Category: Poetry

Elk Prints

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The Harris Museum

I.
I lean down
to touch
them

like

an
ancient
huntress
taste

not
blood
but paint
still follow
the trail
of red

(do I detect the hint of a limp?)

up the stone steps
past paintings
depicting

your hunting
like the Stations
of the Cross

(watercolours)

those old old hunters
we will know as the Dwellers
in the Water Country

semi-amphibious
blue-limbed
against
the green
of the fenlands

(it is 11,500BC)

bows drawn back
like the grins
of wolves

the madman
with the axe who
severed your tendons

before you limped on
dripping red

your pain
sucked up by
the sedge

the last
shudder of
your thick skin
not enjoyed by midges
at mid-winter
in a pool.

II.
On the
second floor
in the Discovery Gallery

where your skeleton stands
beyond hunting trophy
beyond Messiah
beyond icon

I pause for breath imagining

flints tips against ribs
heaving lungs

the loneliness
of your
heart.

III.
When I press
the red button that blasts
out your roar

the city trembles

breathes in and breathes out

the paddle of a dug-out canoe
splashing a reminder
of aurochs, deer,
wolf, elk…

*With thanks to the Harris Museum for the images.

Words Found in Stillness

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In stillness
strength

in strength
courage

in courage
the will

to serve you
mind body soul

when yours at one
in stillness

I wait to know
your will

***

Of all the challenges in my life that are linked to my path of devotion to Gwyn – poetry, running, fighting, the restoration of wild places and creatures, learning practical skills out in the woodlands – the one that requires the least is probably the hardest, that is spending time in stillness and silence listening.

There’s seldom anything to show from it. Few ways to express the feeling of simply being in the presence of a god yet the subtle realignments of the soul that take place in such a state are slowly revealed.

In moments where once I’d have panicked I find myself falling back instead on those moments of stillness, find my strength in the strength of the bull-horned warrior-hunter god who works tirelessly to gather the souls of the dead back into his realm. I’m beginning to understand that, having led me to my spiritual path, gifted me with its magical core, given me a reason to live, he is now teaching me the means of survival and opening up possibilities of me finding a place within the wider world.

Where exactly that will be I’m not sure but I’m coming to know I’m heading in the right direction when I can find stillness, when my breath is one with my god’s, when my will is aligned with his will.

Spirit Ship

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Two ghosts
come knocking
at your door

knocking knocking
at your door

with a spirit ship.

In the hold is
an empty chest.

In your chest a hole.

“The ship must sail.”

She must be launched
with all her cargo

on the sea that has
always been lapping
outside your door.

Two ghosts
come knocking
at your creaking hull.

“She must be full.”

You are emptying.

The sails are filling.

No more knocking
just the swaying as she
sails to the eternal.

The sea is lapping
lapping at your door.

The chest is full.

With thanks to Bryan Hewitt for use of his image ‘Voyager Passing’. You can view more of Bryan’s photography and his films on his website Mythology Now HERE.

The Hunt is Late

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I fear
the hunt
is late
this year

because
of the green
canopies

because
of the unfallen
leaves

because
your presence
is just

a whisper
of an antlered
figure in

boughs
not yet shaken
by wind.

You are here.

You are here

I know it
by the black cat
who leaps

into my
arms trembling.
The quick-

ening beat
of my heart and
the shiver

of winter
rain falling by
lamplight.

You are here.

You are here.

I know it
when I recite
my poem –

the rain
falls harder your
night-drum

beating
within me and
the wood.

Shadows
stretch and prowl
yet your

hunters
remain dark to
the seer.

I fear
the hunt
is late
this year.

*This poem is addressed to Gwyn ap Nudd, a Brythonic god whose hunt traditionally rides to gather the souls of the dead on Nos Galan Gaeaf. It is based on my marking of the occasion by reciting my poem ‘When You Hunt for Souls in the Winter Rain‘ (in the winter rain!) for Gwyn in Greencroft Valley. I find it disturbing that some of the leaves are still green and many have not yet fallen at this time of year, which in the Celtic calendars marks the beginning of winter. (The Welsh Nos Galan Gaeaf means ‘The night before the first day of winter’ and the Irish Samhain means ‘Summer’s End’).

You Read of a Smith

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who made a pact with the devil
know little of how the story began
or what it implies when he sees the huntsman
galloping out of the fog on a cold dark October night.

You see the sweat dripping from his forehead sizzling
in the flames and are unable to tell what passes
between those dark brows when he sees
the horse he always shoes is lame,
its rider tired, shrouded by desperation,
yet still quiet-spoken when he makes his request
for shoes for running further faster between the worlds
to hunt down something that isn’t dead yet but isn’t living either.

You see the smith shiver as if ice has been dropped down his back
but not waver as he pumps the bellows, heats the furnace,
fires the steel, raises his hammer tries to imagine
what he is shoeing is only a hoof with wall,
toe, sole, tough and sensitive parts,
that this creature might be able to feel,
tries not to count the hooves that keep his forge ablaze all night
as the arched neck towers over him and the eyes flicker and glow.

Instead of counting his heartbeat he counts the beat of his hammer
which steeled his will during his ordeal in the fires that burn
like ice beyond good and evil, where he is working now,
face reddened, straining every muscle, engulfed
in the pain and ecstasy of creation for…
he will only ponder when there is nought but ashes
and hoof prints leading to where he, lame, cannot wander.
To where the stories you have read have come to an end and beyond.

*This poem is a Brythonic retelling of the traditional folkloric tale of a smith shoeing a horse for the devil. It features the smith-god, Gofannon, shoeing Du y Moroedd ‘The Black of the Seas’ for Gwyn ap Nudd. Gwyn is a ruler of Annwn, the Otherworld, and was equated with the devil. He rides out with his hunt to gather the souls of the dead on Nos Galan Gaeaf.

**Image ‘Man Shoeing a Horse’ by Jonathon Bean on Unsplash

Marsh Roads

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I.

Walking

down Marsh Way past Marsh Way Pond,

down Marsh Lane I think of other marshless Marsh Roads
in Preston, Thornton-Cleveleys, Bolton, but also

of Marsh Road near Banks and Marshside
where hundreds of widgeon and teal
jester the waters pintail arrow
and lapwings

peal

like spaceships
on computer games.

II.

There are no alders
on Alderfield

where I lived
without trees or water,

on Alder Close, Alder Grove, Alder Lane,
around the pond in Carr Wood where they cut them down.

On Carr Head Lane, Carr Moss Lane, Carr End Lane,

Carr Hill High School where I first sparred
at Taekwondo ignorant of Gwern
and Brân’s alder shield.

III.

There are no reeds
on Reeds Brow, Reedmace Road,
Reedfield Place, Reed Acre Place, Reeds Lane.
On Rushwood Close, Rushwood View, Rushy Hey
there are no rushes.

There are no willows
on Willow Crescent or Willow Coppice
to weave into a willow tunnel to grant safe passage,
but Willow Cottage Bed and Breakfast
was a haven for two friends –
one of them a heron.

V.

There is no sedge in Sedgefield

but the pendulous sedge is rioting here
on the banks of the brook in Greencroft Valley
and the green is soggy and my wellies are getting stuck
and slipping in and out of the land like a jelly.

It’s coming back it’s coming back –
the marshland of the Setantii.

We have been sinking by an inch each year.

There are things that are born to suck up the roads.

Alder Leaf

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A little head
above the water
after a month
of rain.

The sole leaf
of an alder sapling
to survive the
hurricane.

“Bring back,
bring back the leaf,”
Simon Armitage’s refrain.
As a modern ark
sets sail

to plumb
the depths of
climate change
I sit here

and mind a leaf

destinies
intertwined beneath
the rise of muddy water.

Will it survive the flood?

Will we?

 

The King of Annwn’s Treasures

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The golden horn of endless mead.
The golden plates that make even leaves edible.
The golden cauldron that boils the flesh of the dead.
The golden helmet that lends the strength of the bull.
The golden armour that makes its wearer invincible.
The golden shield that deflects not only blows.
The golden spear that pierces every heart.
The golden leashes that hold back the hounds
and the spirits who strain against the possible.
The golden horseshoes for the horse that runs
between worlds and his golden saddle and bridle.
The golden ring that turns time into a circle.
The golden mist that makes terror beautiful.
The golden keys to the gates of every soul.
The golden secret in the stone chest that rattles
and bleats and sings a strange prophetic song.

~

This poem is based around the depiction of Gwyn ap Nudd as a ‘bull of battle’ in ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’ and his role as a King of Annwn presiding over its spoils. It is one of the poems in the narrative of Y Darogan Annwn.

Green Equinox

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This equinox
seems greener than before –
warmth, steam remind me of the Atlantic rainforests in Wales
where it rains six days out of seven glaw, glaw, glaw,
whilst protests sweep the planet like clouds
but do not quell the Amazon fires.

I win my green belt in a martial art
learning to harness light like photosynthesis,
undoing my roots, learning to twist, kick, turn, leap,
kicking back against body dysmorphia.

The leaves, all green-brown, are not yet
in their autumn splendour bursting into colour
like lollipops like coloured belts I don’t yet know the meaning of.

Leaves of ash fall, touch my shoulder, give me strength.

Heaven and Light, Joyfulness, Fire and Sun, these
are the names of the first three poomsae but the fourth
is Thunder and the morning after I win that belt

I’m awoken by a mighty roar and flash of lightning
illuminating my room, the altars of my gods, a broken mirror,
my laptop and the jam jar in which I keep my pens
painted black with yellow and red stars,

the rubber the only dumb thing like the doubts
that hold me back yet the eraser of my past.

The skies are broken glass and the stream a darkness
running from eternity as a voice from a martial arts film asks:
“What do you see in front of your fist?” “My destiny.”

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*‘Glaw, glaw, glaw’ is Welsh for ‘rain, rain, rain’.
**The martial art I am learning is Taekwondo and my instructor is Eddie Ellison.
***The lines from the martial arts film are from Streetfighter II: The Animated Movie (1994).
****All photos are my own except ‘Lightning Ground Storm‘ by Brandon Morgan on Unsplash.