Tag: Death

Winter Kingdom

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As I make my circuit stars hold vigil in an icy breath.
Roses of Annwn bring beauty from death.
Wintering starlings spotted with snow
sleep in a tree that nobody knows.
There is a courtship of stability in this kingdom of cold
where we reknit the bonds as dream unfolds
in shadows of farmhouses down the pilgrim’s path
through old stony gates in footsteps of the past
to the healing well where a serpent’s eye
sees through the layers of time’s disguise.
A procession sways down the old corpse road
where the lych gate swings open and closes alone.
From the empty church bells resound.
Reasserting its place on the abandoned mound
a castle extends to the brink of the sky.
Within its dark memory a fire comes to life.
As warriors gather to warm their cold hands
I know I am a stranger in a strange land.

Fungi, Greencroft Valley

 

*Roses of Annwn is a kenning for mushrooms I came across in The Faery Teachings by Orion Foxwood

Wild Hunt Villanelle

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When the wild hunt rides on a thundering night
Hurtling from the deeps and bowers of unseen Annwn
They raze all life with their sundering might,

Sweeping heavens black warriors of starry white
Unite with rebel cries to form a spectral fugue.
When the wild hunt rides on a thundering night

Cities tremble as the harrowing horns descry
Ghost white horses, hounds of death and long lost truth.
They raze all life with their sundering might

As they gather up the souls of the dead in flight
Striking with a fear none but their kindred can endure.
When the wild hunt rides on a thundering night

Bringing down the skies and singing back the light
Around our fires only hope can see us through.
They raze all life with their sundering might

Then vanish to Annwn from tumultuous heights
Ending the old year and heralding in the new.
When the wild hunt rides on a thundering night
They raze all life with their sundering might.

Forest

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Faery Lane, May 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I.

A forest
holds a very small possibility
in the sigla of trees
and in a ruddock’s song.

Raindrops lace the ivy,
in a cinema of shade
fairytales catch hands
with desperate grace.

II.

For in my nightmare
the leaning yew fell down.
The door to Annwn closed,
although the wolves still howl.

The people were dead,
the gods were gone
and the ghosts no longer mourned
their shadowed passing.

III.

Yet the forest
kept alive the possibility
of hope emerging
from its bowers

like a white stag bounding
from Annwn’s mounds
with red-eared hounds
and antlered huntsmen.

IV.

Now we read
the sigla from the trees
and listen out
for a ruddock’s song.

In the cinema of ivy
our myths still dance
a forest of possibility
in a raindrop’s glance.

Faery Lane, May 2013

Calling

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Before my calling I slept in a glass coffin.
No-one knew if I was live or dead until
I raised my head. And still they are pondering.

Whilst I slept I watched processions
of black clad men carrying coffins,
who march here still putting time
to death, brief as dragonflies.

Their echo beats loud. In woodlands
at March I search for a heartbeat, whilst
mad winds whirl the winter skies overhead.

Roads steal sound. Pylons warp every sense.
Yet when I look the past in the eye it looks back.
They need us now as much as we need them
and the people of the future need us again.

For live or dead there is no rest, no place
to hide nor coffins left, only time processing
through both worlds to a fathomless end.

Porth Annwn

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‘Porth-Annwfyn. Some numinous, arcane agnomen, but which to my dream cognition was livid as moonshine and did plainly signify: Gate of Elysium.’
– David Jones The Dream of Private Clitus

I.
Where is the door?
The shadowy portal exists
In the thickness of the veil
In the heart of mist
Where life divides
And fateful cataracts meet.
There are as many doors
As you have eyes that open.

II.
And who is the porter?
It is never who you thought it would be.
It is always who secretly you knew
From the world’s beginning.

III.
There are many doors
And I can speak of but a few.

Trees keep doors.
They are not in the front or back
But in the spiralling melt
Into arboreal existence.
This is the forest path.

Look into a river
To find yourself on the mirror side.
Remember to be returned
With the turning of the tide.

To reach the summer stars
Seek out a silver space ship.
Beware for Elysium’s bliss
Is more deadly than Annwn’s darkness.

Beside the door of death
A spectral hound sits.
He’s black or white-
Depends on the way
You’re looking.
He swallows whole souls.
The lucky ones hit the ground running.

Song for Gwyn

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Penwortham HolmeHero of hosts, perpetual wild huntsman,
Wind through the trees, in the leaves, in my blood.
King of the fair folk and darkest of demons,
Keeper of Annwn and Gwynfyd’s High Courts.

CloudsLover of Creiddylad, render of veils,
Mover of seasons rides billowing tides,
Black One of the Seas swings round and sails,
A flash of wild horses cross thundering skies.

Old railway bridge, Avenham ParkWith Dormarth traverses the wefts of the worlds,
Horse saddled bright, ancestral guide,
Wending a way twixt dead and live souls,
Maintaining the magic lest worlds be destroyed.