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Posts Tagged ‘Poetry’

ROOSTED

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Between the light stream and the dark stream,
Upon the ridge road blessed in sun, washed by rain,
We have settled now near the gentle dead,
(Slate heads ivy-wrapped, whispering praises
In the old, long language, name and age and date).

Crumbled, crumbling, the dried yarrow, ground ivy,
Under the green candled boughs of the arbor vita,
Under the arc of apple and yew and hazel.
Wings folded, feathers shaken, we roost.

Reacquianted with the arc of silence,
With the certain thickness of stone walls,
With the roaring call down tall chimneys,
The voices choired, remembered, grass green.

Under the oakwoods and under the ash,
Along honeysuckle and rose-cooled evenings,
Into moon-swept, singing midnight.

Swept up, returned by chance.
Become hills, become vales,
Become the smooth, rolling road.

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STOKER AT AILSA CRAIG
(For G.B)

A soul windswept stares out to sea
The last time, maybe the last time.
Holding fast the eye on the wind isle
Buffeted and free, the brine woven air,
The taste of it, the taste of ships, eternal engines,
The past, freedom, a roaring coming in, a roaring going out.
Once and forever there is leaving and return,
Debris on the tideline, broken, poignant rubbish.
Voices far and near stolen from mouths,
Winged and drifted, gritted with sand,
The ground-down centuries of the dead.
Let the soul free, winged and drifted, wild voiced,
An exultation, a long howl of why, a longing cry.
The wind shall whip it away – all the warm familair,
The flesh, the dream, the reason, the plan.
Burnt up in wonder of the vast sky,
Turned bird, turned cloud, turned salt spray,
Turned, returned, wheeling away on white wings.
Lovelorn, love borne, alone to let go and stretch out,
The illusion of that sure, bound horizon.
Stretch, stretch out, thin the pain, dissolve in view.
So many, so many gone on before,
So many to follow.
It will not be so hard to leave the heart,
Once the hawsers are cast off,
Once the eyes have turned from firm land,
Once the rocking of eternal waves takes over,
We shall find sea legs, a new spirit, a new way
Without footprints, without shadow.

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Before and After Li Po

( improvisations on the poem “Jingting Shan Hill” by Li Po, following the lead of Robert Okaji)

Characters are rendered:

Crowd birds high fly utmost
Lonely cloud alone go idle
Mutual watch both not tire
Only be Jingting Shan

1
Birds, a scattered knot
In distant depth.
One cloud aimless
(This thought).
Lost the mirror distance,
Resonant, the still hill.

2
Silent swing the flock.
Wind flute, too, silent
At this peak of distance.
We exist only because
Of the other.
Green hill breathing.

3
Caught, the distant, sweet movement.
An upper air, a life of song and wind,
Silent here from this depth.
See too, there is one small cloud,
Sweet movement hesitant.
So, now, eye sinks earthwards,
Locks on swelling hill,
There before, and there after,
A poet’s gaze.

4
Scribble splatter
Brush of birds.
Splashed distant sky.
One thought lost,
The hand and eye
Follow each other,
Equally curious.
A mountain of bone
And earth,
Misted,
Remains.

5
The names matter.
On the tongue, in memory.
Located the sweep of sky,
The noisy flock of one mind,
The moment,
A congregation
Of blessings.

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Long Summer

LONG SUMMER

Hay lies golden.
A still, blue morning threaded
With skimming swallows.

Waiting, (for nothing in particular),
Thoughts form a translucent tent,
The hollow hush of calm.

A butterfly’s uncertain path,
breeze-borne, is this life,
Certain as the edge of summer clouds.

Time, a slow roll across hillsides,
Sun and moon, sun and moon,
A garland of slow, warm days.

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Spera octava – spera stellata

The circle of stars, a silvered scum, a foam, a detritus,
A flotsam of teleologies, nub-ends of endless parties,
A whispered recital from dust-gnawed cities.
Shall we savour their strangeness, the fruit of centuries?
A wish
The tomb
The roof
The old man.

The tent
Al Tard, the end.
The apes
The south gate
A pillar
The old folks.

The raven’s neck
The falling cross
The long sandbank
The wolf.

Al Kaid, the eggshells
The embracer
The green hill
The changer.

Kakkab Mulu-izi, the star-man of fire.
The magician
The golden well
The spectre’s head
The first frog.

Al baluh, the city.
The azure dragon
Crown of the forehead
The southern sea
Announcer of invasion on the border.

Narrow cloudy train of female stars
Golden cluck hen and her five sisters.

Temennu, the foundation stone
Al wasat, the central one
Saptar shayar, the seven anchorites
The white of the poplar tree.

San Tsze, three instructors
Antasurra, the upper sphere
Drag-blod, the fire tail.
Pivot of the planets
The nail
The bright one
Ishtar
Bethulah
The defenceless
The virgin’s girdle
The lady of heaven
Taygeta
Atrami
Segin
Aludra.

And so we fly past the whispering lights,
souls and stories,
wished-for and longings,
The indicators of time and movement,
a slightest of lost taste,
A melting of bright ice.
Silence returns.

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Too many references to ‘super moon’, only one I saw to Guru Purnima, which is this full moon in July dedicated to all our teachers.

FAST SMOKE (Guru Purnima)

Through a fast smoke of cloud
This golden moon, full as it can be,
Wrapped with light and golden,
Arcs out of sight,
Golden in a golden morning.

From its vastness it has seen the sun,
Seen the day, breathed in light,
Exhaled in fullness.

Absorbed, we are absolved of necessity,
Filled up with ample goodness.
No need to know. Nothing obscured.
Nothing beyond reach.
Enfolded radiant, as this moon.

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Spera saturni, saturn

The old grumbler has seen it all.
Knowledge no one wants.
Stiff bones and stubborn in his ways,
For soft bread and warm tea
He will tell such tales, names strange,
and names ancient, as eyes unfocus
To stir the past.

Old time, stuttered, halted,
Father of years, creaking progenitor.
His scythe notched, blunted
Only his tongue a grating whetstone,
Licking lips and air, his hooded, heavy lids.

Things will become dust
And he shall watch
The narrow glass, the sifting moment,
Until all falls silent.
A slow rasping exhalation,
A rest of sorts.

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Spera iovis, Jupiter

An ineffable thunder.
A benevolent sky untouchable,
Bewashed with holy white.
His eye, from that smoky height,
Benevolent, or careless.
Sucking up breath, bellows,
A bull in heat, a vast progenitor
Bestowing fast waters, furious light.

A plunger, a pummeller, a fondler
Of breasted mountains, a piercer
Of earth’s deep, warm valleys.

The biology of deity: what is fecund
Evolves to the remote ineffable.
The lusty roarer, to righteous, wrathful judgment.

Template to transcendence, he dabbles yet
And dribbles his pleasures in little lives
Spread-legged, surprised by glory.
Panting and flattered by the fierce blast
Of his rumbled, lascivious breath,
His weight borne down and admitted.

So it is a face of infinity,
A voice vague with distance,
A beam breaking clouds,
A covenant, a breaking into and out of,
Grandiose lusts and transfiguring flesh,
A feast of flesh for formless air, a cold, clear possession.

No other face but a storm of thunder and a sudden cloud,
An animal roar, a shower of gold.
All encompassing as air, as mountain squall, a rush of cold water,
As clay turned incense, as sacrificial fire on beacon top.

The placation and violence of an unseen height. From there is sought
Return of revolutions, approving victories, an evolution
Of sorts and measures.
An eagle’s wing, a single feather, a sharp beak, a clutching claw.
A rosary of names heroic, a prayer of appeasement and summoning.

Above all, and through it all,
A mystery of heaving curtains,
A spotlit stage with screaming plot,
A certain, definitive gravity, the thunderer.

A strange evolution it is from dark cloud and downpour
To remote, inviolable vastness.
But they all do shuffle and elbow eternally,
These interferers, these hungry, unconcerned
Bickering departmental managers,
Jealous and lusty,
Breeding prophets and demigods in casual catastrophe.
They run off with themselves, whooping and roaring,
Eternal adolescents, hormonally sparkling, unrestrained
In all their sudden, bright passions.
Free from opprobrium, earthy,celestial gardens of delight.

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Spera solis, sol

The ghost that circles our borders,
The glory rolling on our horizons.
The lord of brilliance
To whom we dance and bow.
We follow and weave
Amongst his messengers of shadow,
His pillars of light.
Day is woven thereby
And life is shaped,
Ordered in waves of delight,
The wake from his wheels.
The red bull of morning
Roaring with the dawn.
Boat of heaven, chariot of fire,
Wagon of deliverance.
To him we turn our heads,
To him we bow.
Sustained and warmed
We are pulled up,
Flower, fruit and wither
Under his round sight.
A map of heaven,
An intimation of beyond,
Unfathomable, a cipher,
A sign, a blaze.

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Spera martis, mars

Here he is –
Certain gaze,
Certain smile.
All the girls (despite themselves)
Twist their hair, bite their lip.
Bright eyed amongst themselves
With giggled whisper,
(But they will never, ever tell
Of those desires that are so deep hid).
They will all, we will all,
Trail after him
Blaming ourselves for every scar,
Every wound, every bruise.
Who cannot match up to such as he,
So sure he is
Of justice and victory,
So fierce and radiant.
We have become the red planet,
Enslaved by bold and noble action,
Unwilling to reflect,
But act, react.

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Here are the next few sections of what has been written so far…..

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Spera mercurii, mercurius

Quick as murder,
Bursting breeches, this lad
Gobby, too smart
Full of street tricks,
Alley cat, sly and sleek.
He will flicker in the shadows,
Stealing pennies, stealing favours,
Stealing wisdom from the faded.
An eye for the back door, pimp of lawyers
And all knot makers. A shiny solution,
A quicksilver poison.

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Spera veneris, venus

Mother of all beauty
(Some will say all sin)
Herself herself washed ashore.
What can we say?
She is the summit of air,
The hills of love,
The valleys of lust,
The sign before day
And the star before darkness.
Her form is whatever you desire.
Her desire is to be encompassed.
All fruit she offers, never ceasing.
As the sea’s waves
She laps and drowns,
Roars and lulls.
We are swept sway
On honey breath,
A five-fold star,
A pulse.

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