Category: Poetry

Paths to Gwyn

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There are many paths to Gwyn. 

~

There is the bard in the mead hall. The one who sings at the feast in Caer Vedwit, the Mead Feast Fort, in Gwyn’s hall, in a heavy blue-grey chain. 

I sung there once, where the harp of Teirtu plays on its own. Where the ghost of Maponos walked. Where the fair folk and the dead dance and mix and eat the meat of leaves whilst the king watches from his throne of bones.

I drank enough mead to feast the dead for centuries and took the songs of our king to the halls of towns and cities, to libraries, pubs, shopping centres.

I sang in chains, tried to strangle myself with them, then cast them off. 

I walked this path for a while but this path was not for me. 

~

There is the path of the madman, the wild woman, the path of the followers of Myrddin Wyllt. Those who are afflicted by trauma and by the claws of Annwn torn out of themselves, split open, as if by a spear, their bird spirits flying out. 

Hawk spirits, golden eagle spirits, goldcrest spirits, passerines in strange migrations. All heading to their forests of Celyddon. To pines and raided gold mines. To the damps of the Celtic rainforests where it rains five days a week. To the remnants of woodlands in the suburbs along the trickle of suburban streams.

I was the wren in the bush singing of how I tore myself open for our God and how my heart was my sacrifice on mid-winter’s day still beating beneath the yew.

A part of me is still there, singing for Him, loud yet hidden. No-one hears. 

I walked this path for a while but this path was not for me. 

~

There is the path of the cave woman, the inspired one, the witch. Orddu ‘Very Black’, Orwen ‘Very White’, all their ancestors around the cauldron. 

Black skin, white hair, white skin, black hair, wolf furs, corvid feathers, black beaks.

Those who sing with crows and wash the skulls of their ancestors in holy springs. Cast the wolf bones. Lie beneath wolf furs waiting for visions of the Deep.

Those who drink the awen, scry in the cauldron like our God, sing of past and future things. Swallow stars. Universes. Things too big to speak. Die in His arms.

I swallowed the star of the King of Annwn and it is within me still and I am still in my cave after all these centuries with a murder of crow women inside me. 

The nun in her cell who still flies, still runs, divines with black feathers.

I walked this path for a while and have decided it is for me. 

I wrote this poem as a step along my journey in discerning what it means to be an inspired one and nun of Annwn devoted to Gwyn ap Nudd in relation to the Brythonic tradition and my solitary life in suburban Penwortham.

A Study in Honesty

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I.
You are the plant who tells the truth
(as if other plants are fickle).

Your flowers are purple.
Your leaves are amplexicaul.
Your seed pods are known as siliques.

Their stubble reminds me of a dice game.

I count them – no ones, twos, threes.
I see some fours, fives, sixes,
sevens, eights, no nines.

To count in nines is just too terrifying.

II.
I was brought up to tell the truth thinking
it would lead to praise, to handclaps,

not to snotty sobbing no tissues
can stem, no pillow can smother, no word.

I did not know that truth is ugly and unflowerlike.

That your long long taproot reaches into the underworld
where the dark moons of your seeds fall and fall
and fall and fall and fall and germinate.

III.
Lunaria, you are like the moon,
waxing and waning, the call of magic
that attempts to assemble all the parts of my soul

in the dark tower of your being before the time of your fall.

The dark nun, the dark magician speaking
our truths in our tears and blood,

learning discipline and devotion
to the truths before our eyes.

V.
In your presence
we are held by our God
who is the darkness of the edges
all around us even when He is asleep or dead
haunting the shadows of the inbetween places in leafy dapples.

VI.
There are two sides to your coin, to your money pennies, to your bets.

You pose the question of how many nuns are in the void,
how many spirits of Annwn can dance
on my fingertips.

As many
as the seeds
that will fall in my garden
this year and grow and germinate

beneath the soil and beneath my skin

as I strive to make a study in honesty
through the seasons
every year.

On Impossible Tasks

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‘Though you may get that, there is something you will not get. Twrch Trwyth will not be hunted until Gwyn ap Nudd is found – God has put the spirit of the demons of Annwfn in him, lest the world be destroyed. He will not be spared from there.’
~ Culhwch ac Olwen

I.
I have completed the impossible tasks. 

I have found You and Your water-horse and Mabon and His dark white-maned steed and every one of Your hounds and every single one of their leashes.

I have ridden down Twrch Trwyth ‘Chief of Boars’ and feasted upon him.

I have found all the giants who Arthur killed but I have not found their beards or the pieces of flesh he cut from them – Ysbaddaden’s ears, his cheeks are gone.

I have found all the treasures and returned them to You – their rightful owner.

I have returned the last drop of Orddu’s blood to Pennant Gofid. 

As for Culwhch and Olwen I have seen they did not live happily ever after. 

Finally I killed Arthur – see his blood beneath my fingertips as I type these words?

II.
Your next task feels more impossible. 

You tell me to ‘build the Monastery of Annwn’.

How? Why? When you mocked at Saint Collen,
taunted him with visions of Your fairy feast.

You tell me “a nun is not a saint.”

III.
I think of how Collen derided You and Your people and how I have danced with inspired ones – wild men, mad women, witches, on the brink of the Abyss.

How I danced towards death – too many pills, too much drink, not enough sleep, not knowing if this would be the night, not caring, hoping we would be united.

I wonder, if You’ve got devils within You, I’m allowed to have devils within me too?

You tell me I must “embrace paradox” and “be a servant of mystery”. 

IV.
You show me a vision of a tapestry detailing all three hundred
of the knights in Arthur’s retinue woven by a monk
in a distant abbey, You amongst them,
my unpicking of the weave

and following of the threads to where we know each other
best in the spiralling madness of the Abyss
where You, God of the Dead,
have known death.

V.
You tell me nothing is impossible 
and I know nothing is impossible except You.

Thus I will strive to fulfil my impossible task for You.

*A poem based on the difficulties of building a monastery that does not fit with recognised religions and that is dedicated to Deities who are ‘other’ / ‘otherworldly’ in relation to practical necessities such as having our own bank account to fund our forum, website and potential Zoom channel.

Taranis Moving

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Taranis moving
across the dark sky!
Hail to the Thunderer!

Taranis moving
His chariot wheels cry!
Hail to the Thunderer!

Taranis moving
His lightning bolts fly!
Hail to the Thunderer!

Taranis moving
I roar my reply!
Hail to the Thunderer!

*We have had very hot weather here in the UK which has been broken by some much appreciated thunderstorms. Whilst I was reading a book in the midst of one this evening a massive roar of thunder made me leap from my seat. I interpreted as a sign that Taranis, ‘the Thunderer’, desired some acknowledgement. I poured Him some tea but it didn’t seem enough. So I wrote this poem and read it for Him and will continue to use it to show my appreciation when, again, He brings our much needed rain.

On Money and Fear

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“Stop thinking about money!”
~ the voice of my God

I.
I am the blindfolded woman
and two arrows have pierced my heart
in spite of my charms and incantations against love.

I have been wrapped up in my own heartbreak leaving me blind.

I have been trying to weigh inspiration against money,
a feather against gold – one heavy one light.

I have been a slave to what is bled
from rocks over millenia at such toil and cost,
ignoring what is easily shed, fletched, lifted by a breath.

You are the archer and as always Your arrows strike true.

II.
What is it I fear? Hunger? Having no home?

I do not think I could sit and beg but would rather walk,
homeless, foodless, until I could walk no longer,
lie down and die, be back with You.

III.
When I think of my worst fear it is fear of madness –

I am looking into a round tunnel without a train
but just a whistling train track
rushing through it,

the dance of limbs
on the platforms belonging
to no-one, not to people, to robots, or to spirits.

That the whole journey of life is nothing but meaninglessness.

IV.
I think of my longstanding fear of falling apart.

I recall my vision of a knight riding forth,
the plates of his armour rusting,
his flesh starting to decay,
falling from his limbs,

the skeletal man
falling from his skeletal horse

but his horse going on to where the bones
of all horses crumble and the dust of dead horses
is borne on the winds to where You ride Lord of Annwn.

You taste the wind, lick Your forefinger, another failed quest.

Your hounds prowl and sniff at the dust and Your pale horse rolls in it.

IV.
Yet I have chosen to collect feathers not gold
for the birds are giving and we are nothing but birds
who are learning how to fly and to empty out our pockets.

I want to be light, my lord, to depart from lands where scales exist.

To where we no longer need to weigh, measure, measure up.
To where You tear my blindfold off and show me
the truths that lie in my unbroken heart.

Creiddylad’s Tears

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Some say
lily of the valley
is the devil’s daughter

that you should not drink
from her poison cup.

Why so poisonous
now when she sprang from
Creiddylad’s tears clear and pure
when she mourned the death
of Annwn’s King?

Did she speak too much of the impossible?

Did she show her poisonous side?

Her flowers are white and her berries are red.

Was her talk of tears and blood deemed inappropriate
when everyone was celebrating Calan Mai?

Was she banished to the shady vales
where the death hounds bay?

To my suburban garden where
I cultivate dark and poisonous things?

Black Mirrors

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‘The first time I saw an Athonite monk pull a smartphone out from the pocket of his long black robes, I nearly fell over backwards… the pit that appeared in my stomach when I first saw a monk on the Holy Mountain with one of those black mirrors in his hand came from an instinct I’ve long had: that the sacred and the digital not only don’t mix, but are fatal to each other. That they are in metaphysical opposition.’
~ Paul Kingsnorth, ‘The Neon God‘

He sees a monk on mount Athos take a smart phone 
from his black robes and nearly faints in horror

whereas I run on – a nun of Annwn
with an Apple watch on my wrist telling me
when I have completed split one, split two, split three,
the exact mileage I have done, my pace, how many calories burned,
congratulating me when I close my move ring and exercise ring,
teaching me to breathe by mimicking
my breath with a cool blue cloud.

When I look into the black mirror I wonder
whether it is a parasite or a companion,

a trustworthy advisor
or a replacement for my body’s knowing.

I pose the question – IS TECHNOLOGY HOLY?

The black plastic reminds me of the primordial material,
the dark matter of the womb from which the universe was birthed,

the cauldron from which spilled the elements that would make
ion-x glass, liquid crystalline, an aluminium case,
a polyester with titanium strap,

the lithium ion rechargeable battery

(from cobalt mined by children in the Congo).

By age, height, weight, gender, heart beat movement, workout type
it measures whether my day has been a success.

Like counting the fall of apple, cherry
or orange blossoms I wonder
if it is beyond good
and evil?

It keeps
my horarium
for now and warns me
when the sun will be too hot
and when my heartrate is too high

but what the cost is yet to be considered…

The Place Where Tears Come From

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For Gwyn on Calan Mai

There is a place where tears come from
that reminds me of You

and here we are
on the day of Your death.
The death You are fated to die every year.

Every year a part of me dies with You
like a tear to be buried
in that place

of cold stone

to rise again 
like spring water 
on the day of Your return.

We will rise again from burial.
We will repair what has been destroyed,
by the deepest Annuvian magic turn sorrow into joy.

Not Quite an Anchorite

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‘This is a point in our lives where we decide (or are forced) to throw the anchor down, to live in one place, have a teacher, dig in.’
– Martin Shaw

The word ‘anchorite’ or ‘anchoress’ comes from the Greek, anachoreo, meaning ‘to withdraw’.
– Mary Wellesney

I am not quite an anchorite.
I have not yet been buried alive.
Not with Christ. Not even with Gwyn.
I do not live in a cell twelve metres
by twelve metres with servants
to bring my food, remove my waste
and feed me books in exchange
for insights from a tiny window called a squint.

I have not yet given up all my worldly possessions or ambitions.

I like to run and might have been one of the nuns
who ran away like Isolde de Heton from Whalley Abbey
in the 1470s but not for forbidden children or men

but simply for the desire to roam however far
my walking, running or cycling legs will carry me
through the labyrinth of this land following the streets
that lie on older streets, on pilgrim’s paths and padways
and Roman roads and horse paths and deer paths.

The horses in me bolt from their stables when kept in too long.

They run with the hounds before the wolves and ravens,
the owls with their crazy eyes mad on psychedelics,
the portents from the stars and our gardens.

Honesty is here and all the pavement plants.

I am told I must be ‘a guide to the soul.’

I fear my revelations will be mundane and suburban.

They will include words like ‘cloths’ and ‘washing’ and ‘washing up’
but also honesty, Lunaria annua, enchanter’s nightshade, 
Circaea lutetiana, ivy, hedera, yew, Taxus buccata.

In a vision I am a hell-hound prowling around my anchor.
I am the anchoress who howls and where my head is I do not know.

Lenten Rose

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If only life was so simple.

Like you I try to hide my face and my tears
for my boy-god and my longing for some kind of miracle.

I did not plant you, but I grew up alongside you
and have known you for almost forty years.

So close you were invisible
and I never asked
your name.

Hellbeborus, ‘to kill, to injure, food.”

You are dark green evergreen life and bones.

You remind me of cartilage creaking in my bad knees
when they are not tracking right like the sound
of a rocking horse or a rocking chair
or the fall of a doll’s house.

Memories creak and my attempts to forget them.

If not for my knees I would run forever,
until skeletal – the perfect rose.

Like you I am happy to stay in place
repeating the same patterns and the same cycles
yet the world will not have it that way – it likes to break us
and remove us from our habits and our homes

to journey by candlelight or dead starlight
to the land of the King of Bones

whilst the sound of spring flowers
opening is the sound of something happening.

The lampshade over my face disguises my identity.

All I want is to stay another forty years, repeating the same patterns
over again, but I hear another king is trying to build a road
to Annwn from the bones of his enemies.

This poem addresses the hellebores in my back garden. It is partly based on frustrations with minor health problems. I have recently been diagnosed with rosacea (facial redness) and it has made me feel even less like showing my face in public. After cutting down my running over winter, as I’m increasing my mileage, my anterior knee pain ‘runner’s knee’ has returned. After hoping strength training had cured it, it is holding me back from attaining my goal of returning to 30 miles a week. The boy-god I speak of, also the King of Bones, is a guise of Gwyn, my patron God, a King of Annwn, has been appearing to me in as I write about Annwn before the creation of the world, long before humans and medieval tales.