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Posts Tagged ‘Poetry’

Unforgotten

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 22, 2016| 6 Comments »

Under the ground an old black cat
Is dreaming of sun shine
Curled around his own still heart
That is a seed swelling and reaching
Into a world of roots and song.
The earth purrs and holds him snug
Knowing already everything there is to know
About his soft ways and sharp paws.
Our short time is named by our name
But we are nameless and vast in eternity
Breathless yet breathed through,
Becoming the fabric tides
Kneaded back and proved,
Bread of heaven.
There is a black cat curled and cosy
Under the ground on the first day of snow.
And he will be dancing through the white uplands
Eyes bright and nose twitching,
Sleek and shined and licked perfect
And loved by one and loved by all,
A grace of freedom moving,
A river heart, endless and unforgotten.

—

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Hills Behind

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 19, 2016| 2 Comments »

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Hills behind

There are hills behind the hills,
Words behind the words.
Clouds of understanding billow up
Then dissolve to fog.
The old words, the mountain words,
The river words –
No matter how fast you move,
You can never catch up with them.
The old words,
They have the deepest roots.
We sit by the forest edge,
Sky and grasses and the sallow dell.
Starlings shift and rise
From field to field.
Their patterns weave small tongues,
Bright eyes.

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Branwen Sinks Down

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 16, 2016| 3 Comments »

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BRANWEN SINKS DOWN

Peeling away from this world
No longer glued by its bold certainties.

On a bare, high rock, above the sea,
The voices of wheeling gulls
Make more sense and better songs.
All the gods shrunk again
To caracature and silhouette.

Bawds and predators in golden ships
Sail across the shining sea
Offering friendship and support.
Business opportunities, so they say.
But there is nothing in their pipelines
But death and drought and bones.

A multitude, dreaming dreary dreams
Not their own,
A calcifying inculcation calculated
And considered,
A drip-feed of paralysis and boredom.
Our men of skill are liars
And gloaters over trashy baubles
Transfixed by the mutilation of time.

And so she will sink again
Into the green mounded ground
(White wings folded over her head),
Not wishing more desolation to be hers,
Not wishing to remember anything
But the oldest songs still drumming deep,
A heartbeat under everything,
Hidden roads, perhaps forever safe.

And so she will dream on wide wings,
Back and forth over wide seas, breathing,
Breathing, whispering messages,
Carrying messages, a quivering web.
Pushing down deeper,
The dreams will always, always,
become more real.

—

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Ivy Flowering

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 3, 2016| 2 Comments »

frost scratched morning air.
in each green nest of ivy
Grateful bees murmur.

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Samhain in Annwfn

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 1, 2016| 2 Comments »

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Samhain in Annwfn

Transgression by assumption.
You have taken what does not belong
By assuming everything you see here
Is yours by right.
Taking what is mine
You shall take my role and duty.
You shall by this become completely me
(And yet not), and I you.
Enter the deep and see perfection
And its flows.
Twilight woven through with gold.
A brocade worn thin and transparent,
Sky-patched, redolent.
A more perfect dream
Sunk into the depths.

As if eyes had been staring at the sun:
Now everything veined red-gold,
Too dark and too bright to see,
An inner burning light that dims the world,
Makes sense of flickers and ghosts,
And tongues of fiery liquid language
Scarce understood but lascivious.
Skin turned fallen leaf, crunched,
Made liquid, sucked up,
A new wine burning with blushed passion
Or so it may seem.

The skill here
Is not to weigh nor judge
But to lick the lightest air and breeze
And swim undisturbed, unseen
According to most fluid laws.
Dreamed but not dreaming,
A metaphor eternal, echoing.
There is, and never was, a thing made single,
Nor one made so especial
It could not be reflected endlessly
In midnight pools.

And all this
Only a beginning.
A recalibration.
A falling leaf
Slowly spinning.
A kiss.
A message.
It will be dust in the morning.
But the ache of memory:
That will be the always hidden gold.

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Connla’s Well

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2016| 1 Comment »

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connla’s well

to bend and break the smallest thing.
to lust for endless yes and no,
an absolute reckoning, soul shredded,
monotheistic, the lie of ultimate truth.
bright and rainbow bright
are the poisoned slicks of connla’s well.
persistent petrochemical degeneration,
a vitriol squirming to return to peace,
to a simple organic hush,
the breathless pall of surcease.
dark and bodiless in perfection,
a simple voice unquestioned,
a greasy fire emitted,
the burning of all things
superstitious or holy.

and deeper yet: a spark not found in stars
acidic and relentless, demonically proud,
an unholy perfection eternal.
anathema, contrary to all things,
a mistake unretrievable,
adhering to all beauty
with a most perfect destroying jealousy.

these things do the foolish wise bring forth.
these days and nights of eloquence do they refuse.
these they will rue, though still persue the poison of power.
they will become the unnamed, the cursed, the wretched,
though yet will they delve and dive deeper into death
and deeper yet, lost and seething, dissolving, rotting,
ruining all, ruining all.

—

Though ‘irretrievable’ is correct, i prefer ‘unretrievable’, seeming to sound more final.

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Rhiannon’s Riddle

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 24, 2016| 5 Comments »

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Rhiannon’s Riddle

These my bare branches,
These the days of moonlit silence.
Seven are the ones lost to sleep
That should have been watchful
That should have been truthful.
A claw of cloud has stolen
my golden light, my golden sun.
I am sunk down by it and sullied,
Weighed by each retelling.
Bound again by careless generosity,
Bound by those not blameless.
An open honesty shall allay my worry,
And watchful bravery and a clear discrimination.
The hunter has risen and taken my firstborn light.
I am become wolf tied to stone,
Wandering the same road
Weighed down by it.
At night, the high table of the feast.
Neither here, neither there,
This road of travail, this cloak of flesh.
Golden is the harvest moon,
Birdsong of the morning.
All is fog
And my bright boy is gone.
The son eaten by the mother,
The mother deceived by her sisters
The hunter and his prey, taken, restored.
Pay attention Pwyll!
What is yours, is illusion.
Deeper by far is the world you walk.
My heartache is in this coming and going,
Half the time here, half the time
In a somewhere else,
more, or less, reflected perfect.
I will wait for you though.
Wait another year on year.
You shall only need to ask,
Only listen.
The footsteps beneath the ground,
The silver paths.
It shall all find return.
—

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These Old Poets

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2016| 2 Comments »

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these old poets:
smoke blue hills,
smoke blue clouds.
they rise up so,
they reveal themselves
and are curiously hidden,
conversing with vapour
between worlds
unmeasured, unfathomable.
they loom, nonetheless,
and shape the world.
it is from there
the clear waters fall,
from fell and moor
to feed, to wash clear our eyes,
to fill with song untranslateable,
echoing down the spine,
deeper than eye and brain,
deeper than soul,
into the bowels,
into annwfn,
the dark mysterious,
fecund deep.
rolling, these storm fast vowels,
ancestral to the blood.
this they prove:
there are no new songs.
just old songs
with new words,
old songs
with new tunes.

—

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Your Voice

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

your voice

your voice like a loving sea murmuring
and me again oblivious lost in mazing pattern.
we weave and are woven, a cloth to keep us warm
and a fire for light and for a future.
bedded together, dibbed between hills,
hammocked in cloud and sun
between two singing rivers
under a patient sky.
and the dead so close to us
we can feel their breath and dream their dreams
and live for them a fresh life
with the same old sorrows and joys
as ever it was upon this earth.

__

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Moon Sutras

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 16, 2016| 6 Comments »

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MOON SUTRAS

endless dhrupad
full moon
eyes closed

—

full moon
empty house
river whisper

—

this old man
scribbling poems
shadow trees

—

these tangled thoughts
this moonlit silence:
surely are the same.
silver veins
these hills
golden shadows

—

full moon
bright as day
little cat singing

—

mountain shadow
reaches the river
rising moon

—

The habit of an old man
down by the river
moonlit haiku

—

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