Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, consciousness, Poetry, stillness, time on May 12, 2020| 2 Comments »
Two bowls
The wind blows out the daylight
Which, anyway, was grey and blurred.
The rain coming and going
And the logs keeping us warm.
The way time starts and stops
Depending on whether
You are looking at it, or not.
A world tree and a spell,
Two bowls that I have carved today
That I will feel in my muscles tomorrow.
These dreams are my offerings to a world
That dreams.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, cold, darkness, landscape photography, Poetry, snow, stars, stillness, Wales, Winter on February 4, 2019| 1 Comment »
snow night now
Snow now, falling without degrees, silent as night is.
I shall become night, standing still here,
Starfilled and let go of all, dying slowly,
Imperceptibly cooler, waiting small sounds
and sight to clear, the shapes of other’s thoughts
Falling white and falling white
To settle without degrees and blameless.
The words tumble, some mine, some from elsewhere,
Which is which and why distinguish?
The small noises of the night
In snowfall and starlit dark.
The stars, nothing more patient
Nor sorrowful, watching it all blink
And change, blink and vanish,
Blink and sleep.
World’s bones grow cold
So far from fires
So far from fires.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, Basho, Buddha, December light, landscape photography, Li Po, Poetry, stillness, Wales, Wang Wei, weather on December 15, 2018| 4 Comments »
MOTIONLESS
storm grey, the hills crackle.
intense, the colour of the day,
but still the trees catch flecks
of sudden golden light.
and a hum from the distant town.
Wang Wei sits motionless;
Li Po walks through his own eyes
into the landscape;
Basho hunts for a word
that carries silence;
Chuang Tzu remembers, laughs,
forgets again, laughs;
Buddha puts on a kettle for tea.
the day is the same as any other day-
a jewelled and a fragrant passing.
but few will notice even that.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged advent, art, December, landscape, light, Poetry, stillness, Winter on December 17, 2013| 5 Comments »
I would wish this day,
Its singing silence,
To remain untarnished.
Its silver stations
Engraving motions of peace.
Unhurried, unabated
Tidal coolness.
Translucent vessel
Of breezes.
Unholy, unbound,
Unassumingly radiant.
Exhalant vapour,
Winter’s breath.
—-
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Autumn, emotion, immanence, landscape, leaf fall, pen and ink, Poetry, rain, season, sketches, stillness, transcendence on November 16, 2013| 3 Comments »
POUR
The air is cool and still
Unmoved by the threaded rain,
Weighed straight and fast.
A roar upon the roof,
Laughter in the gutters:
A gurgled drunk descent,
Spun down to dark earth.
A balance of letting go,
A balance of remaining.
A slow exhalation.
—
FALL
Leaf fall
Thought fall
Heart fall.
Red, bruised,
Lip curled.
Nothing,
But to seek
The peace beneath joy,
The peace beneath sorrow.
This cold, empty sky.
This wordless depth.
—-
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, artefacts, crumbling, dream stream, eternity, fabrication, history, interiors, memory, mind, movement, museum, photo art, photographs, Poetry, reclamation, reconstruction, space, stillness, time, volume on October 15, 2013| 2 Comments »
Great Halls of Memory
Such a long time since last visiting The Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Completely misremembered its architecture and style. In my mind it was red brick and High Gothic, but no, now, at least, it seems to be Victorian Neoclassicism, all columns, domes and marble cladding. Perhaps there are corridors, rooms, floors, wings in different styles, different times, different memories.
Ascend the staircase,
The head that looks out,
The open dome,
The caverned stone skull.
Nothing else but a memory palace. Slow the heart, slow the eye,
The crowds blur and fade,
Their footsteps to whispers,
Their passing to plumes, dust motes dancing
.
All that remains, motionless, eternal: the memories, the constructions of memory, the shaping and honing of memory. The forms frozen and holy, the skilful turn of chisel and burin. Dark stairwells, cold. Curved stone scrolls, careful, less inhabited. The images of the dead, a maintenance of expectations,
The mental bones,
The bones of the mind,
The fossil fragments of heart,
Congealment.
Not as it was. Not as it seemed. Mind matter welded to timeless earth. An imposition of perfected memory, fabricated, polished. These we keep. These we cherish. These we honour – the bones of our ancestors, deep in our skull cities.
A record of dancing dust.
A reassessment of forgetting.
Mr Brown would come from afar,
Smiling sweetly ( eyes like jackdaws).
He would know, he would number the portals, the gateways, the porticoes, rearranged by time and place for fond ghosts to find then lose themselves. Hungry ghosts, longing, bored, wandering vestibular chambers.
Neither are they our memories
Harboured here.
Not ours, but wrenched,
Wedged, removed
From forgotten, desolate ruins.
Passed down by the impecunious,
The vanquished, the uninterested.
Our own little memories, ghost memories, too, no more sweetly harboured at sunset satisfied. They, wandering, away, pick trinkets in other lands, embellishments. Each time told remembered the last time told, the last time, told. An evolution of maps and stories, a hearsay, an edifice of straw and mud, an edifice of marble, collated by grain and polish, by echo, by echo eroded, by echo reborn.
Nothing but chaff and chatter
That fades at closing time,
The weight of stone time,
An instant frozen.
A pin dropping.
all the photographs here were taken on my visit. It was not my intention, time and equipment were not sufficient. But I salvaged a few blurry images and worked them a little.it is a place to go to summon strange juxtapositions,reflections,spaces
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awareness, consciousness, everything, landscape, life, moon, night, peace, Poetry, seasons, stillness, the universe on March 2, 2013| 2 Comments »
BALM
I shall cool my mind
Upon the low golden moon
I shall drain my habitual sorrow
Letting it flow earthwards
And rest.
Rounded quietness
The clear roof
Of a star-filled night.
Everything is as it is.
Everything is moving
Towards
A dancing of its own nature.
Sleep and dream and waking,
The blink of day and night-
Vibrations on the rim of
Creation’s bowl.
The rippled liquid,
Concentric pools,
An eye-blink.
Breath from the wing
Of a passing owl.
Polish the mirror,
Breath and sleep.
Frost at dawn
And the new lamb’s
Thin cry.
In the dead elm
Two magpies
Are building a nest,
Ivy clad, bejewelled.
As long as it can
Life will fill
All voids,
Dancing heedless
Over the precipice
Of time,
Disregarding limits,
Floating
As if it were
A garland, a light,
Set adrift
As a blessing
As an asking
Upon one great river
Sedate, curving slow,
Seawards.
simonhlilly 