The Shapes of Night (A ghazal)

 

In mist they rose, in mist they moved: the shapes of night,
Through fogbound fen the dark unloved: the shapes of night.
Out of the aged, wounded ground, as swift as shadows cast by light 
Giving dark knowledge as a gift: the shapes of night.
Some change and howl when moon is bright 
Some croak the strange call of a toad - the shapes of night
Respond to both and yet still more, when time is right 
From books skin bound and fastened fast, the shapes of night
Impress on willing tongues the cast, the working of the powerful code 
That leaves the waning sun aghast. The shapes of night,
Are thin and lean and stretched and frail,
Self-worn as onion-skin or veil: the shapes of night.
And yet their students grow in might 
vampire, and lich and ancient ill - the shapes of night.
Fragile is evil's source, and sour - ancient as any hoarded spite 
The mewling serpents still devour: the shapes of night.
The suns go up, the suns go down, the gullets of the swallowing blight 
And all that ends, ends in their sway: the shapes of night
In their Processional we pass, we little motes of feeling light 
They teach us what we should not know: the shapes of night.
And thus the poet too is touched, and driven slowly mad with fright,

T'was Bucher-Jones who wrought this woe, embittered by the shapes of night.

The civilised cannibals - or invitation only!

"A feast by invitation only"
Which only the best ghouls attend
It starts with what's called 'minestrone'
But actually, is someone's friend.
For it is quite a ghoulish coup,
To serve a soup that's known to you!

For "taste in friends, is taste in flesh"
At least ghouls say so, and they'd know.
I find the idea makes me nesh,
I'm in two minds if I should go.
But then they serve delightful pottage,
Of fresh-caught tourists from "the cottage".

And mixed into a rustic stew
Vegans and flash-fried vegetarians
So ghouls who take a greener view,
Of beast-killers as mere barbarians,
May avoid nature's cruel plan
And dine on a more ethical man.

And really, have I so few friends
There isn't even one to spare?
A critic (say) for gastric ends,
May well increase the savoir faire!
But oh, a sudden thought has struck me -
I'll need a suit to bib and tuck me!

That's an expense I well could skip
We meagre poets aren't enriched.
If there's a cost to such a trip
The idea may have to be ditched.
What's that? - they say they'll pay my fare
Why that is handsome, I declare!

***

So thus he mused, and in his book
Recorded the grand invitation.
He should have had a second look,
Read the small print of celebration!
For his best friend was honoured by it,
And 'meagre poet soup'? Just try it!

Teeth

The Teeth meet in my throat

I long to feel

Through pain, that transformation I desire,

Let me no longer walk the world a man,

I would be indistinct

Shed human skin

Fall back into the beast-life

Underneath, for being called a beast

For having loved, against the mores

Of my tribe and kith, what else is left?

What pain on two legs lifted to the sky,

That is not better held aloft by four.

I was no man of note

I had to steal

To get my little bread, my meagre fire

It will be easier not to need to plan

To feel instead the instinct

Of wolf kin

For though a weaking runt, in pack the least

The one who lopes to rear, in any fories

I would have love again, not be bereft

The Teeth meet at my throat - I mean to die

And hope to rise again, nearer the floor.

Well, let who will now gloat,

And boast their zeal

Who hounded me with all their human ire.

They would not own me as a living man

They thought me better driven hence, extinct

And now a different life it can begin

In which I fear not them, and howling feast

I slave not any longer, and my chores

Are set by natures' hidden weave and weft

My teeth will meet in those who did deny

That I was worth as much as they or more.

 

Choices

In the sky, it is making a horrible sound
But if I block my ears and just look down
The Black Sun has not birthed yet evil rays
The day has yet no awful aftermath.

Then again, the ground,
Is heaving with the rising of the town
Of bones, and with the buried murmured lays
The former dead are raised to awful wrath.

And fingers in ears: blocks from all around
The cries of warnings now insistent grown
As nature's self her green cursed fruit displays
To turn me from the left or right-hand path.

Perhaps by sea, oh no that's now icebound
The coming back of aeons once long known,
Half hiding things released as ice-shelf frays
From each a horror's glacial holograph.

And they are everywhere, as hare to hound
Am I to them, they wear the dreadful crown,
One crown on many heads, as the Play says
Many and singular both, defying math.

Unless of course, just in my mind the sound
The bones beneath my feet my fear alone,
The warnings, frozen sea, the dreadful gaze
All just my own subjective epitaph

The Hanging Tree

No bodies on the hanging tree?
The village folk all shake their heads
It's bad luck there's no shape to see
To keep the things under the beds.

They will creep out and seize a child
If nothing shows them there's a cost,
And if they - daring - get too wild
It's all too likely someone's lost.

Old Mother Danae knows it well
In youth she lost her first-born son
To something creeping out of hell,
She knows that something must be done.

But they've grown shadowy and sere
Cunning and canny, hard to catch
Their laughter now is cruel, and fear
Creaks with each rattling bolt and latch.

The answer is debated hard
Although not long when all is said
It hardly matters who's on't yard
If they've a red-cap on't their head.

For fay folk they squint hard at noon
Just see 'cap swing 'neath the tree
And tourists? They were leaving soon
And easier now to catch, they be.

Hubble-Bubble Inc.

The vat contains the mixture for the brew

Scaled up since our three founders set their stall

We use three thousand newt's eyes, that we do.

And, advertising proudly states it's true,

The toes of thirty, and nine hundred dogs in all.

The vat contains the mixture for the brew

Bats really bear no wool but fine hairs grew

And colonies are shorn, both large and small

We use three thousand newt's eyes, that we do.

And thick and slab we make it, thick as glue

And sell it in the market and the mall

The vat contains the mixture for the brew

We make no claim that it will make Kings of you

You are not ruddy, bold nor strong and tall

We use three thousand newt's eyes, that we do.

So Macbeth's Beer will show what fates may flow

What triumphs will come, and what disasters fall

The vat contains the mixture for the brew

We use three thousand newt's eyes, that we do.

The windy-wail

On the bitter wind of the bleak north
Rides the windy-wail, the air's own skeleton
The ghosts of all the birds whose wings froze stiff
And fell to earth as hail-sparrows, storm-chickens.

In the bitter hours of winter it comes forth
Demon of the ice host, wicked weather's son
The daughter of the glacier, the coldest riff
The windy-wail, it sounds as the storm thickens.

Blow's death, chills life, the windy-wail is frost
Firethief, wings of crystal-air ringing,
Colourless ice rainbows, halo it,
It is wind thin, wind visible, it stings.

It freezes joy, into the bones it settles most,
Dulls love, throttles fervor, ends singing.
Under doors through sashes, swallow-fit
Bone-bird the windy-wails' mistings.

Dreaming Spell

I did not find it deep in hallowed ground
But found it in the surface forest loam.
I stumbled on its sharpness, felt the edge,
That still was honed to wetstone severance.
Untouched by time, a wedge of ancient bone.
It had been made a thousand years before
Or even more, ten thousand years maybe.
Its surface bore the scratched deep marks
That might be runes or other antique signs.

And placing it beneath my pillow I, made
little rhymes to see what I might spy.

Old tool, cold tool,
Bone formed thing
Found in the forest loam
Bring dreams into my home
So they may sing.

Old stone, cold stone,
Ancient edged flint
Found neath the barrow
Give dreams by the morrow
And do not stint.

Old axe, cold axe
Meet to my fist
Found neath the earth
Give dreams without dearth
I will not resist.

Old soul, cold soul
That once spilled blood
Found neath the sacred ground
Give dreams as stars go round
Evil or good.

Take me, make me
All I have been
Free from the silt of me
The ancient ecstasy
The roots of green.

Break me, remake me
Age upon age
Whirl round the wheel of night
Dreams on my soul alight
Muse fill my page.

The Devil's Kitchen Garden

They crept up from the graves on the east side

Beyond the plot of consecrated land

Such briars, unkempt, and heavy still abide

Untrimmed, uncared for, neither sown nor planned.

Beyond the plot of consecrated land

The village suffered the odd folk be laid

Untrimmed, uncared for, neither sown nor planned

Their lives were wild, their deaths too were not staid.

The village suffered the odd folk be laid

To rest in chains, or with a certain mark

Their lives were wild, their deaths too were not staid

Some had been staked, and all lay deep and dark

To rest in chains, or with a certain mark.

Who gathered brambles from the cursed plot?

Some had been staked, and all lay deep and dark

Wolfsbane lay on some breasts, and should it not?

Who gathered brambles from the cursed plot?

And was not cursed, as they were cursed therein?

Wolfsbane lay on some breasts, and should it not?

For none from hence were wanted back a'gi'n.

And was not cursed, as they were cursed therein

The first son sired by Cain, all Lilith's brood?

For none from hence are wanted back a'gi'n

Let them rest dark between Churchyard and wood.

The first son sired by Cain, all Lilith's brood

Those who to meet by night at the stones went

Let them rest dark between Churchyard and wood

Their ashes feed the mulch, their bones are pent

Those who to meet by night at the stones went

Let them sleep damned 'til Armageddon's passed

Their ashes feed the mulch, their bones are pent

'Til in that Lake of fire all such are cast

Where Satan writhes in agonies at last

Such briars, unkempt, and heavy still abide

'Til in that Lake of fire all such are cast

They creep up from the graves on the east side

The Four Keys

I had four keys made of moonlight
The first unlocked the doors of night
The second, the vaults of the moon
The third, the flower that's yet to bloom
Oh but the fourth key that I lost
Is the one that I cared for most

I had a key made of moonlight
It did not lock the doors of night
Nor yet, the vaults beneath the moon
It could not raise the time-lost bloom
It was the key that wound your heart
Since I lost that we now must part.

For you are colder than moonlight
More sealed to me than doors of night
Austere as vaults empty of air
For flowers unborn, you have no care
Away you pushed me, so I fell
I think the fourth key lies in Hell.

Some devil whispers, "Forged anew
A fifth key will the love renew."
But I must face the certainty,
Your heart is closed, at least to me.
And mine lies underneath your feet,
Such keys can not be counterfeit.

The Raven Dream

I dreamt I called on Baron Corvus

In his sleek black evening dress

Slighter of build than his crow soldiers

At home in his Castle Nest

In his sleek black evening dress

Where his brightest eyes agleam

At home in his Castle Nest

Pick the diamonds from a dream

Where his brightest eyes agleam

Misted o'er with prophesy

Pick the diamonds from a dream

In the Courts of Treachery

Misted o'er with prophesy

Each enacted with a jest

In the Courts of Treachery

Unkindness teaches what is best

Each enacted with a jest

As a fool dreams he's a priest

Unkindness teaches what is best

What constrained and what released

As a fool dreams he's a priest

Cawing with a raven's croak

What constrained and what released

From the feather darkened cloak

Cawing with a raven's croak

That anyone may yet be Pope

From the feather darkened cloak

Comes the studied blasphemy

That anyone may yet be Pope

In the Nightmare reliquary

Comes the studied blasphemy

And bird's bones may be sold as saints'

Where merchandise the churchyard taints

Slighter of build than his crow soldiers

(And bird's bones may be sold as saints')

I dreamt I called on Baron Corvus...

Pantoum of the Hanged Man

The hanged man, waited on the gallows tree

His lolling head slumped broken o'er the noose

His eyes - bird pecked - left sockets emptily

Open to rain by bitter wind shook loose

His lolling head slumped broken o'er the noose

Weathered to bone, in tatters, void of hair.

Open to rain by bitter wind shook loose

This bone-turned marionette that danced on air

Weathered to bone, in tatters, void of hair.

The caliban thief to brother ariel

This bone-turned marionette that danced on air

Came not to cut him down for wholesome burial

The caliban thief to brother ariel

Earthy with all the needs of mortal lands

Came not to cut him down for wholesome burial

But from each wrist to cut the murderer's hands

Earthy with all the needs of mortal lands

His brother would make magic for his crimes

But from each wrist to cut the murderer's hands

Is harder than he thought, the tree he climbs

His brother would make magic for his crimes

To gain the hand of glory of dead bone

Is harder than he thought, the tree he climbs

His heart he first had hardened like a stone

To gain the hand of glory of dead bone

To make the candle-fat from brother's thigh

His heart he first had hardened like a stone

To betray his own kin and let him hang and die

To make the candle-fat from brother's thigh

And round his neck to wind the rope begins

To betray his own kin and let him hang and die

The smiling eyeless face behind him grins

And round his neck to wind the rope begins

His eyes - bird pecked - left sockets emptily

The smiling eyeless face behind him grins

The hanged men waited on the gallows tree

The Face

The face was woven high up in a tree

From strands of straw orange against the brown

Had it been hoisted up for us to see?

The suns it had for eyes were beaming down

Its cheeks were broad as pumpkins plump and round.

From strands of straw orange against the brown

Woven in place or raised up from the ground,

It had been formed as naturally as a gaul.

Its cheeks were broad as pumpkins plump and round.

Its nose hung like a woven gourd or ball

A single woven flower from forehead bloomed

It had been formed as naturally as a gaul.

Its smirk and gaze out of the treeline loomed

The woven goatee twisting to the right

A single woven flower from forehead bloomed

We saw it in the golden autumn light

The face was woven high up in a tree

The woven goatee twisting to the right

Had it been hoisted up for us to see?

Yersinia Pesta

There  was an old woman wrapped up in a shawl
(When the wind blew long, and the thin rains did fall)
If she had a broom it could carry many men.
(So pray that she stays o'er the border in Sweden)

There was an old woman whose head-scarf was black
(When the lightning flashed and the thunder did crack)
There was an old woman whose name was Yersinia
{So pray that she stays in the village of Kongsvinger)

There was an old woman whose name was Yersinia
(When the rats swarmed in Oslo men said that they'd seen her.)
She bore there her rake, so some people were spared
(In Asker and Drammen they prayed when they heard.)

There was an old woman and where er she treads
(Then the people start coughing and take to their beds).
With broom or with rake she will winnow their pain
(Oh, pray that she comes not south here to Skien!)



Trans from trad Norwegian:

Det var en gammel kvinne pakket inn i et sjal
(Når vinden blåste lenge, og de tynne regnene falt)
Hvis hun hadde en kost, kunne den bære mange menn.
(Så ber at hun holder seg over grensen i Sverige)

Det var en gammel kvinne med hodeskjerf var svart
(Da lynet blinket og torden sprakk)
Det var en gammel kvinne som het Yersinia
{Så ber at hun blir i landsbyen Kongsvinger)

Det var en gammel kvinne som het Yersinia
(Da rottene svermet i Oslo sa menn at de hadde sett henne.)
Hun bar der sin rake, så noen mennesker ble skånet
(I Asker og Drammen ba de da de hørte det.)

Det var en gammel kvinne og hvor hun trår
(Så begynner folket å hoste og ta seg til sengene sine).
Med kvast eller med rake vil hun vinne smertene deres
(Å, be om at hun ikke kommer sørover hit til Skien!)

The Wolf Woods

The firs and fur are the same black
Against the snow line.
Three bushes detach their roots
And blind eyes spring into being,
Leaves folding into ears aquiver.
Teeth the colour of stripped wood under bark.

The orphans in the snow have half turned back
Do they see wolves or only bushy outlines
Spiked hair or pine needle shoots?
Something to fear, something they should be fleeing,
Or trees with murmuring leaves beside a frozen river?
Is that the wind, or the first howl, oh hark!

The choice will be made by the forming pack,
The choice is always theirs, not yours nor mine.
Nature it is that watches our disputes
Weighs up our tastiness within its seeing,
We do not even choose what makes us shiver.
We can not see the wolves within the dark.

A Slight Slip Of The Tongue

Hello is that the spell-caster's helpline
I really think it would be quite divine
If you could help  me out of my distress
A tiny error has caused quite a mess
I wanted to transform myself into a poet
(I thought I had no talent then and now I know it).
I gathered all the bits and pieces needed
The length of Longfellow, by no yawns, impeded
The gruesomeness of Poe, of Browing love,
From Shelley nightingales' wings, Wilde a glove,
From Wordsworth, a verdant wood's impulse
And many other things both new and used.
But oh, the nightmare from a slip of diction
My tongue in saying "AXALOXYPHUS" lost friction
Slipped and said "AXALOTOPLPHUS" and on to me
Fell the dread curse of ironical metonymy.
Not transformed into a poet I, but by the Hoary Hosts of Hoggeral
I found myself this self-same piece of Doggeral,
Doomed to live out my life in 20 lines,
With many awful forced and half-done rhymes.

What is a witch?

The woman mused
"Well King James has said
in the Second Book of his Daemologie
That a witch is a detestable slave of Devil.
Do you find me detestable, Sirrah?"

The man, King James had sent, looked quite amused
to find this beauteous goodwife was well-read.
He'd looked to find no fine philosophy
Among these uncouth folk that some thought evil,
Upon the lonely windswept Isle of Bharraigh

"Your Piratical MacNeil's must come to court
So Roy the Turbulent can make his peace at last
King James 1st of England has no mind, to wink
At sinking of the English ships, as once he had
When he was James the IVth."

"Am I the wife of Roy MacNeil, that I should bear him your thought
I the wise woman of these isles, these long years past
Here in this grotto on the shore, with but this spring to drink
You'll take a cup I trust, to make an ancient woman glad?
Before you set out once again to travel forth."

Ancient! He thought, sure she made mock in that
Who was so fine of skin, so blue of eye,
Had he been younger, less stiff in his age
He might have set to woo her, at a shot
Forgot the court, and settled there to die.

"The King is wrong to say we are slaves, that
Is but the word men use for women spry
Enough to avoid husbands or the church's rage
To be a witch is to hear spoken, what
No voice of Man nor Woman speaks, and to reply."

Snakeheart Charm

My heart has the heads of seven snakes
One for each sin.
They whisper their hisses in my chest
To tell me to begin.

Bind the heads of the snakes
With love and joy
That their whispers be stilled
'Er my hopes they destroy.

Close the mouth of the slow-worm
Sloth,
Close the mouth of the viper
False witness,
Close the mouth of the adder
Greed,
Close the mouth of the worm
Coverting the things of Earth,
Close the mouth of the Garter Snake
Envious of the Powerful
Close the mouth of the Lamia
Lust,
Close the mouth of the King Python
Pride.

Make my heart whole,
Bound in the Ouruboros.
And not a nest of serpents.

The Black Witch and the Red Babe

What shall I do now my baby has gone?

Pray to the black witch and she'll make you one.
Born from the blood pool that seeps in the tarn,
Bonny and strong, safe from all earthly harm.

What would it cost me, the baby so red?

Naught but a price ye can pay when you're dead.
Surely a mother would bear any pain,
To know her sweet suckling babe's touch again?

What if as they say, such a babe has no soul?

Why better for him, in this world - on the whole!
Naught wins in this world but inheriting power,
Blessed be the babe who is born at this hour!

What if the Angels should weep at his name?

Surely that speaks of his Pride and His Fame,
Noble the babe that comes out of the pit,
For at the Left Hand of the Hooved God he'll sit.

But what if when grown in His Power and His Pride
He forgets his poor mother and sets her aside?

No, sure as my hands are as black as sea-coal,
Such ingratitude takes a Christian soul.
No, sure as I shape this red babe to your need,
He will always remember where first he did feed.

The Four Brooms

Four brooms hang in the long old hall
Unclaimed since fire and plague both came
Their owners were hanged by the witch-finders and nothing else of them remains.

Malkin Macall was a wise old maid, who gave advice and salves to all,
They had no course to curse her name (and yet her broom is on the wall)
What proof of witchcraft more than women's brains.

Four brooms hang in the long old hall
Unclaimed since fire and plague both came
Their owners were hanged by the witch-finders and nothing else of them remains.

Frieda Farrow was a feisty lass, they said she caused young men to fall,
Forgetting that they chose the game (and her broom too is on the wall)
What proof of witchcraft more than drooling swains?

Four brooms hang in the long old hall
Unclaimed since fire and plague both came
Their owners were hanged by the witch-finders and nothing else of them remains.

Griselda Gray was a grim-faced grandam, but age may sour as apples gall,
Her tongue was sharp to assign blame (Small wonder hers is on the wall)
What proof of witchcraft more when gossip reigns?

Four brooms hang in the long old hall
Unclaimed since fire and plague both came
Their owners were hanged by the witch-finders and nothing else of them remains.

Theresa Trask was a working wife, to family a hard-worn thrall
Worn down by care, and seared with shame  (How did that broom end on the wall?)
No proof at all of witchcraft there, when mere association stains.

Four brooms hang in the long old hall
Unclaimed since fire and plague both came
Their owners were hanged by the witch-finders and nothing else of them remains.

Sarah Sidelow was a shadowy wight, she laughed that maid, lass, grandam, and thrall,
Were treated by the fools the same, as those whose broomstick soared o'er all
The devil's own, the ones who knew the secrets of the hidden skeins.