Posted on by Daniel Gustafsson · 1 Comment

Beacons – Brands – The Loki Stone

DANIEL GUSTAFSSON has published volumes of poetry in both English and Swedish, most recently Fordings (Marble Poetry, 2020). Much inspired by the beauty and history of both his native and adoptive shores, exploring themes of cultural and spiritual regeneration derived from Blake and Scruton, among others, Daniel’s increasingly formal work also shows an interest in alliterative verse. Recent related work appears in The North American Anglican and in Black Bough Poetry’s Deep Time Volume 1. With a PhD in Philosophy, Daniel also makes occasional contributions to academic journals and conferences. He lives in York. Twitter: @PoetGustafsson  

BEACONS

We saw it come. The low,                           

lengthening shade emerged at summer’s close   

to stalk the hogweed, stem the rose,

and leech the commons clean 

of light. Through meadows, mown, and fields

with little left to glean,

                   

the prey was run to ground.

We saw the once unchallenged sun beset;

his trailing robes, resplendent yet

though stained with ochres, snag

on bramble-thorn; his even course

begin to list and lag. 

                   

We knew what darkened lanes

ensued, yet saw the sparks enkindled there;                      

how, birch to quickbeam, beacons flared

to raise the late alarm,        

presaging pathways lined with rust

and ash: a call to arms

                   

for each of autumn’s sons

to carry fire, linking lanterns, hips

with crimsoned haws; an ill-equipped

and self-defeating quest

to halt this great diminishing

that haunts the waning west.

BRANDS                              

The streets are overrun

with marchers; banners climb the righteous tide;

while those who err on caution’s side

remain some way apart,

upholding those unflagging words

the crowd won’t take to heart. 

                   

We’ve seen it all before: 

how slogans, slander, slag of language, smear

the public square. Even so, here    

in this beleaguered town,

a moneyed mob, brought up in arms

to tear its elders down,

                   

declares the end has come,            

the zero sum of all offending years:

the stakes are raised to frenzied cheers

as strawmen take the blame.

Though fury is the fashion now

and all are fans of flame,

                   

this too will fizzle out;                                

through smoke of sleepless nights’ utopian dreams,

the slanting rays and broken beams

when dawning crawls around        

will find us less enlightened still               

for loss of common ground.

THE LOKI STONE

(Fragment of a 10th Century Anglo-Scandinavian cross-shaft;

Kirkby Stephen, Yorkshire)   

While this stone is standing,

still untoppled, pillar                             

guarding grace and order;

guileful Loki yoked here, 

finely patterned fetters

foil him, sinuous coils of                       

bramble; horned-one humbled,           

hate’s designs frustrated;   

                   

threads not loosed yet; these en-

thralling drystone-walls and                     

hog-backed ridges, hedgerows

hooping, bindweed looping, 

braiding streams and bridges;

bands of lore, a landscape’s                  

tropes of love entrap him,

trothless, bound to nothing;

                   

till these tethers wither,

torn at last, unfastened,

reins of roots and vines un-

ravelled, freeing havoc;

columns, ash and elm, up-

ending, arches rending;

rock of ages racked though       

raised for glory; praise it.  

                   

This poem is composed of three dróttkvætt stanzas. Essentially each stanza contains eight lines with three trochaic feet in each line. The odd-numbered lines have two alliterating staves which alliterate with the first syllable in the even-numbered lines. Within the odd-numbered lines, two of the stressed syllables share half rhymes (of consonants with dissimilar vowels; stone-stand, pattern-fetter); while within the even-numbered lines, two of the stressed syllables rhyme (though not necessarily at the end of a word; still-pillar, foil-coils). In the case of both odd- and even-numbered lines, the second partial or full rhyme always falls on the penultimate syllable of the line (the stressed syllable in the third trochaic foot).

Posted on by Janet Kenny

Four poems by Janet Kenny

JANET KENNY is very old. She has been an opera and concert singer, anti-war activist, editor, publisher’s researcher and food writer. Born in New Zealand, sang in the United Kingdom, agitated in Sydney and now watches birds in Queensland. Her poems have been widely published. She co-edited, compiled and wrote Beyond Chernobyl published by Envirobook; Her two collections of poems are This Way to the Exit (White Violet Press) and Whistling in the Dark (Kelsay Books)

Antal Szalai’s Gypsy Band in an Australian Country Town

The country concert hall is full

of old Hungarians who’ve come

from miles away to hear the thrill

of tarogato, cimbalom,

but most of all—the violin.

And what a violin! They say

that after he had heard him play

Yehudi Menuhin embraced him,

so deeply had Szalai impressed him.

When they start there’s such a shock

as though the world had run amok

sound rips around the walls and hits

the ceiling, strikes the metal parts

of doors and watches, and the hearts

of sleepers who have come to life,

and young again, accept the knife

of youth and pain; the lightning bursts

in every space and now it’s Liszt’s

transfiguration, Gypsy grief

and desperation, time the thief, 

it weeps then changes with a bang,

to pure delight as high notes hang

above the hall so high they hurt

with panpipes conjuring a bird; 

they’re old, this audience, and know

that this is love, the silent bow

that holds suspended all they are

then lets them down through sunlit air;

the gypsy and the bird are free

like them, they leave him thankfully

in songs and dances, out the door

to Queensland which they never saw

the way they see it now, with strings

to all the loved remembered things.

Flying Foxes 

Mega-chiroptera

Fruit bats hang in clumps atop

the canopy. Plumb head-down drop

of screechbats. Nosferatu crops

of dangling-grippers shuffle out

on tight-crammed branches; poke to flex

ribbed, leather black umbrella wing

as prod displaces neighbour’s roost.

Stench circles trees in clouds of retch.

Night falls, then lifts of creatures streak

across the sky on ancient tracks,

air-trod by troops of foxbats, hot

to reach the fruit of memory,

wing wafts of time above the road.

Tienanmen Shopper

         Whatever happened to him

  that man with the shopping bag?

     You all saw how

     he moved from side to side,

     head erect, graceful,

     as the tank moved, 

     trying to avoid 

     his intransigent blocking figure.

     The driver was a man too, 

      and felt for this

     stubborn stubborn  man

     who refused refused  to

     move and we watched,

     hearts in mouths, never knowing

     whether he lived or died.

     What happened…what… what did happen

     to that stubborn stubborn  man?

Wild

Here for a flash then not. God, did you see

the streak of eyes, the fleeting blur, the space

vacated when you thought there was a face?

The silent grace where now a stolid tree

refuses to divulge just what it was

passed by its vigil. Four feet, two or none?

Grass won’t expose a creature to the sun.

Discretion in cahoots with beasts because

a law denies betrayal of the catch

to predators who watch but miss the track

till jaws or beak or claws make swift attack

when luck dismembers prey that met its match.

Each on its own united by the same

entrapment in an old sadistic game.

A scientific mechanism made

by particles that never feel afraid.

Posted on by Andrew Thornton-Norris

Richard Whiting – Comedy – The god of modern life

ANDREW THORNTON-NORRIS is the author of The Spiritual History of English, described by The Times as “an enjoyable, erudite and cohesive journey through the history and philosophy of English literature in 150 pithily written pages.” He is also an accomplished poet, described by the University Bookman as “refreshingly direct, in contrast to contemporary poets whose poems are like hearing half of a telephone conversation [his are] like a Renaissance painting of the Crucifixion falling off a museum wall onto a viewer.” His website is at www.thornton-norris.com

Richard Whiting

(Last Abbot of Glastonbury and Martyr)

My little children, lives stretched out before

Them, mine all but behind me. Relics of

The saints provide our continuity,

The ones who live in perpetuity,

Their bones and clothing, just like we are in.

The falling leaves are death, turned into life,

This child of myself, I see him cry,

Beside his father, as his father cries.

Comedy

Among the pagan dead, I caught a glimpse

Of what lies down below, of all the dead,

Their bodies writing in their torment, what

They thought was pleasure, now they know as pain.

The sea of souls above are swimming in

The light, and all the pilgrims on their way

Of penitence, from earth to heaven above,

Their eyes fixed on the light of holiness.

The god of modern life

A childlike god, more weak and petulant

Than Nero, clothed in gold and palaces

But destitute inside, with hatred where

Religious souls have love, and joy and peace.

So, throw them to the lions, let us love

Our selves, and those on our side alone,

As Germans did in nineteen forty three,

And so did we, in Dresden and Japan.

The empire is collapsing from inside,

And Mary is the mother we betray,

By our disobedience we wound,

Again, the Body of her Son, again.