Dead, Mad, or a Poet

Let one cloak drop Pick another from the depths A meal of blood and raven’s flesh Lingers on my lips A land of barren bones Blooms colorful and bright And a tree of many fruits Ripens in the light Hands grasp at furs The grey-hued pelt The face of a mother Voice cracked with spells From this pleasant land Indescribably pure and true I must flee lest I find comfort here Take the root out and through A shift, a step, and I’m home again Without returns to within All it takes is a trick to come back The story shapes the key

Yesterday I watched a video by the Welsh scholar Dr Gwilym Morus-Baird about the concept of ‘awen’. Unsurprisingly, it’s a far deeper concept than how it is typically taken by most English-speakers who encounter the term. This is no surprise - it’s very difficult to understand words and concepts when those things are divorced from their cultural and linguistic contexts. So to have an in-depth examination by a native speaker who is also a scholar in the field, is invaluable. Especially when your own Welsh doesn’t stretch much beyond greetings, asking how someone is, basic introductions, and staying you like certain foods. According to Dr Morus-Baird, the modern Welsh 'awen' is typically used to refer to 'poetic genius'. However, in the past, 'awen' also carried supernatural or magical connotations. Poetic genius was associated with spiritual enlightenment or wisdom. There was also a correspondence with a kind of "supernatural" wind or "divine br...

“History is written by the victors” they say. But I say that it’s the stories that endure that define what is. Take the story of old Br â n the Blessed, for example. Oh, you haven’t heard of him? He was a mighty king once; so mighty he could wade across the sea to Ireland to rescue his sister. But he was also unlucky too, because for all the men he took with him, “ except seven, none rose up ”. Sound familiar? Even Br â n himself (mighty as he was) fell there. “Cut off my head” he’d said as he lay dying (or words to that effect). “Bring me back and feast with my head. Get Rhiannon to send some of those birds to sing to us and we’ll have a grand old time - it’ll be great! Head Br â n will be just as fun as full Br â n, and I won’t even rot as long as you keep that there door closed!” And so they’d taken Br â n’s head and returned home to Harlech. The seven feasted and the head spoke, laughed, told stories and jokes. The birds sang the sweetest of melodies ever heard, and for...

A song for Gwyn ap Nudd Who on Calan Mai must depart Gwythyr’s blade I break and blood I staunch Heal the scars on Creiddylad’s heart Not murdered but gone The bull takes his queens And in Annwn they are renewed Yet doors open wide between the two sides And the old ways trickle through I mourn his loss though I know he’ll be back His heart beats ever still Gwythyr’s blade is gone and there’s no blood to staunch Creiddylad’s heart is renewed So ‘til Calan Gaeaf she’ll stay In Gwythyr’s arms she'll lay ‘Til the Huntsman collects her again For wild delights on darkened days

Don’t think I don’t see you, because I do. I see you, I’ve *always* seen you, sharply dressed and “respectable” though you claim to be. You’re really no different from the “good” men in my day. “Host bodies” you say. I know this as well. I too was only seen as a container for what I carried (though in my case it was my blood). But a curse upon you, and those of your kind. We’ll grind your kind into the dirt. Watch your names fall from memory. Chant the truth behind your stories, and shine a light upon your evil hearts. “Good”, what is that now? And why does it almost always seem to involve hurting someone else? Taking from someone else. Reducing someone else to being lesser. Inhuman. Not worth the consideration. (I only ever wanted to be left alone.) He too claimed the banner of life and light. He too claimed to travel the bright path of “good” – the path of his damned god. And all the idiots (then, as now), took my blackness for evil and judged me against his l...

The landscape is barren. Perhaps it has always been so? A wind-ravaged space where sun-bleached rocks lay strewn like bones across the grass-hair back of a sleeping giant. Mists come often here, pulling across the sky like curtains. Strangely heavy yet weightless, like the tickle of cobwebs across the face. It will smother you if you don’t remember to breathe. A person could go mad here. There was a time when her bones lay as the rocks on the moor. Picked clean by carrion - her memory and shade almost lost. Her killer had come looking for a “wonder”, and had slaughtered her with as much thought as he gave to a swine before a feast. She’d been a thing to him, a mere container for that wonder, and he’d taken everything that had not soaked into the earth when he sliced her in twain. But the joke was on him in the end - what kind of fool mistakes a trophy for a wonder? In any case, his name rose and fell and passed into legend. He went from “once and future king”, ...

It wasn’t the Otherworld that took my flowers We had them when we bedded him Bloomed with him  Planned a future with him An escape From a sun-too bright and forceful A sun under which we would eventually wither  For even the most rooted of blooms cannot stand  The harshness of flame It is not in our nature to be controlled We too are of the wild We came from it Were born from it Pulled up from the fabric of that which births us all. We would have grown well wild without the walls and the beds - the control. The bed *we* made though, was with the Huntsman We would have grown well in his woods Freely Sheltered from the harsh sun-lord and his grasping ways  From the curse that dogs his heels and moves him to ill deeds Oh how we loved that stag-hunting lord! We were still of flowers when we were judged It was those men who took my blooms and made them feathers Who took my leaves and made them claws. It was they who t...