Wintery Rhymes

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oh no look what mike's done now, poems, Poetry

Propelled Reader,

Yes, wintery can be spelled that way.

The Reader will allow me pause to put my odd attempts at poetic creativity here – not every blog post can be as interesting as others – and, now that I’ve been allowed this dull pause in interesting content, go and find something more interesting to read.

To the Happy West

I wandered by the waves last night
  In many a pleasant dream;
A youthful moon shone proud and bright
  And I within his beam
  But it was just a dream.

I felt the salt air in my heart
  And breathed the winter shore.
And thought that time would never part
  Those happy days before
  That stand up here no more.

The happy west, the conq’ring sea –
  These things I’ll breath again –
But there are hearts of lads like me
  That pine for them in vane
  And shall not come again.

Their hearts were willing long ago
  But clay makes good men still:
These dancing spirits wander so
  But time will cure what’s ill
  When I’ll go west and still.

Sunrise, 2016

The sheen of dawn
That ran aground
On the high idle mountain
Coloured the waiting room of stars
For a moment red
And newborn.
And the banners of darling things:
The diamond starlight
And baleful moon
Turned out,
And, done into nothing,
Poured down bronze
From out the autumn of the night
Into the bright rising spring
Of day.

A Tired Old Year

“That rhyme’s as broken as the rest of the world.”

  Big Ben strikes
Four and five and six.
He showers the evening down
And mocks at England’s politics:
The thorn of state and crown.

  The world shakes –
Another modern fear –
And happy news a tinderbox
To help it burn more clear.
Still turn those senseless clocks.

  Time and time again
Repeats old history
Philosophers mock at societies lot
And says’t no mystery –
Who wins or not.

  No, for sure
‘Tis clear as Bow bell’s chime
Evil asks only good does naught
And now’s its time –
How joy was short.

  But hope –
Lads, that’s an honest cure
Let’s not forget our friends
And when the world lays all unsure
We’ll work for better ends.

Night, 2016

Heaven transcendent
Crouched over a void of tears
That dribbled out
Towards the hue-forsaken west
And into a colourless tribute
Among newborn stars.

“There comes, you know,”
Spoke those time agnostic lights
“A day when dawns will be made of ash
“And dreams counted out
“When all things are up and done.”

The west sighed
And breezes from the bosom of home
Trembled forgotten things.
Charging good health
And happy days
And ignorant joys.
And starlight distant
Employed in their immaculate heaven
Mocked the quiet ambitions of man.

The trees breathed out together
And under the quiet reigns of night
And happy chords of heaven
Echoed those night wind stars again
“Beds of mould
And finite smiles
Are no comfort in this bleak eternity.
Starlight fades
And empty lungs
Tell no histories here.”

Adieu, dearest Reader.

Autumnal Verses

Complex Reader,

I’ve quite neglected my little scrap of internet hereabouts, and hopefully soon will be filling it with a few little adventures – I’m yet to write up a single note of Chepstow, nor have I introduced Robert Wright, or thought up another reason why my book on dueling is so over-due(ling).

I’ll do a post on drawing soon too.

But for now – my very dear and much loved Reader – let me carry on with some dull rhymes, and hope that soon I’ll have something less detestable to present.

The West-Wind

All cold and through the sky last night
I heard the west-wind blow,
It charmed the grey electric light
With airs I used to know.

The sea was dull, so far away;
The mountains mute and gone.
I heard the timid notes of day
From suns that once had shone.

And thought of friends that knew me right
And things that joy had borne;
That dwindled in that west-wind night
And could not stay till morn.

I’d also had a go at just leaving my notes for another poem as raw notes and re-organising them into something roughly resembling a piece of writing. Normally I’d have turned these following dregs into something rhyming, probably mentioning lots about a sunset or some distant sea. However, instead I’ll present this pretentious jumble:

Untitled Lines

Heaven
That remarkable span of hours
that stretches to the end of days,
knitted into the cloudscape
like the thousand-faced features
of an infinite God.
Eternal before and beyond every horizon.
The summit and circumference
of all things.

Less than God
and more than man
The winding day rolls into bloom,
choked on fiery things that have borne it
and spluttering its absent wisps
beyond the deep rim of golden paradise.
A brim-full goblet of time.

And
after day and God
at last to man:
A thousand faced not in omnipotence
but in ignorance
And standing wretched
beyond the end of all things.
Content in his little daytime
and obscurity
bears the happiest things.

Adieu, dear Reader

Some Odd Poems

Charitable Reader,

For the last few days I have been happily on holiday and also unhappily ill; now allow me to rhyme a little instead:

Night, London, September

The spendthrift stars, so rich in gold,
Were distant skies and dawns untold
And night’s new easel, plain and bare,
Was fresh with unadventured air.

The treetops spoke unlikely tales
That rolled the hillsides out of Wales,
To breath beneath those clotted suns
A story fit for greenwood lungs.

Stretching back their ancient limbs
Their figures played beguiling hymns
While high the eaves of mem’ry raised
And, backwards facing, lonely gazed:

They told of Harry Monmouth’s cause
When heaven’s anvils rang with wars,
And sang a tune of King Charles’ town
Before the rebels tore him down.

They spoke in knitted oak-green tongue
Of when Paul’s new built steeples rung,
And in the bloody height of doom
When it stood bright against the gloom.

They dreamt and whispered every tale
That they had glimpsed in life’s long trail,
Of daring men and noble lords,
Of senators, and flames, and swords.

And I sat out all dreaming too
To sleep an age long over due
Beneath my quarry cleared of light;
The empty and embracing night.

The Final Hour

All of heaven with his fiery garb descended:
I knew him not but saw him plain.
He sank his heart and, sure, his day was ended
So was the happy hour, when things could start again.

It was the proper hour, when time had done his duty,
With quiet glances of the sea-wet dawn,
When things to do had passed, and day had shed his beauty
And sin had had his way with me, and left the night forlorn.

Now slow I pace through ever conquered ages
With flaming forks and terror in between;
It’s little joy for six short feet of wages
And foolish things that once had been.

Adieu, Happy Reader.

Referendum Floods

Soggy Reader,

I’d thought hard enough on the long journey home tonight  (I was clever enough to move out having registered to vote back in Essex) to produce a poem upon the odd predicament, with more rain running than trains. Which I certainly have never done before, and never about flooding.

Enjoy.

Getting Home for Mum’s Birthday

23rd June 2016

It was a Thursday, dull and grey,
(A soggy referendum day)
When I was walking down the Strand
And saw a swimming pool at hand –
I was surprised, for though quite clean,
T’was where the underground had been.

The station master, rather wet,
Gave a speech I shan’t forget:
He calmly said, though unsure how,
That “Essex is aquatic now.
“For those of you who might have voted,
“We don’t know where your paper’s floated.”

The county, high in disarray,
Was fathoms now, not miles away.
Platform four and five were clear
And had become a working pier,
While on the route to Bethnal Green
There sat a stranded submarine.

Commuters, ragged from the stress,
Had donned more ‘buccaneering’ dress
And taken out the Cutty Sark
For ‘pleasure boating’ in Hyde Park;
(But sadly – t’was unlucky chance –
The wind had pushed them out to France.)

I think before next time it rains
We’ll need a vote upon the drains,
And hopefully, though wisdom’s thin,
We’ll have more votes to take ‘Eau’ in;
What good can ‘go alone’ pretend
And who would vote to lose a friend?

Yep, More Poetry…

Happy Reader!

Fortune has kept the internet free of my ruinous blogging recently, and so to make up for an awful lack of content allow me to supply instead some awful content. At last spring (and I refuse to agree with those barbarians who claim that May is a part of the summer) is over, and That beautiful time when Poets all sing has gone (fortunate for you, dear Reader, since you shan’t have to put up with my desperate attempts at rhyme much at all for the next few seasons).

Of course, I’ll happily present these last few dregs of poetry that I’ve pulled out to mirror those last dregs of Spring. And pray, my much-loved Reader, that you enjoy:

The Rebel Field

The elmwood on the high-hilled spar
Trembled green (as elmwoods are)
And marching on the breathless air
The treetops rustled high and fair.

Here laid once a scarlet plain:
And things done once are done again,
And when those rebel banners fly
Elmwoods still will whisper high.

When trumpeters annoit the glen
And woodlands spark with feral men,
When all these days of happy peace
Will run to nought, and, counted, cease.

Prepare your hearts, raise anthems proud,
Love peaceful times, and praise them loud:
So should this future peace e’er end
When sons look back, they’ll find a friend:

When knowledge lies all toppled down
And ruin loves his stolen crown,
From out the past fresh hope will seed
And sons will find the friend they need.

On Someone Leaving their Country

Dimly through the saffron gloam
I breathed a hundred scents of home;
And stepped until my well-trod track
Dismantled into nameless black.

The rain-washed road that mirrored Mars
Had filled itself with weightless stars,
And all the embers in the west
Had turned themselves to night and rest.

What dawn made gold now laid in grey,
Forgetting every wealth of day
Those trees that once were fair and green
Moped mournfully across the scene.

And silent from the heavy hills
“Into my heart an air that kills”.
I trod some more beyond the day;
Tomorrow starts me far away.

And I may change – for dread or cheer,
Before I tread again round here
But shan’t forget till flesh is bone
These hundred merry scents of home.

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I’m posting this using my phone all the way from sunny Germany, so I hope the Reader can forgive any mistakes.

Some (more) Spring Poems!

Humble Reader,

Allow me, after an unexpectedly busy day of archery and then wandering around London looking for a flat, to introduce this little pile of poems that Spring has happily brought out of me. For their quality I apologise, but the necessity for content on this blog commands them to be presented immediately:

Maytime Musings

The gold-red dawn that rang with fire
Blew out from farm to wood and spire,
And through the valley hills alone
Tumbled down on moss and stone.

I trespassed on those care-free scenes,
A gleaner searching golden dreams,
Collecting dawns that rise and lay
Among the cherry tints of day.

It fell like this in years gone by,
Each sunbeam, every winter sigh,
When Arthur, Cranmer, or King James
Wandered through these peaceful lanes.

Here the Norman, sins confessed,
Stooped his way to home and rest,
Or the Roundhead, hot with wars,
Preached to others for his cause.

The quiet serf, or noble king
Crossed these paths now rich with Spring,
And by the wood or through the vale
Heard the pebble stones inhale.

The ancient breeze my carry still
The new-cut grass from Danbury Hill,
And while we gleaners pass and fade,
Each Spring sees those passed hearts remade.

The Saxon Field

It was an age and acre distant
When learned stone was met with sword
When kings were dashed in but an instant
And royal blood enriched the sward.

When here, just where you stand, the yeoman,
Glad of heart and topped with zeal,
Flew arrows out ‘gainst Viking rowmen,
And Saxons bloodied Norse-made steel.

The cry went up, the landers came,
There roared from hell the hate of years,
A blood-red firmament of flame
Filled with shouts and taunts and cheers.

All silent now, the grass is green;
The spring has tickled out the bloom,
And now we think, and fear to dream,
Of men whom here once met their doom.

A Trip to Chichester

On Sunday after half past two
I went to town as people do
To ‘take the air’ and ‘chase the geese’
And buy myself a bright blue fleece.
And getting there in healthy time
I thought I’d hear the church clock chime.
Those noble bells clucked loudly when
I realised it was just a hen,
And climbing to inspect the spire
I found it made of chicken wire.
I thought it was a little much
To fit the church inside a hutch.
The highstreet was knee-high with straw
Which seemed a quite tremendous flaw,
I thought “How will the cars get through” –
There was no parking space, it’s true,
For shops ‘t’weren’t even space for one
Which might explain why there were none.
And even the electric lights
Illuminated farmyard sights.
It seemed that on my way to town
I’d had my map held upside down,
And being lost, I had instead
Locked myself inside a shed.

Adieu, my Dearest Reader.

A. E. Houseman, 80 Years on

Bludgeoned Reader,

That is an unfortunate predicament, allow me to blog a little and, if not cure it, at least distract you from the pain in your head with the pain of some of my poorly writ verse.

It is today 80 years since A. E. Housman, one of my favourite poets, died. For anyone unfamiliar with that name, I can do no more than thoroughly recommend his A Shropshire Lad, and beg you to ignore this blog and read that incredible collection of poems instead.

To celebrate the memory of such an excellent and much-loved poet, I thought I would happily collect together some of my own poems that I’ve recently written in his style:

I

I heard a magpie calling,
Calling bright and clear,
And I was up and roaming;
Glad notes upon my ear.

Tomorrow it calls after
The roads where I would tread
And I’ll be there that morning
But shan’t be home for bed.

I’ll roam and tread in differ’nt lands
My heart will beat with pride
To know that men at home will say
‘Twas for their fields I died.

And high the bugle’s throat will chirp
And feet will march on stone
When morning’s sun shall rise anon
And bleach the idle bone.

II

Since every lad a mother bore
Should hasten to the gates of war
And be some use as blood and bone;
As sweat and flesh before they’re gone.

I’ll up and go and make my name
And bring to England mighty fame,
Though fame shall never find me there
Since earth is deaf to light and air.

When fields red are charged with tears
I’ll be anon to English cheers,
And while these loyal hearts decay,
I’ll not be lonely ‘neath the clay.

III

Lazy through the dawning lane
I hear the martial tread again,
Fife and bugle hasten high
Telling me to go to die.

Oh rise I will and march I must,
And be some use before I’m dust,
And I’ll sleep sound without a care
The bravest that the grave could bear.

 

Some Spring Poems

Well-beloved Reader,

Allow me to present these faulty verses, written over the last few weeks.

The Spring of Rebirth

I went walking yesternight
Under clouds of sun-flecked gold
The raging world was sunset-bright
And soaked with wild raindrops cold.
People pattered far away
Dumb beneath the royal sky
That bled the dawn-made king away
As springtide hushed a mortal sigh.
Streetlights caught the pouring gems
These relics of a toppled throne,
Like starlight lost from sweeping hems
That robed the world now all alone.
Speak not to pity this demise,
That ailing light from heaven torn,
It spells a message in these skies;
All things once lost, God sees reborn.

 

If I Could Play the Bassoon

It was the lofty maytime
With a haughty chance of June
When I wandered in the daytime
Playing jokes with my bassoon.

I saw old Mable at the shop
And played from near a plant,
The rising note made people stop
And flee ‘the elephant’.

I wandered past some molehills
And played an honest track
The moles all as they quickly fled
Cried ‘Run, Ground Force is back!’

A battle ship, I stepped upon
And played a great commotion,
The sailors, fearing something wrong,
All jumped into the ocean.

I saw the towns new volcano,
But I was interrupted,
Because as I began to play
It roared, and then erupted!

L’Envoi

And sat in hell, Old Nick did say
He liked the way I japed,
To startle him I went to play,
He ran, and I escaped.

Hunting for Elf Shot

Complete* Reader,

Most weekends I go out for a good long walk around the woods, especially during the winter when they’re quiet and the atmosphere is crisp and dramatic. Living on top of an ironage hill fort, with bronze age and earlier earthworks in the woods around it, I often find myself picking up worked flints – blades, scrapers, and arrowheads. I would even kindly admit, with complete acceptance of my failure at understanding fashion for some years now, that for a brief while when I was in Aberystwyth I had a Mesolithic arrowhead hung on a leather necklace round my neck, which I’d put together after finding the arrowhead on a Welsh hill.

I’d always thought that our modern affection for these beautiful flint tools was a product of our advancing understanding of history and science over the last two hundred years, which had proved these were not chance broken stones, but in fact the work of people who had lived thousands and thousands of years ago. How wrong I was.

In fact, people have been finding worked flints on the ground for as long as history can remember, and for centuries there were far more fantastic legends surrounding them than just a tale of some five-thousand year old hunting party.

Some ‘Elf Shot’ of my own, the furthest right arrow head having lost its right-hand side

In pagan Scandinavia over a thousand years ago they were referred to as Thunderstones, and supposedly were the remains of thunderbolts fallen to earth. There they were worshipped as family Gods, and well after the Christian conversion of that country they were still seen as a protector against thunder storms.

The church quickly caught onto this worryingly pagan practice, and at least by the 11th century were spreading their own story that these worked flints were the left over weapons of angels that had fallen to earth when they drove the Devil out of heaven. Elsewhere in Europe and even beyond they are believed to have healing or protective properties, seen tokens of luck, and even supposedly to protect the carrier against witchcraft.

It is this protection against witchcraft that brings me on to British folklore around these flints, and the tale of Elf Shot.

For an unknown reason, even Roman Britons had a fascination with flints, and they occasionally turn up in burial urns. The British legend surrounding these stones, however, dates from a little later – with the excellent people who brought in the birth of our Britain – the Saxons.

Earliest written evidence of the story is found in the Wið færstice, a fragmentary Saxon medical text written some hundred years before the Norman conquest, it names the flints as the arrows of Elves, invisible creatures who follow people around and at any moment fire an arrow at them, causing severe pain. This was used to explain the cause of arthritis, aching joints, and other odd pains that people may have felt.

To ward off this pain, then, a person would have to go out and find a piece of Elf Shot and wear it – remaining archaeological evidence suggests as a pendant – which would deflect any further elf arrows. The original date of this legend is unclear, but a viking pendant found in the UK is one of the oldest extant examples of a piece of Elf Shot that someone has worn, and likely dates no earlier than the 9th century.

It is possible, then, that this practice of wearing elf shot to ward off pain is somehow descended from an earlier Scandinavian tradition brought over by the vikings. Later on in the legend’s history in Britain, wearing Elf Shot was seen as a protection against witchcraft in general, elves traditionally being one of the most mischievous magical creatures around according to British folklore.

A load more elf shot, although this lot I didn’t find locally**

The practice was still going on in more rural parts of Britain well into the 17th century, and it wasn’t until the mid-18th century when examples of Native American stone weapons were brought back to Europe that a connection began to be made between the stones and possibly an origin in earlier civilizations. With the church strongly against this view, since it would suggest that the world was older than the bible claimed, it did not gain much popular notoriety, and it wasn’t until at last in 1847 that a book was finally published proposing the idea, and, after significant opposition, the myth of thunderstones and Elf Shot finally vanished into the dusts of disproved myth at the end of the 19th century.

Have no fear, though, kind reader – for though the legend may have quietly fallen out of our folklore, you can still happily wander the fields and hillsides and pick up the flint tools that have fascinated mankind for well over a thousand years, and will certainly continue to be beautiful objects for millennia to come.

Adieu, dearest reader!

*if inaccurate, try checking lost property.

** All out of context of any archaeological layers, of course

A Very Red Binding

Significantly Concussed Reader,

Try carrying a thicker umbrella next time.

I’d completely forgotten about this grand binding I produced a few months ago – my first ever commission to produce a binding, rather than just dabbling around adding leather to my own books.

It ended up being a bordering-on-gothic binding, in a vaguely fifteenth century style with added brass. Allow me then, good reader, to present it hereabouts:

A very medieval looking recipe book

It followed the style of a paneled binding, with the centre panel decorated geometrically with ‘hidden’ initials.

Oh look, it’s slightly closer up

Also, kind reader, I’ve been dabbling again in my rather dull attempts at poetry. So, with my apologies for its quality, I’ll end this post on that.

One Day I Wandered

One day I wandered
Out of the age long day,
Beyond the hedgerows and cottage doors,
To where night had plummeted,
Whole and heavy
Under rust-tempered scarlet clouds.
Amber cushions fading from the treetops.
A scattering of quiet stars
Pale and inoffensive
Drifted beyond the grey mantle,
A firmament of sleepy ash
All quiet to the whispering hills.
The solitude and consolation of the dark,
The brambles, thick with secrets and thorns,
And the wild hillsides
Fled into the distant, visionless hue;
Waiting like stone giants
For one moment hidden from every eye.
Until day falls among tumbled hedgerows
Tottered down cottages,
Lighting again the steep of the sky,
And disturbing my perfect peace
And the dull quiet of famous night.

Until another welcome day, dearest reader, adieu!