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Part 1House of Marsh House of Dolls Riding the Beast Karma Full Bleed from the Milk Diamonds for the Feast  House of Marsh. (1) i. Baltic waves break cold & grey on a Danish sea - Danu. (When first I kissed the rose’s blush, how then were I to know that rose & lips would turn to clay & stone along with the falling snow.) Night into solstice, dawn crepuscular, a full moon netting frost through vapours. Frozen tears in the breeze, years fold like strangers shaking hands. A mocking bird sings on in plaintiff note to the sealed shadows always sought yet never released. ii. Opaque dolls’ eyes reply with fixed smiles, silver birch hang their flails in windows, spiked. Reeds lead down to the mire’s briar tangled with sprites guarding its dead. A splintered plank hut jabs & juts in foray at intrusion of hunters. iii. Dark ice swamps the stubble fields. In the Yule barn a taxidermist gannet swoops from rafters & a sow’s eyes, pale in watery blue, twinkle in porcelain. iv. The solstice grunts turning a glinting sun through the pines into a brutal dawn. Fireworks emblazon the garden territories. v. Give me a hut of the mountain with axe, fresh water & lantern, where the deer & the cattle roam & children flutter like the butterfly, helplessly but happily. Are we no more the children of the sun with daughters of the moon to confine us to our doom. vi. A rose is a rose His eyes are black as coals The sun is his dream I suppose, The water flows around Upon the lonesome ground Where the great snowman lies bled. Puppets play the scene As best you can Strings are pulled in the wizard Star theatre & the light of the day Is the night inside the masquerade parade Words recalled, now refrains, hollow, as wind in the reeds, amongst wind, on parade. Back to top House of Dolls (1) i. As children play between shadows & hours in secret gardens with faces as flowers until they frighten away to refuge in the land of yore, I drift amongst this house of dolls with her lady of the moor marsh grown old & fat to labour out the years. Snow steeps with lilac twilight a new moon courses in orange descent in this our winter of content turned To dolls eyes stare anticipating spring knowing only they remain & that she will protect them to her last drop of blood stitched into their breasts congealing frayed edges as the marsh lays concealing love nests until kings & queens arise from the mire. ii. Blue reed & shadowy bush Streak like an isle of glass Down to the marsh. My footsteps plough on through, Behind softer footfalls fall On paws of an unseen stalker Skirting me in brush To forage dangerous edges, Where I dare not enter, As the moon concealed in marsh cloud seems to blush at man & beast desolate In its soft & snowy hush; But tonight it retains Its sepulchral shrine, Where only paws of beast may pass. Daybreak will bring the thaw & all will be as before - nevermore. iii. The yoked cart became a fiery chariot, The trekking pony a fierce steed. In the first flight in that appetite for blood, Victory to be through death refreshed, Warrior & steed became one in the battle. Man & beast fused in life & death, From the fallen rose the first song of liberty, Warrior & steed had drunk their glory Through the blood of their dead, their health. The spirit of man had been born; The crone cackled under the moon For the hunting time had begun & the inheritance passed down: Onto the beast, warrior & steed became one. iv. Nests in birch hang black bracken Even as the buds begin. The heart is a fleeing fawn Falling from an emboldened moon & love a rose upon a thorn that when touched blood is drawn. These are metaphors of the hour, But all the years have fled to now & in the coming of the light, Love found & lost return to night & though bitterness & scorn Still lash in the fury of the storm, Here in this breach remains the quest That compels this passion until I rest. Back to top Riding the Beast 1. i. Phantom ancestors of the womb, phantom ancestors of the tomb, absence remaining, waiting on the memories we’ve left behind to be found, to be rediscovered: the covered furniture in the room, where you wait, belonging & alone, knowing you must be remembered. ii. This Rock, Interminable Rock Risen from the sea, this rock holding the sky, earthbound rock, hurtling comet as her face recedes, as you enter, as first there is blood, the odour of blood & then flood in the cave as you drown in a mouth devouring, an eye seeing, an ear listening on the crescendo of a wave, where the sea shell speaks with the voice of the sea, where the sea mares leave the waves for the multiples skies which cascade, falling, falling, separating, until at last you find her at the pool, virgin born, where she may go where so she will, where she may be what so she will, where you may never follow as she leaves, where you can only wait her return, bound on the interminable rock. iii. Fronds. The hedgehog gets the scorpion, The fox, the snake in the desert dawn. A volcano gives birth to an oasis. The Lakes of Triton turn to salt plains: Diaspora to the sands & the seas. 2. i* On St Patrics Evening London 03. How much is gonna blow - Being here, I gotta know Can’t just let it flow Gotta say no Gotta know How much is gonna blow - Life I’m told goes on We’re gonna be reborn After the explosion The moon’s almost full now Tomorrow it will blow How much is gonna blow - O St Patrick are you hearkening? Are you there at the tavern door? Today’s a day for celebration, It’s just around the corner, & we come not to the feast but riding on the beast. * Just before commencement of war in Iraq.
ii.* Sunday Afternoon with Suibhne. He undresses like an ostrich, plume All & pilot brain, As with the genial smile of the flea, Mottled and scrawny of limb, he Leaps into foam. On the ceiling shadow fighters zoom, Before, in blaze of pink fume, A collage of explosions The minarets adorn. The Mughal hordes swoop down, Down from the Ukraine, No room for immigration, On this Sunday afternoon. * Just after commencement of war in Iraq iii. Sunday Afternoon with Suibhne. (ii) Carnal carnivalesque on walls cavort with stone age brain & chimpanzee heart. Water, electricity & sewers, desmene of rats, rabbit cats, ravenous toads with kangaroo leaps, as the elephants come trampling corn & the locusts swarm through thin blue & white walls in Ariel steam, as spiders scurry to their crannies abandoning molten dewy nets with which he robes his naked self in frail fronds, host to a house of ghosts. Back to top Karma. 1. i. Karma.* Conflicts begin & end Limits of this ephemeral world In its womb of time, Where none can tell what is held As destiny in world of multiple illusion, In world within world Within world without end, Where Divine Karma, La Musa, Reveals in mirage infinite order, Wherein we only seem to dream & be dreamed within a dream, To come & go & return again, As do the sands in that light, Which are our day & night. *After E A Poe. Dream within a Dream. ii. Ancestral Echoes Still & silent, yet with voice, there in the walls, which I adorn, waiting, listening. I here, you there, I hear you there, you hear me here. Both attending the rite, knowing, calling from our distant tower tops falling, between here & there, waiting, in the breach, beyond reach, beyond reach, waiting, as echoes do in mirrors. iii.* Teiresias speaks: The thread you hold Eurydice, unwind and rewind, does not release you nor him, the one who stands before you as a God to rescue you on a condition he will forget, forget you, who will fade a faceless shade into the shades from the world of light which reclaims him. You dream the immanence on your brow will fade for him where he calls you to return, he is but the sun in your hair, where you blind him. O Orpheus, Eurydice, queen of life in death, once again draws you from the world of light, where she had sent you, the furies beset you, their voices pursue you, a firebrand beacon to the sea’s final precipices, your head now borne on the bier her maenads bear, as caryatids of the underworld. Orpheus speaks: O Maenads, tear me limb to limb, I would the mushroom flower in my brain as the crescendo of a flame from which the moth knows no return & I born to a moon, where no other days return. *After Margaret Atwood’s section of poems
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Orpheus & Eurydice. iv. Pathos : Ethos Gilgamesh was not immortal made & Condemned as a brave man to meet his coward. Gilgamesh is not born a God Because he had failed in paradise. He was born a face on the moon, Became the zodiac’s skeleton, A faun in a womb, An embryo to be born & robes of flesh adorn. He was born the Son of Time & from his sacrifice was born the Mysteries Elysian, the White Bull Dionysian & the Songs Orphian. The Son of Man is born To a Virgin Moon Ishtar is her name. The Fall of the Tower of Babel, A Sarcophagus in rubble, & Byzantium is born. Gilgamesh cut in two The Whore of Babylon, but she Like the severed worm Ever grew again, her hydra headed fame. War was in heaven between the deities, Born were the epics of pantheons & she to adorn The Hydra Headed Whore of Babylon. vi. Song of Eurydice. * He is my song & I listen at the window with my candles, moths & butterflies, in wind & rain or any season to his song, naked in my white gown, calling me down. His eyes always gleam, in a face paler than the moon, he sings of fire & ice, or more radiant than the sun of days without ending, or of mists, where memories return as rhapsodies & again to echoes whispering my name. He is my love & he calls me down to where he stands veined in marble glistening sheen, & I touch the silver of his heart, the jasmine azure of his throat & his marble lips of song poured into me as a cauldron. He has crowned me & kissed my foot, bathed in my blood, suckled my breast, he has been my lover who gave me no rest & now in my hands I hold his severed head & listen to his song, calling me down. Back to top Full bleed from the Milk (1) i. Sappho versus Catullus The one who stands before you is alike to you as the one who stands before you is alike like the one who stands before you. Neither of you saw what the other saw as the mirror sealed your kiss. But that kiss emptied the mirror so that it saw not you alike, alike: the mirror is an image of the dead. ii. Mounds of Ithcus Out of the sky’s Deep sea blue flint shingle Shines on the steep Steppes Mounds of ancient Ithcus. Clouds shroud Their burial grounds In solitary wraifs. Crystal quartz, Porpoise & sea cow waltz. Coral isles attend their rites Nearer than the sun’s rags Through the dust of ages. iii. Cabo de Gata Imp´s smile, impish malign, A face black as soot beside A tarred keel in a sandstorm. Ash beach fills hair, eyes, Clogs shoes, white waves, A black dot in the void. iv. The Marriage of Heaven & Hell I thought that life was but a con that anti poetic education had made biased version of history & no secret was shared twixt you & me. No secret that only a kiss could tell, Where Sofía & Krysos harrowed hell. Only Marriage of Harmony & Cadmus, The forging fingers of Pythagoras. The letters of Cadmus written both bold, young: it´s the same story but we are old, we can change but the story´s as so you see, an improvement on myth & history. Sofía & Krysos are still hidden, So what! this is no Garden of Eden! v. Suibhne in a Waiting Room. Suspicious of tense he suspends mood in abeyence, his inhuman mirror self alien, & faces the onslaught as he treks the milky way, & then the real thing, the shattered realities still coming & going, a corpse in a waiting room watching its train depart, the others despatching, no longer responding to signals. 3. High Kite.(i) i. Day descends darkly Entertaining hidden winds Yet to be unleashed. ii. Leave O morning fly For by twilight you will die ‘Neath another sky iii. August’s golden sun Died in a blaze of glory September’s bloom falls. iv. Full September moon Waxes silver on silver Birch Fly Agaric. v. High Kite (ii) The glorious day Burgeoning in golden haze Again the same. A one line poem Whose middle in memory Begins in ending. The blue lemur hawk High in the valley hovers Over the buzzards. vi. Nettle seeds to wispy gray Wilting in white hair. Foliage nets gleaming elderberry, White hawthorn blossom of May Has blown away its lair Leaving there the poisonous red berry & blackberry ripens soon to be stricken: Already, the fallen leaves dry in autumn. Back to top Diamonds for the Feast. 1. i. War came to my village today As the children romped in the hay As ignorant of its existence As of the world beyond the ramparts Of my ploughed fields. They invaded from the skyline, Which has always laid siege At this door of toil & strife, Swarming down with sword & flame Angered at the innocent fear in my children’s Eyes, as I bow before my new conquerors, Where they thirst on this sparse land After the sweat & heat of battle. They pillaged What they could, left some dead & went on. My son takes the plough scanning the skyline, Which is never true but for its dawn riders Swooping down with banners of sword & flame. ii. Grazed with placid bullocks & frisky hembras shinning amongst granite & boulders, a mother´s eyes benevolent, as we pass through as their flesh eaters with the sun insane, as mountain steppes call us down to their remaining dust. iii. Last night the shuttered window blew open & the moon burst full in, the room was all moon. Shadows of home plants sucked from their leaves blew through my eyes. Today House Martins from Africa swarm & dive on tiny wings a beating tiny legs from atrophy. iv. Compare myself to Divinity, I do myself compare, Under the sultry heated moon in fried tomato air. More than Gilgamesh or wandering jew, aeons I am fore now, Yet still in rags and manacles, this night brings me with Thou. How does this compare with Thou might beyond travail ? From this solitary pen at window, how can I Thou all hale ? & that today has yesterday & tomorrow to hold its fold, It is but me Thou holdest, not I who Thou do hold, but bold. Compare myself to Divinity, I do myself compare, Nor may I not so, in any place or time, anywhere. I am smitten but to struggle in vain Thou might to know, Yet no less knowing these words were here before long ago Before now as Thou would find me here still unable to endure The knowing of Thou knowing of me unknowing in the truer |
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Part 2Such is my Humanity Titles for Hearts Modes Skylines Such is my Humanity. 1. i. Sultry blue descends Through slow cloud collide-divide Into green torpor ii. Sculptured heart’s veins Leap from imprisoning wall Capturing a heart iii. Captured heart’s veins Leap from imprisoning wall Sculpturing a heart iv. May Song Smell of nettle Flush & fettle Broth in kettle Clouds a pack-in Sleepy sheep swim Green trees swing Move the wind Off the ground Out of sound Coming & going Lawn needs mowing Sky is blowing May’s a day Come what may Let it lay A merry green In festal season Watch out them! Hidden in ivy Skirting & skivey Peeping out lively They can stalk Let them talk We can walk Hand in hand Up the strand On this land Drink the mead All you need But take heed May is May Come what may We say today v. White Hawthorn Moon. Man on a moor, Remembers it barren Under a dagger sky, Now as before, Desolation in mutation: Clouds pass by. He buries the sky & on legs of stone Opens home’s door To eves that sigh The bowers are unladen On the desolate moor. 2. i. Suibhne in towelled turban & eve scent mutation Contemplates the evanescent Cities of light in bed coombed Head & foot an exodus of wanderings To the bizarre marching of apocrypha The treasure of Jerusalem disappears With emigration - the Mughals in Herat Convert from the Ukraine Granada in India Lawrence in Mesopotamia Confusion to Robespierre & Napoleon Capitals to the Guillotine Chosen religions for chosen people Secular despotism & soldiers of God Riding the beast to the feast. ii. Such is my Humanity. (i.) Searching humanness To find the thread To my tread, Beyond fragrance I dig for moss On stained knees, On slippery banks That squelch beneath Footless trees. iii. Such is my humanity. (ii.) Mutton clouds huddled Into blooded folds, Sad bleats timid beat In frightened eyes asleep. A woolly flock to the slaughter are Gathered for politics of carnivore, Delivered with their shouts of dismay To feed the stars to feed the day. iv. Suibhne more than erect on viagra falls Flat on his back She covers him with slow carnal sweat Clouds billow send not know For whom the bell tolls Suibine doffs his hat Releasing a spray of doves in her hair v. Suibhne Alone Life has been a series Of long term broken relationships But the children’s descendants go on To their royal icons, wrecker Beacons, bonfires of vanities. Suibine goes on with nosegays,* & a nose as big as Catullus. *Anonymous saying: if the night has a thousand eyes it has also five hundred noses. Back to top Titles for the Heart. 1. i. Monuments confined as shelf souvenirs seek titles for the heart. ii. On the threshold of visibility token policemen parade uniformity. iii. In the street the multitude are a tamed jungle ruled by the forces Of a woeful mythology & the peculiar presences which Attend this world & once magical word that time´s usury erodes. * JLBorges. The Gold of Tigers. Preface to The Unending Rose. iv. Moon through the window spot lights a dust flecked stage to an invitation. v. Showboat at the fair, stars ferment to popcorn seeking titles for hearts. I watch in vain, the sail open as a rose & the deck its vine, again.* * Old Ships. J E Flecker.
vi. Tramontana in Madrid light on light melts Black into corners Daylight flickers furtively On the blade of Mack the Knife. *Tramontana: summer tempest.
vii. Or is it really so, Our ancestors wait in the valley, Wait in the wind, Waiting to give titles for hearts. viii. We forge in the fire & withdraw to refine The crafted sword, That tomorrow will clash In the tumult of blades. ix. We forge in the fire & withdraw to refine The crafted word, That tomorrow will be a rose A title for the heart & sword. Back to top Modes 1. i. A poem is more than an aesthetic object & less the world. ii. When the eye can be so wide in the world why does it shrink so!? iii. Anonymity means everyone, no friend to the stranger. v. Phased in & out nature protects us, but from what, ourselves vi. Skyward bound the shadow from the bird, here mine remains grounded. vii. Tea - heat water to just before fish eyes pop - still - to set free, slow pour. viii. Black carboned grey pig iron ore is good, it now depends on the tea. ix.* We have left the bones to the scholars & taken the cream for ourselves. * imputed to Rumi. Back to top Skylines. 1. i. Sky Prelude. High window skyline: mountain darkness mixes in city light´s distance. From the mountain´s edge purple clouds sail by a high window wind rattles. Purple cloud spectrum blacks out in a high window, now only the wind. ii. clouds resist the edge not of sky or of water but of vastness: to each of the drops every drop is a drop to the ground: skyline dives on the edge, where clouds resist, skyline, drinks: vastness. iii. winter combines light: familiar scenery parts in difference. dormant landscapes lay slumbering dreaming beneath the window´s skyline, obscure over images summer lifted only to dazzle. 2. i. Tankai. coin in a fountain: a splash, pool ripples, coin sinks, there is no sound chink. afference & efference drawn to stillness, the coin blinks. coin in a fountain: it gleams beyond reach for alms, children´s arms refract. cascadence is the cadence, airborne to water´s silence. coin in a fountain: i stare down to the bottom, face upon water. the hand that spun the coin is the sound of one hand clapping. ii. Under the silver moon drink night´s water in shade, embrace dawn & bloom. iii. Black chrome gleams silk sheen, a black Madrid night shining through African dust. iv. Pine on the Ridge. Daybreaks & everyone is framed as well as the exile who does not belong, no one is chosen, no one is saved & a single thought lacks to Marché on. Those who weep be brave, your tears are rivers & all rivers flow to the sea, to the sea so far, to the sea so near you on the shore, almost as solitary as the ridge pine helpless before & against the forces it rails over the valley below, where its brothers stand like paper saints. Or perhaps your tears do not so flow & only water them their years from fears to escape from freedom once held so dear ii. Tanka Monk in beggar’s rags Meticulously copies In ink word for word In order not to forget As our feet tread over him iii. Late Noon in Anton Martin. Grey clouds daze drizzle . Helicopters head off in trajectory to Iraq . We hang out of our terraces & plants, Sunday morning non church goers, To wonder but not to cheer, doves take off in the other direction in grey clouds daze drizzle. |
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Part 3Dirge of the Ferryman.Shades of Hades Avalon *******
Dirge of the Ferryman. [A homage to Coleridge, whose writing on the mystical journey of Kubla Khan to Xanadu was interrupted by the arrival of the visitor from Porlock and lost except for a few extant verses] (1) i. After lightning strikes it returns to the dark tremor from whence it issues, its naked music unleashed for an instant on the concealed land which flees as a spectre through its light. ii. Those who reach the isles do in a blink of an eye. iii. You are within the mirror eye, a flash in eternity in a movement beyond its existence, nearing the distance. iv. Glimpsing island boundaries with their cries of pass on as they disappear concealed in flight. v. Darkness pierces your sight. vi. In the chasm there are only echoes, where their voices once called now is yours alone, a shout in the abyss that none will hear but the echoes. vii. A river of blood must have bones, ballast for the barge & every crossing must be borne on its dirge & though none will be remembered, none are the same. (2) i. Yet see those other seas, voyagers of the albatross to these same citadels, the same siren song that brings storm & lightning, brings also eternal wandering for they are your three memories. ii. You follow in the footsteps the wind prints on your dreams & they follow you as they find you, in every turning there is doom but you cannot choose, for none are remembered after the isles. iii. The threshold is nigh, the instant awes, this is the crossing. iv. You are in the eye of the mirror a glass isle between earth & sky. v. Blink now. vi. In the virgin light scatter the nine calico moon masques of Scaramouch* from white to ash from ash to white on the wind. vii. White on the waters these are your tears in their passing as tears must fall. (3) i. On this sea you hale all voyagers but none can see you for none but you can see them. ii. They lay siege to the isles & the isles lay siege to them. iii. Already they walk among the ruins of Kubla Khan´s fallen Xanadu. iv. These too, you must pass through. v. They hoist flag & sail on unknowing the fallen is borne with them, unknowing even as they enter the portals of life again, lost. vi. Here stood Kubla Khan´s Xanadu fallen before you even in your reaching, or perhaps again arising on that next horizon before you. vii. Those who reach the isles do in a blink of an eye within the mirror eye, a flash in eternity in a movement beyond its existence, nearing the distance, for lightning strikes but to repeat the tremor of darkness to which it returns. (4) i. Dirge of the Ferryman. After lightning strikes it returns to the dark tremor from whence it issues, its naked music unleashed for an instant on the concealed land which flees as a spectre through its light, those who reach he isles do so in a blink of an eye within the mirror eye, a flash in eternity in a movement beyond its existence, nearing the distance. Darkness pierces sight in the mirror eye, a glass isle between earth & sky in the blink of an eye. You follow in the footsteps the wind prints on your dreams & they follow you as they find you, in every turning there is doom but you cannot choose for none are remembered after the isles. Those who reach the isles do so in a blink of an eye within the mirror eye, a flash in eternity in a movement beyond its existence, nearing the distance, for lightning strikes but to repeat the tremor of darkness to which it returns. * Scaramouch : scared white clown´s
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Back to top Shades of Hades. 1. i. Shades of Hades* Do Shades of Hades speak undead words, through yet still fears, through yet desires, that to human ears cannot be heard? Only human blood can freshen oracle lips to speak live words to human heart´s need, where the undead sip. & those who would pursue those words to the domain of the undead, even as the shade fades until no more their blood is tasted, knows the place the undead have waited, knows the place of nevermore. ii. A Vampire`s Dream Waving your hair, your anarchist look You gaze into an image immersed in a radiance greater than its own. You paint the moon on water, an eye swallowed in a mirror. You follow the eye of the wall following you, you turn on it, a faceless face, as it turned on you. The stage is set, it is blood you seek to shadows which as echoes seek to embrace. Eternal return of the shade, blood, kiss me hard. I am the vamp, its clinging lamp, I am the pyre, phoenix & dust. I am tides & blood & moon & I will come again my love like a red red rose of an abyss when all the seas gang dry & the rock melts into the sand Let me dream of loving you and disappearing. iii. Body Schizoid It is just a body on a street street but an incurable schizophrenic. Just a man or woman found stuck in a jam, the rustle in the window dresser´s pane, wasn´t at all meant to agitate him & the secret whispers as she passes Will never be destiny's prophecies, Nor eyes that look a body up & down Wore not before it a neurotic frown. Just a corporeal body's breathing mass, a jelly roll in a prawn cocktail glass, lugubrious & glaucous in dance macabre transparently concealed in shadowy shard, bodies in incurable loneliness. iv. The Scorn of Homer. Overhead the Gods stood, Lords of the dead, the living dead, the undead, the unborn, the reborn, all of mortal man & his woman. The Gods had Bedlam for dinner at the Pantheon, they played at dice & lost their thrones, they bought & sold each others homes & names. Cattle fen raider clans that traded as well, their babes & women. Until being all met at the great conference The Althing they spoke again their names from the ancient runes being certain of incarnation, but the joke was on them, there was nobody there to bluff, they were the buffoons, the jokers, the cards, stakeholders & shares. And they stood overhead, lords of the dead, the living dead, the undead, the unborn, the reborn, all of mortal man & his woman. Their kingdoms have gone, their kingdoms come, pirates are trespassers. There has arisen one voice that speaks for everyone in the Name of the Face that by not even the Son of Man can be seen. In the Name of the One whose Name cannot be uttered, a Name so secret written it cannot be let out but consumes all other names to nothingness, so it is now & evermore will be. But even until the last Trojan of Aenid, of Albion, my mark will be upon them: Troy has fallen for no other cause than prophecy when Cassandra´s oracle were overthrown. v. Under the Volcano* At gallows crossroads a ghost accompanies a ghost to its home. A creaking tavern sign swinging to & fro in the rain mist. When the light is on the rabbit does it know death´s near it´s neck!? Daybreak binds an interrupted interval into memory. The hand is worn that holds a lifeless form surrendered to dawn. In the rain still uncertain which way to go dawn is creaking. Bounded in the frame ghost at home swings, to & fro in the rain. The other goes off into Picaresque scenario. Bucolic landscape, gaunt on the skyline, lean, hungry & mean. The valley people exclaim he has gone to the volcano. The world spirals into a twin, the tavern sign grins, dawn creaks. To & fro, under the volcano, the people come & go. A phantom on the summit without a conjuring trick, lo, what will he do, but out of the volcano give them his shoe. * Empedocles disappeared in flames on Mount Aetna to confirm the report he had become a God: the volcano threw up one of his bronze slippers: * Hephaistos Greek, Fire & forge God, Vulcanus by the Romans who held he had his forge on Mount Etna, hence volcano, one story he is cuckold & nets the adulterous couple for the Gods to witness, hence each has contributed a form of his or her name to the English vocabulary. vi. Describe Adonis. In red anemone let Adonis come whence of his anointed blood have so sprung from gored loin wild boar Syrian. The Nile has bled her menstruation, on her mire the swineherd has trodden, scattered & harvest threshed the seed & corn, consecrated it in Astarte´s name, her Byblos temple of red anemone. She who will suckle him from her nipple, red as anemones, milk of life & death, whose lips of blood & wine kiss fickleless from the moon the sun born child´s full face, together embraced in red anemones, as the bards song of the ages is sung. Back to top Avalon 1. i. The Weather Vane. so vulnerable the spire weather vane, the plague has been. a compass warp in kaleidoscope spectrum, wrecker’s beacon, ave chaos flocks where skies revolve over its vaulted arches. now only the dead bear witness for the living to be born. to haunt it again with an inevitable memory, so frail the weather vane, those who must follow, its breast borne flight threading their sign on the dizzying vane, where the ave swarm. ii. Fair Shire. o’er marsh reed shadow pole skim sedge, waterwalker. phantom & slim spidery limb in the gloam’s fair shire fetch. shadow pole coracle, daub & wattle, to the water’s edge. through flute reeds i call o’er ridge & weir forth waterwalker from the land of yore, of hut & coracle & shadow pole. keeper of your lady’s isles, bear me there across the waters murk & clear, through burnished copper golden briar skiv me to my lyre, through the land of many colours to her shore, to her smile, for you waterwalker from this fair shire. iii. Avalon* white moon, wrapped in your night, stars rain down & clouds obliterate. lone moon of seasons´ stations, i am seed born of a darkness darker than your night, sprung from earth´s womb in aurora to twilight gloam. drawn through aethernyx your mind´s vortices, kissed by your lady white, i become through earth, air, water, flame the ages i have been & ages to come, celestial dragon voyage. * After the Lady of Avalon, a novel trilogy by Marion Zimmer Bradley. iv. Quatrain in the shire white horses nine arcadian arcana hidden the poet´s revelation divine leucippe across the styx ridden v. Gloss 1 [In the manner of L. Mª Panero]* [insert art: Goya's painting entitled "Saturn devours his children" (XIXth c.)] The hypocritical repression of pleasure At last accursed old man Time & Death will triumph over thee the swallows of spring will triumph over thee & thee who sought only thy solitude will encounter it within the green smoke of ruins. Accursed father who sends to death the hope of that which could have been & never will & I must kill thee so that thou may not kindle that hope again & must make thee taste the bitterness thou served within the gentle waves of sweet embrace. & though the prophecy will never be fufilled let us now repose my ill fated old man beneath a moon who will suck up thy blood. Translated by Amparo Arróspide. "La supresión hipócrita del gozo"* Gloss II* Saturn devours his children. Age thou have been overthrown from thy tyranny over death & time, over the swallows of spring. Thou who once ruled supreme behold now the how the lone & level sands ebb,* the heart that mocked, the hand that fed,* The prophecy over thy blood shed, thy children who crawl out of thy head. Only I now supreme remain & all reign, I who cast thee down by lightning flame, sun & moon, day & night, are but my domain, that serve beneath the thunderbolt of my acclaim. * My name is Ozymandias, king of kings look on my works ye mighty and despair. Percy B Shelly. vi. Mirage. The mirage shifts, as though between walls of glass, shimmering air to a threshold yet withheld, a mirror that shatters into kaleidoscopic fragments that swirl together again as before, a window word, on a world restored, but cracked & flawed. vii. Knitted mists weave three memories past, present, future in one. Muse of the word within me, running syllables, mnenomic Key to catalyze mind´s transformation through mirage from a world´s Preserved yet, yet distorted form from yore´s ancient mysteries To a world found redefined beyond the veils of Avalon. |
ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP:
About the author:::: His travels have led him to live in Scotland, Scandinavia, Spain & The East. At present he resides in South Yorkshire, UK. He started as Resident Poet with Poetry life and Times in 2005 & took over editorship together with Spanish poetess Amparo Arrospide from Sara Russell in May 2006. He began After the Cave, the Comet in 2003 travelling mid winter to Denmark, it is not completely chronological, but fills the year, season wise being written in Denmark, UK & Spain 2004.
