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.
I, not I, cannot lean against this luscious, deadly heat.
We are not roses, to drop our heads, to scatter petals,
To grow again as rain again splashes the dusty leaves.
Our grief all adds up, all weighs down.
These winds, these fires, these bitter, clever bombs, we cannot fight.
There are no winners, just braggers who will fall as well, soon enough,
Choked on the unguent of their profit, the poisons they excused.
Our shades shall not even cool us,
not as the forest shade does at Crychan, at Cwm Henog.
There shall be no violets in that twilight we surrender to at last.
There shall be no streams of delight, no wells of peace.
No tumbling nant at Nant yr Onnen nor crouching Ceirios.
The mists at Cwm Dyfnant:
they will be a smouldering of bracken and barbed wire.
Shadows, shadows.
A weather of shadows. A cloud of shame,
Claws of rock clambering from sunless cleft to cheer the last demise,
The victory of heat and blood,
The will to win, whatever.
The old, the ever, the same.
The truth of prophecy, the dregs, the well-worn path.
There shall be no competition then.
No mastery. No tenderness.
No tongue to sing the rhythms of praise, (the eloquent lies),
not to man, not to God, not to the primroses, not to the speckled thrush.
There shall be no golden chair on the hillside, then.
No crown. No applause.
No reply when the question is asked.
No one left to call for peace.
The sword unsheathed, the petals falling, the kites spiralling,
The fields bare and thistle-browed.
In the end, we shall see that there was nothing,
After all, to chase after, nothing to win.
The great blue skies,
piercing blue once more, over all,
And the cuckoos returned to Garn Wen,
the curlews to Cefn Gast.
—
This was one of my entries for this year’s Llanwrtyd Eisteddfod. In the end I submitted two poems from a series of seven on the same title. I shall be posting them all here soon enough.
Bhairav is a well-known Indian raag of the early morning. I have only recently grown to love it and its variations. Perhaps the tense sharps and flats put me off. It has the energy of cool space, of heights, of growing light, of distance, of precise wing-tips, of soaring wings, of the dip and soar of red kites. This is a sort of verbal alap – a slow exploration of the moods and directions of morning air, here in the mountains.
simonhlilly 