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Posts Tagged ‘Second Branch’

War Cauldron

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »

WAR CAULDRON

Though they came back

They came back silent

And haunted are their eyes.

The ones cast into the cauldron of war,

An endless source of sorrows.

Silent from what they see.

Silent from what they have seen.

Silent lest the heart break again.

Silent lest the bones become dust

And the dust, the taste of death,

And death, not the worst of it,

And the worst of it, the endless lines,

Moving to the front to die.

Nothing learned, nothing gained.

The drum, the drum, the drum.

Eternal war feeds the cauldron

Dragged from the depths

Where it should have remained.

As if there were not enough sorrow

In this world already.

—

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Lost 1 (Branwen)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 7, 2020| 1 Comment »

LOST 1

My white winged soul is over the sea,

Low over the silver waters,

Far from sight, for duty

And the hope of peace.

Gone from this world,

Gone from the next,

Spiralling down to earth

To scour the debris of other’s joy.

There is some small joy in loss,

But not this loss.

Settled and content were we,

As rocks on a sun-warmed hillside

( the popping of gorse, the dust of heather,

the impermanent river of skylarks).

Settled and content, rippled in sheltered shade

(the hum of bees, the dance of gnats).

But each change brings irrevocable change.

Worlds end at every whim,

The ruins dreaming in emptied desolation.

Time, a syncopated stutter

To relive or forget in themes.

The moment before death –

An unravelling of strategy and excuses.

Something pure there, something silent,

Something wrapped beneath the pain and sorrow,

Something unutterably sweet, something eternal flickers

Before the moment and the light dies.

Before the terrible glorious cauldron darkness,

The seething dice thrown before dawn

Where we have lost our voices

And must learn to sing again,

Sound by sound.

—

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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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