Saint Werburgh and the Goose

Giles Watson is a Facebook friend, and I first encountered this poem of his when he shared it on that site recently.

It’s a remarkable piece of work and deserves your attention.

The words are on YouTube if you want to read it.

Drained – a guest poet

Keith Errington is no doubt best known in steampunk circles for his comedic work. He’s performed with the Hopeless, Maine crew on a number of occasions, the first of which was right at the beginning of our figuring out how to get Hopeless onto a stage. He’s previously written a novella in the Hopeless setting – The Oddatsea and has been working with me on another Hopeless novella we hope to get out into the world next year.

It gives me great delight to be able to share some of his more serious work here. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this sort of thing.

Drained

When the tide is low, and the lake’s water has returned to the air

When the river can flow no more, and the spring bubbles its last

There is no more.

When the sea is calm, and the wind has all blown out

When the clouds have turned to grey, and the sun rises no more

What is left?

When the child has cried every tear, and the artist can no longer express grief

When the Nurse is out of care, and the mother can tend no more

Where is the love?

When the trees have withered, and the grass is returned to soil

When the flowers are weeds, and the fields are sand

What will grow there?

When the deer is slain, and the last rhino dead

When the birds are grounded and fly no more

Where can you go?

When the heron is dying, and the snake is withering to skin

When the horned god has not the strength to carry on

What can he do?

A glint.

A sprout.

An egg.

A raindrop.

A breath.

A smile.

Keith Errington

Soft creatures – a poem

I would ease this heart hurt rawness

Be the doc leaf balm to your stung skin

Wrap myself softly around the soreness

In your soul. Spit, faith and relief.

That warm, animal self, the puppy lick

The purr that soothes, the paw, the fur

To nuzzle and comfort as creatures do

When sorrow is simple, easy to address.

These shoulders broad enough

To put between a person and the world,

This body a pillow in face of weariness

Places to lay your head.

Warmth for the chill in your bones,

In your spirit, skin heat to ward off

The loneliness for a little while

Sleep safe beside me.

No matter how we complicate life

In essence we are just soft creatures

In need of shelter, craving safety

Asking to be welcomed home.

Queen of the needle – poem

Prick me, and I will bleed

My wounds stay open

Skin bloodstained

The damage painted

For easy viewing.

Break open my skin

For my own good

Apparently.

Test me

Test me

Test me again.

What am I?

Why do I bleed

Still?

What is wrong

That I do not heal?

Stab me with your solutions

Solving nothing.

Investigate me 

Down to the bone

Under the microscope

You find no answers

I am still bleeding.

An illness with no name

No diagnosis

No reality.

A being without explanation

May as well be a fairy

For all the good it will do.

Stab me again

As though this time

It could be different.

(art by Dr Abbey. Text by me, and I don’t heal injuries made with steel easily, which causes me all kinds of difficulty around conventional medicine. )

The crane wife – a poem

The crane wife

Knows herself perfectly, 

Cannot tell if she is human

Or crane.

Transcends these ways of being

Entirely and only herself.

Knows her feminine soul,

Desirous of egg and man,

Not crane or baby.

Walks between worlds

Loves without compromise

Kills when she must.

She is not here

To help you make sense

Of the world.

She is not a parable to guide you

These are not answers

To your unvoiced question.

You are not a crane wife

And must find your own truth.

(Based on a true story about a crane – you can find that over here https://kottke.org/18/08/my-crane-wife )

Druid Poetry

Some years ago, I donated some of my poetry to The Druid Network – it’s still there, with ‘Bryn’ on it as a name. Bryn is my first name (Brynneth, for long) – I mostly use Nimue when I’m writing (my middle name) because Bryn Brown doesn’t quite have the right swing as an author name. In everyday life I use both names interchangeably and am happy to have people call me whichever they prefer.

Recently, I had a contact via the Druid Network from a fantastic Druid chap who found some of that poetry and has recorded some of my work. I love his reading, and the richness his voice brings to my words.  So, over to Davog Rynne…

A poem about living dangerously

It will be legendary

I would live deliciously

Not the safe or quiet life

No certainty, and risk enough.

There have been bruises, breaks

Wounds that left me bloody,

Battered and bereft.

I would drink deep from the cup,

Vine God magic on my lips,

Taste the flesh of my days,

Bite hard into life even as life sinks

Teeth into me. I will pay for this,

In tears and sweat, sleepless nights

Haunted hours reaching after wonder,

Taking leaps of faith in the dark,

Knowing I am bound to fall.

Deliberate in flying too close to the limits

The sun. I will burn for this moment of glory.

I will not be tame or quiet

The taste of taboo sweetness brings

The apple rich fall from grace.

Rejecting ignorance and innocence

For the ecstasy of knowing and experience.

Reaching for pomegranates, goblin fruit

The forbidden, the fairy wine

The merciless delights.

I will live deliciously.

Unromantic poetry

I have a small, ongoing project around writing deliberately unromantic poetry. I’m on a mission to debunk things that are presented as romance, but are really toxic, or bullshit. Here’s the latest.

Refusing to die of a broken heart

I will not drink poison for you

I do not offer my last breath

Nor the blood in my veins.

I will not crawl over broken glass

For you. there will be no proof

Of faith in a death from grief

I will not cut out my heart

To place it in a box for you.

No slashing back of soul and self

To make offerings of wounds.

I will not become smaller for you

There is no romantic splendour

In the fatal cup, the ravaged life

The early death.

This is not romance.

I will not die for you.

I did not promise to suffer.

Tell me to live for you, to endure

To flourish for your sake also.

Love is measured not in torment

But in the co-creating

Of better days.

I will build a house – a poem

I will build a house

I will build a house at the forest’s edge

For the wild girls who loathe hunters

Live by shadow and moonlight, escape artists

Surviving at the margins if they can.

A house with generous windows, secret doors

Many rooms of respite and sanctuary

Places to sleep soundly for the girls

Who will not be tamed or trained

Who come and go at all hours by whim

As sexual or chaste as they desire

And at no man’s bidding.

I will build a house for the girls

Other stories like to kill while lamenting

Their being too good for this world

The girls whose unkempt beauty reads

As a debt to those who would tidy

Them up to screw them over and crush

The lush, untarnished splendour of their souls.

A house for girls with blood on their hands

For witches and sirens. For those who howl

At the moon, and those who root

In the earth, the ephemeral, and filthy alike

Welcome under this roof.

I will grow an orchard, a herb garden

Keep chickens and not become too fond

Of them, just in case.

I will build a house for the unrepentant

Unacceptable girls who neither kneel nor beg

Whose proud, flashing eyes are glorious wild

And I will build a house to shelter

Every woman whose spirit still holds

Some part of the wild girl who was

Punished into hiding deep inside her

And I will build a house.

What If?

What if we planted trees

Our urban spaces aren’t places for people

We get sick and sad, we go mad

Sucking in polluted air from grey streets

We need to leave the cars, make room for leaves

Turn our urban jungle from grim to green

Make it live, make it breathe, be serene.

What if we planted trees?

Scientists in studies the world over

Show us with numbers we need to hear

We’re better people with trees.

We hurt less, suffer less, do less harm

We’re calmer, kinder, cooler in the shade

No need for the air conditioning

That ironically helps us heat the planet.

Safer in the shade, cut down the cancer

Grow more trees. Forest our minds

Towards better mental health.

We need nature to feel whole and well

But what we do to ourselves

Is build hell, deny what gives us life

We make our strife, unhappiness is rife

Pouring tarmac over everything, we wonder why

Our souls are hungry

For a softer way, a gentle route through our days

Walk slowly to your job, enjoy the view

Live a few minutes distance from everything

That makes a daily life for you

Amble there sweetly, saunter beneath trees.

What if we stopped telling stories

About the gadgets we hope will save us

Rescued ourselves from our mistakes

With orchards where car parks used to be

And playground groves for children

Cities where people can live peacefully.

What if we plant more trees?

(Rob Hopkins has been asking ‘What If?’ which led me to write this. More on his website https://www.robhopkins.net/ )