Wailing of a BansheeBringer of shady secrets of death
Feared, revered, with coldest breath
Your cries are carried out on the breeze
As the man’s last breath is but a wheeze
Like an old bagpipe hung out in the rain
One person’s life is no longer the same Banshee screams all thro’ the night
Outside your windows until first light
No blame, no shame, no harm is meant
But on this night, a life is spent
A body is limp and breath is gone
No life in the eyes which brightly shone Those left behind see a life as gone
But to that man, life has just moved on
Who knows what to, only few may know
The fey guard the secret as the winds blow
Spirit of the family, an empty chair you fill
Feared, revered, in the night’s cold chill Although you warn of what’s not foreseen
To your screaming cries all ears do lean
They tell of the end of life’s precious gift
But also of new beginnings within the shift
So one year ends, so another can see dawn
As Gaia gestates as she waits to be warm Ceinach / Siobhan Thomas Go to Title Index Go to Author Index |
Walls and Windows
Enclosed by the walls
There's a world out there,
Look out the window
it's all you see,
You're so wrapped up inside
with your terrifying thoughts,
you don't have the time to be.
Look outside
take a step into the real,
don't look in
look out to the other side,
You have yourself and your life
don't let it all pass by,
in your world of walls and windows.
Mark Ayling Go to Title Index Go to Author Index
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WAR ! The dark blanket of night,
Covers a storm driven sky.
Huge birds with stiffened wings,
Harass the man made structures.
Metal and concrete twist together,
Hideous sculptures of destruction. Craters formed by unnatural meteors,
Swallow up large chunks of individual worlds.
Tidal waves of explosive sound,
Drown sanity and safety.
Welded crabs trundle mercilessly across the sand,
Spitting poison relentlessly ahead. A child, forgotten, unsupported,
Plays with dolls and has a party.
No one fights, no one kills,
Trust is everything in innocent joy.
At the blast she covers her ears.
Dying, she cuddles the dolls close to protect them. Fearful steps of tear filled paces.
The brother, mouth fisted to block explosion,
Eyes see the happy festivity,
Then darken as their light goes out.
Tight emotion winds and coils in the gut,
And another generation of hate is born. Dryac Go to Title Index Go to Author Index |
We'll be ok
Whatever challenges come our way
in my heart I know we'll be ok
we walk this path of life of ours
in every sleeping waking hour
we'll be alright though it'll be fine
if we walk together and take our time
with friends and spirits by our side
theres no wild moment we can't ride
so lets ride together from the dark
to lifetime new and present's past
take up the reigns and hold on tight
and the darkest hour will lead to light
Mark Ayling Go to Title Index Go to Author Index
|
What Blodeuwedd never said to Lleu My skull which you cradle is a mossy nest of woven wood and feather-tangles.
Behind my eyes storms a hive, bee-heat and bee-murmur – do you feel it when you stroke your man’s thumbs on my eyelids, bend for the silk of my kiss? Do you hear her, the queen in the cells of my skull?
You love to run your nose in my hair, smell autumn in the golden hay lying on your pillow. In this hall wherever I tread there is the scent of things rootless and fragrantly dying.
I myself am a meadow, slowly dying as I wait in your halls…
If only you saw clearly, eyes not muzzy with magic, you would see my back as a snail-trail, a silver line you trace up the stalk of my spine, from which fan the slender leaves of my shoulders.
You bend down your golden head to kiss the knot of my navel…my darling, my honeysuckle, you say… and down between my legs, there, you find honeydew and salt, cuckoo-spit in my forking stem, and I stretch out longing for wild light and woodland rain, beyond this shuttered room you think we share. You think I am a woman; I am as fleeting and inhuman as the swirl of wind through summer leaves, or the moon's glance at the moth.
If you looked, truly looked, perhaps you would see my glittering girdle is the dancing motion of insects, and it is not silver and gold that rings my long fingers, but the burnished backs of beetles on coils of bindweed and twisting vine.
The women whisper that you smell of the wood when you rise happy from my bed, of woods and earth-bread and meadowsweet crushed for strewing.
Oh my Lleu, my Lleu, it is not I whom your uncle enchanted, but you – you who see fruit of paradise in my breasts' fullness, when you press hot kisses among my docks and blossoms, circle my rosehip nipples. You see human eyes where grey stream-pebbles lie couched in moss. You see a mouth where a butterfly only opens and closes her wings. And what seems a wife’s gracious words is but the hoot of an owl through the halls of the twilit wood. For if your uncle, the wizard, withdrew his wand from my spine, which keeps me tall and human-seeming, then I would turn and shudder into bee-swarm and summer mist, with a sigh of homecoming to my native elements...
and become once more only leaves, and flowers, and the owl’s call. Mark Wiliams Go to Title Index Go to Author Index |
WHISPERING WATERSWhispering Waters beside
who's trembling shores I keep,
To the narrow bridge o're the
water's path in stillness there I seek,
E're questions rising from within
for a sacred journey's sake,
Now images which dance before me
do conscious feelings wake,
Humble offerings from the spirit
seem fit to offer there,
And graceful hands will keenly greet me
when all my soul is bare. Perfect sounds do the humble waters
make o're the tide pools of reflection keeping
Endless streams of conscious feelings
pass wearily through the spirit's weeping
Beside the waters on edge of reason
lay the fractured remnants of regret
There by the waters edge lay blindly
the stillness of a soul beset
But in my stillness would Gods there greet me
when in deeper minding I would pray
And all the chains around my soul
were loosed and cast away! Strange companions do gentle
longings and strong convictions make
Yet like the Oak and Ivy under Heaven's watch
neither could their keep forsake
And thus my soul's akin to them
companions of the sacred Earth
For brightly burns the contradiction
in the fires of inspired mirth
Now torrents like rivers gently washing
flow through my tempered haste
While poetic vision shall overtake me
And my soul shall freedom taste. -- Aelhaeran Merlin Cassiel
(Copyright © 2004, A. M. Cassiel) Go to Title Index Go to Author Index |
Willow (Saille) I am Willow,
My trunk grows to the sky
My boughs bend to the earth
Come shelter within my sanctum I am Saille,
My magic is strong but old
My uses are varied and many
Come grow within my shade I am Willow,
My goddess is a maiden
My dreams are enchanted
Come sleep within my protection I am Saille,
My touch can bring enlightenment
My energy can heal
Come be one within my aura. I am Willow,
My being is not for evil
My wands are used for magic
Come flow with the wind and me… Dryac Go to Title Index Go to Author Index |
Wizard BecomingIn the light of the Sky Father
I was taught how to heal,
In the love of the Earth Mother
I was shown how to feel In the magik of Moon beam
I was given my Will,
Of the Stars’ deep-touched wisdom
I have taken my fill Wizard am I
In my magik becoming,
Of Earth and of Sky,
In the balance belonging Harazustra! Gareth Evans
October 2004
Go to Title Index
Go to Author Index |
YEW TREEO Yew Tree. Thy spirit is darkenéd.
You pierce this ground, so hallowed.
I ask for your provision,
By the light of the wick I have tallowed,
To harvest that which you harkenéd. Tree of Shadows, thy flesh and bone we need.
Split and billeted, given freely.
One bough will suffice our purpose.
One bough between ours and Herne's glee.
To hunt in the woods, and amongst the reeds. The Hart-wood that snaps-back and looses.
The Sap-wood that bends and strains,
The deer-horn hold firmly the flax.
Your kin fletched and flung amongst geese,
The clouted birds will hang by one noose. Tree of night, extend thine arms reach,
Be at one with the wild-lord and his men,
Keen and hone my aim and eye,
Hunt with us, and partake of our blood.
Harvest deer in the woods, seals on the beach. Oath and love we will not betraye.
Tree of growth. respectfully we live,
We ask for help in feeding our childe.
Herne will keep us to your rules,
Come to us, seasoned and ready to hunt by day. Yibble Go to Title Index Go to Author Index |
