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Posts Tagged ‘time’

Plague Poems

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 18, 2020| 1 Comment »

1

YOU WILL STOP

Green veins

Of sunlight

Take you to

The silent abiding light.

Within the within

Where voices

Are breezes

And waves, and

Scratched starlight

Arcs.

The smoke

Tells you

Who you are,

And from whence

And from where.

—

2

THE MESSENGER

What did it whisper?

That you were never going to live forever.

That this breath now,

Is your only road, in and out

Of this world.

That fears are seeds of infinite patience

And will push through the neatest pavements.

That time is all you have,

And you have no more time.

That we do not begin, nor end,

At our skin.

That all barriers and boundaries

are children’s games, lines of chalk.

That when you take,

You take from yourself.

That when you talk,

Silence would often have more honesty.

That you stand upon

A web of silence.

That you come and go

Like a breeze between dawn and evening.

That your footprints wash away

And the stars shine brightly.

—

3

SAPPHIRE SKIES

We contemplate more sapphire skies,

Breathe in and watch for pain.

Whether we will last or not

Is not the question

We should be asking.

–

4

UNSTITCHED

These most sapphire skies

shall see us stitch by stitch

become unstitched

and standing naked,

wondering how it was,

and why, becoming

took so strange

a gentle slope.

Tides and waves,

a change in the weather,

a blackbird’s rain song.

How could we have forgotten

so easily?

All is absorbed

becoming benign,

a honey sustenance

for new sunlight.

—

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Orkney Sequences

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »

ORKNEY SEQUENCES

1

The wind sings between the grey walls of the town.

It sings of long seas turned to green fields.

Small birds scatter and reform in flowing air.

Islands turn to cloud and then dissolve in the driving rains.

2

Perhaps the first thing you notice is the soft lilt of the land:

The way the colours slip from brown greens to sapphire greys,

And the sound of the waves, a ceaseless singing (that is also in the quiet voice

Of the people who slip between worlds and grey streets

In and out of tinkling tea shops, the warm must of cosy bars,

Turned around through doors by the sharp wind and its slap of cold rain).

3

This wind is not to be escaped from..

It has come this far from a world away.

Though you may wait awhile in the warm quiet,

You must leave to face the remorseless thrust of it.

4

So many miles crossing the earth.

So many miles across the air.

So many miles over the seas,

To the first hearth, the sparking fires,

The strong stone vulvas of the rolling lands

Arching green, gentle green from the green seas

From which the dead do dream,

To which the living return like swallows,

Like swallows sifting their songs, the scything memories.

The dead own all the songs, the songs feed the dead

And keep the fires of the living warm and strong.

5

Deserted farmsteads scattered the slopes

Weathered grey skulls, window eyes dark and sightless

Broken jaw doorways toothless gaping

Slate pate roofs smashed open by war-hammer winds.

They mark the passage of years and the bite of seasons.

6

By whatever ways, whatever ways we come to them

Waiting diffident or with curious eyes to see what they have become.

Until we feed the fire, until we feed the warmth now the long memories,

Until then they are remote as stars whose names are not known,

Whose patterns are not picked out by pointing fingers.

We move towards them and they, waiting or not,

Wrapped up in their own watching.

There is nothing left here but scattered teeth

And broken skulls, voiceless gaping jaws

And the endless wind across the low green fields.

It was better than this, it was better.

Words piled up in cairns,

Words piled up and stones laid out.

7

The central hearth

Where stars burn

Where the gathered starlight burns.

The wind is in a minor key.

Ghosts of footsteps heading north.

This is the last feast

Before the world changes.

Before the old doors are sealed.

Before we throw away our names

And watch for new signs.

Bone by bone

We disassemble our gods

—

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Not Yet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

NOT YET

If you go a little way from here,

Down to the valleys and towards the towns

You will see the surprise of green:

The hawthorn hedges already plump with budding,

Blackthorn blossom scattered and the slim beginnings of willow.

But not here.

The hill is waiting yet, as its people waits,

In no rush to lose the cold, clear skies.

Still breathing deep and slow the muddy mulch and bracken,

The silent puddled lanes that measure

The stretching days and spin of stars.

There, (here and there), even a cherry, young and impatient.

Even the black ash swells.

But not here,

Except the elder has begun to heal its emptiness.

One more bright day.

One more clear night

And we shall be full of lambs and birdsong.

But not yet.

Not here,

Not yet.

—

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Chapel Oaks

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »

CHAPEL OAKS

Scattering dark fingered roads

Across bright dazzled morning.

.

Jackdaws coming and going

like second thoughts.

.

Snow picks out the distant hills

As if they were unattainable heaven.

.

Cold clouds drift on slow sunlight.

.

The in-dwelling silence is a song

Stretched out to eternity.

.

It is what the red kites,

What the ravens, wheel and dance upon,

Uplifted by delight.

.

The pain of frozen air

Is how we know

we are alive.

—

CHAPEL OAKS (2)

A murmuration of starlings

A murder of crows

A ricochet of jackdaws

A damnation of preachers

A singing throne of oaks.

.

The bones of the snow

On a bitter wind.

.

March morning sky

Churning the bright butter of glory.

.

The hands of trees reach out,

Shaking in eternal prayer.

—

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Storm Wind

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2020| 1 Comment »

.

STORM WIND

.

We cannot outrun the storm wind

We cannot outrun the rain.

.

Between the lines appear the shapes of other letters.

.

The moment the tongue finds a shape to express a feeling.

The moment the feeling swells, a flower

Of song blossoms out.

.

We cannot outrun the swollen river

We cannot outrun the racing cloud.

.

Every thread laid and lost within the weave.

To hold one thought, just one,

When the roaring chord that rocks the pines

Sweeps the world away in ragged tatters.

.

We cannot outrun the world of sorrow

We cannot outrun this tide of time.

.

The meaning here

Is not the meaning

We seek.

.

We cannot outrun the storm mind

We cannot outrun the candle’s shadow.

.

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Oracular Message

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »

ORACULAR MESSAGE

In the woods, in the green wet woods

The dead are waiting with their songs.

.

They have longed for their flesh and they have forgotten.

The rivers are full of their passions.

It is a cold steel desire, a lust like winter.

.

It is gone now, subsided into multiplicity,

The tracks lost, the flash of prey in the bushes,

All become unintelligible like a valley dissolves in driving rain.

.

But the dead are waiting there with their slim fingers

To crack open your sight, to break open your eyes

The release the hawk of your mind, the hungry raven of your heart,

The river of your reason.

.

This is for you, a prophecy for you

Because you have read these lines,

Because of the intersections of the stars,

Because you are nothing but this,

About to be forgotten, about to be lost.

.

The dead are waiting in the woods, singing and dancing,

Forgetting everything.

.

You have dreamed enough.

You have destroyed enough.

.

They slide between species, have no regard for distinctions.

They breathe the matter ejected from shuddering galaxies into the void.

.

These words are not for you

But you must remember them and pass them on.

They are for the last one who leaves.

Who turns to flick the light switch

And with a small smile steps into darkness.

.

Tell them the dead are waiting in the green mossy woods.

Tell them to listen for the sighing song

For the surprise of pine scent drift singing storm winds.

Tell them to remember the small things,

The notions that eat worlds.

Tell them the dead are waiting

To take them home.

.

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Winter’s path

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »

WINTER’S PATH

Bleak wish is winter’s path.

The flat of its grey blade

Knocks us senseless.

Long months, we huddle

Half dreaming here.

Things will return to how they were,

Is a truth and a lie.

Though there are those

That shall never know.

The long wind has died down now.

The river’s roar returns to whisper.

—

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Dhrupad 24 ( New Year)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

DHRUPAD 24 (New Year) 10.1.2020

Slow, slow now, slow time uncertain

Slow as honey slow it is unfolded

The paths untrod, the ways clouded

The roads silver, the roads brown

The roads puddled poured into the hills.

The days slow, unnumbered

The days unencumbered, weighed in

Silence. Slow slow the revolutions

Of the red kite, the wheeling, returning

Circling in slow light in slow light

And the sun low and slow looking

Looking for a new name a new name,

And the air leafless, the land leafless

Something something on the tip of its tongue

A new name, a new name, a path

A new way and the small birds brown

And the small birds red and blue and brown

Pecking looking for a new name.

And all the dreams a-slumber

And all the days a-slumber

And all the seeds and the leafless air

And the falling rain dreaming and sleeping

A small new name, a new name

And the sparrows shuffling in the eaves

And the gutter rivers singing, chanting

Murmuring, whispering, breathing, sighing

A new name a new name. Slow, slow the days

Slow the days now, time as thick as honey drips

Pools and falls and collects time taking shape

Shape taking space space taking voice voice

Murmuring a dream here, a dream here a new

Name a new name a name a new name, slow.

—

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Days Now

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 8, 2020| 9 Comments »

DAYS NOW

Days now the whispers come and go

worm words generated from earth,

words of smoke, words of plants.

.

Turn sideways, become thin,

slip between one day and another,

at the year’s ending so little noise.

.

These stars – they are not now,

they have burned bright and died

a million, million years ago.

.

Therefore, I bow down and breath deep

the dead light of our ancestors,

gone and here and gone again.

.

Time is the fat of stars;

seeping in the long years,

other glorious mornings long gone,

distant golden mornings,

other silent rooms, other footsteps.

.

Nothing goes to waste

but slowly changes from what it was

woven threefold into other days.

.

The Magister holds starlight in his crystal spheres

to rot them down to raven’s wings

where seconds copulate birthing strange homunculi.

.

They know the answers only the dead know

in butterfly whispers etching notions,

as acid reveals the jagged web of meteorites.

.

He is old now,

his bones creak like galleons do.

His mind, though, a bright moon in a stormy sky

for he is, he says, acquainted with all the demons

that dwell beyond law and science,

who converse in riddles

and move as if dancing upon other gravities.

.

Their heads are broken open,

their orifices sprouting green tendrils,

their skin, inhabited scrolls

where letters form and reform in curious calligraphies.

.

Lascivious is their language,

exotic and full of lilting innuendo.

Their madnesses are roads untrod before.

.

He reads the books that have never been opened,

by walking backwards through mirrors.

His only sustenance, the tiny measurements of primordial dust

wherein he seeks his own eternal name.

.

He practices the mudras of teaching and of dissolution.

His words fall sparsely in vast space

like birds that fly across a still sunset sky.

.

Their skin peeled back, returned to light

they tend their dripping hives,

honey vowels, the sigh of release.

They climb upon one another,

puncturing their certainty,

melting into each other’s futures.

.

The sawhorse shall be put together.

A new constellation shall appear in the southern sky

as Betelguese, or its ghost, or its future,

Weighs the likelihood of eternity.

.

The world is fire and light

and time is the fat of stars.

The apple winces in its dawn frost,

The sequoias sing to planet’s spin.

.

Clear facts stumble unheeded through forest fires

whilst ungainly notions dress the moments.

.

The alembic bubbles and quivers,

uncertain whether it can hold

the sentience of its own soot.

.

Still the Great Work must continue.

In holiness we are rubbed out completely

imagining new wings, writing new musics.

.

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Dhrupad 23: Pema Özer in autumn drift

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

DHRUPAD 23 ( Pema Özer in Autumn drift)

Slow slow slowly now

slowly now taste the shapes the sounds as they form

as they fall as they flow slow with the colours of autumn

slow the autumn falling slow to mists and coming going coming mists

slow no need to seek the means the meaning to move on.

Sun will not set sun will not rise sun standing still at midnight at midday

as if as if that sage, enjoying his beer enjoying the warmth of a lazy afternoon

dusty road in the mountains distant waterfalls sheep bleating

stop stop stop the sun and hold it there, slow slow to savour moments

out of inside of within wrapped up in time time time, the breath slow slow,

the words slow slow, the same the same the same, but not exactly not precisely,

not a landscape flickers by a landscape moulded forgot seen forgot seen seen

inhabited become sun-filled,

and the trees all autumn and slow breath, fall of leaves and drifting mists

and star-filled, star-filled, the river roaring darkness like that, like that,

that is like this, like this, slow slow unfolding with no end a measured walk

a stroll another beer,

watching time relax

and stay a while

.

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