handwritten manuscript containing poems collected over a lifetime by one person. It is the oldest known manuscript written in the Welsh language. A mixture of ancient bardic poems and prayers, it is at once mundane and transcendent, simple and utterly baffling. The words that come to me are either reflecting some of the imagery or subjects of the fifty odd pieces, or dwell on the nature of the author and the continuity of language and writing. The art works I am making mainly combine parts of the manuscript pages overlain with my own woodblock prints from decades ago. There will, probably, be a book that combines text with image. It is in no way a translation of the original text. It is one artist’s reflections of the magical mirror and timelessness of ancient books.
MER KERTEV KEIN (Black Book)
(The marrow of fine songs)
It is a river
Uncurling in caves,
A white torrent on dark slick rocks.
It is a shoreline cave where mystery is born by echoes,
Far from comfort, where opposites couple in the roaring of it.
Spanning centuries each word tumbles combining elements.
Shadow worlds are dressed in time to shatter and rebuild the fragments.
Oh, speckle-breasted thrush,
Thrice the song to sing.
Morning rain.
Rain of morning.
Dawn storm.
Eternal song.
A river where meaning slips like fishes,
A flash, a flank, and gone.
The next ripple, the next wave, the scintillating light.
Umbral echoes.
It dances from sound to sound.
A juggler slipping from stone to stone
In the midstream rush. Where next? Where next?
And the foaming roar of it:
The world dancing elements and prophecy
And the arc of words cast up and caught, too fast for the eye.
simonhlilly 