Written by
Aleister Crowley |
A part, immutable, unseen,
Being, before itself had been,
Became.
Like dew a triple queen
Shone as the void uncovered:
The silence of deep height was drawn
A veil across the silver dawn
On holy wings that hovered.
The music of three thoughts became
The beauty, that is one white flame,
The justice that surpasses shame,
The victory, the splendour,
The sacred fountain that is whirled
From depths beyond that older world
A new world to engender.
The kingdom is extended.
Night
Dwells, and I contemplate the sight
That is not seeing, but the light
That secretly is kindled,
Though oft-time its most holy fire
Lacks oil, whene'er my own Desire
Before desire has dwindled.
I see the thin web binding me
With thirteen cords of unity
Toward the calm centre of the sea.
(O thou supernal mother!)
The triple light my path divides
To twain and fifty sudden sides
Each perfect as each other.
Now backwards, inwards still my mind
Must track the intangible and blind,
And seeking, shall securely find
Hidden in secret places
Fresh feasts for every soul that strives,
New life for many mystic lives,
And strange new forms and faces.
My mind still searches, and attains
By many days and many pains
To That which Is and Was and reigns
Shadowed in four and ten;
And loses self in sacred lands,
And cries and quickens, and understands
Beyond the first Amen.
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
october stops the pretence
that somehow summer
should still be loitering around
it walks through the garden
hanging the spiders up
between fences and flowers
it throws rather more dew
on the ground than is
good for the shoes and then
has the nerve to let on
frost is sniffing its way
southwards - some mornings
it can be caught at the windows
looking in with a shrug
it's spotted a shiver or two
hankering in shadows
for the heat-switch - all's
on the shift inwards - colours
bunch into their deeper shades
here's where the year gets used
to growing older and for
the first time with nowhere
desperate to go (and nothing
to prove) admits what it is
and strolls in a blithe sort
of way towards all hallows
|
Written by
Seamus Heaney |
for T.
P.
Flanagan
We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening--
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encrouching horizon,
Is wooed into the cyclops' eye
Of a tarn.
Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun.
They've taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk
Out of the peat, set it up
An astounding crate full of air.
Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter
Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
By millions of years.
They'll never dig coal here,
Only the waterlogged trunks
Of great firs, soft as pulp.
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards,
Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.
|
Written by
William Blake |
1.
Earth was not: nor globes of attraction
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses.
Death was not, but eternal life sprung
2.
The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll'd
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam'd
That solitary one in Immensity
3.
Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity,
Muster around the bleak desarts
Now fill'd with clouds, darkness & waters
That roll'd perplex'd labring & utter'd
Words articulate, bursting in thunders
That roll'd on the tops of his mountains
4.
From the depths of dark solitude.
From
The eternal abode in my holiness,
Hidden set apart in my stern counsels
Reserv'd for the days of futurity,
I have sought for a joy without pain,
For a solid without fluctuation
Why will you die O Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?
5.
First I fought with the fire; consum'd
Inwards, into a deep world within:
A void immense, wild dark & deep,
Where nothing was: Natures wide womb
And self balanc'd stretch'd o'er the void
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
Bound; but condensing, in torrents
They fall & fall; strong I repell'd
The vast waves, & arose on the waters
A wide world of solid obstruction
6.
Here alone I in books formd of metals
Have written the secrets of wisdom
The secrets of dark contemplation
By fightings and conflicts dire,
With terrible monsters Sin-bred:
Which the bosoms of all inhabit;
Seven deadly Sins of the soul.
7.
Lo! I unfold my darkness: and on
This rock, place with strong hand the Book
Of eternal brass, written in my solitude.
8.
Laws of peace, of love, of unity:
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness.
Let each chuse one habitation:
His ancient infinite mansion:
One command, one joy, one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure
One King, one God, one Law.
|
Written by
Seamus Heaney |
As if he had been poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan’s foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a dark
elderberry place.
Who will say ‘corpse’
to his vivid cast?
Who will say ‘body’
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus’s.
I first saw his twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed
on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
a nearby field provides the plants
sometimes with a wild profusion
(organisation seems a long way off)
it takes an eye used to ink or paint
to confront such a rich confusion
and draw it inwards to a proof
that pattern too within constraints
has room for a wild fling - passion's
best rendered when the heart's aloof
images creep up through the vents
seeding voids with light explosions
chaos must come before the truth
art is nature (filtered) sucking sense
from unimaginable delusions
nowhere-to-go-to finds its path
out of thin air a formal dance
of paint or ink has reached conclusion
and in a nutshell cosmos coughs
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
(in china it is symbolic
of darkness and the new moon)
in your night's hollow
the tiger stalks
black grasses have licked
it into nothingness
hooked by moon
i hover on your hollow's lip
i feel the smell of fire
the leap of a bright cat-fur
my eye is dumb
asking to be devoured
i am trembled over
(a bag of fear-bones)
there is a whoosh of flame
streaking but static at
your night's abundance
tall grass is waving
the moon waxes
the face of the tiger
sparkles in its own glow
offers a striped peace
fireflies come my way
messages are calm
i step inwards
stroking the bright pelt
|
Written by
A S J Tessimond |
Dogs take new friends abruptly and by smell,
Cats' meetings are neat, tactual, caressive.
Monkeys exchange their fleas before they speak.
Snakes, no doubt, coil by coil reach mutual knowledge.
We then, at first encounter, should be silent;
Not court the cortex but the epidermis;
Not work from inside out but outside in;
Discover each other's flesh, its scent and texture;
Familiarize the sinews and the nerve-ends,
The hands, the hair - before the inept lips open.
Instead of which we are resonant, explicit.
Our words like windows intercept our meaning.
Our four eyes fence and flinch and awkwardly
Wince into shadow, slide oblique to ambush.
Hands stir, retract.
The pulse is insulated.
Blood is turned inwards, lonely; skin unhappy .
.
.
While always under all, but interrupted,
Antennae stretch .
.
.
waver .
.
.
and almost .
.
.
touch.
|
Written by
Omer Tarin |
I
One quarter of a century has elapsed
the diurnal movement of a life-cycle
rotating on its own axis
turned inwards and away from
hung by a nail upon the casement
II
Two of the nine lives have drifted
sinking somewhere near the embankment
while out prowling the empty streets at night
digging in this corner and that
poking here and there
in the trashcans lining the alley
III
Three horsemen have appeared
riding on fiery horses, spewing
their sulphurous flame into the darkness
scorching one and all with their terrible message
blazed ominously across the bedstead
IV
Four has come arrayed
the number of an ephemeral end
a hermetic transmutation ordained
by the fluctuations of fatality,
falling like some ill-omened comet
helter-skelter with the dice.
(from ''A Sad Piper'', 1994)
|
Written by
D. H. Lawrence |
The snow is witherin' off'n th' gress
Love, should I tell thee summat?
The snow is witherin' off'n th' gress
An' a thick mist sucks at the clots o' snow,
An' the moon above in a weddin' dress
Goes fogged an' slow--
Love, should I tell thee summat?
Tha's been snowed up i' this cottage wi' me,
Nay, I'm tellin' thee summat.--
Tha's bin snowed up i' this cottage wi' me
While th' clocks has a' run down an' stopped
An' the short days withering silently
Unbeknown have dropped.
--Yea, but I'm tellin' thee summat.
How many days dost think has gone?--
Now I'm tellin' thee summat.
How many days dost think has gone?
How many days has the candle-light shone
On us as tha got more white an' wan?
--Seven days, or none--
Am I not tellin' thee summat?
Tha come to bid farewell to me--
Tha'rt frit o' summat.
To kiss me and shed a tear wi' me,
Then off and away wi' the weddin' ring
For the girl who was grander, and better than me
For marrying--
Tha'rt frit o' summat?
I durstna kiss thee tha trembles so,
Tha'rt frit o' summat.
Tha arena very flig to go,
'Appen the mist from the thawin' snow
Daunts thee--it isna for love, I know,
That tha'rt loath to go.
--Dear o' me, say summat.
Maun tha cling to the wa' as tha goes,
So bad as that?
Tha'lt niver get into thy weddin' clothes
At that rate--eh, theer goes thy hat;
Ne'er mind, good-bye lad, now I lose
My joy, God knows,
--An' worse nor that.
The road goes under the apple tree;
Look, for I'm showin' thee summat.
An' if it worn't for the mist, tha'd see
The great black wood on all sides o' thee
Wi' the little pads going cunningly
To ravel thee.
So listen, I'm tellin' thee summat.
When tha comes to the beechen avenue,
I'm warnin' thee o' summat.
Mind tha shall keep inwards, a few
Steps to the right, for the gravel pits
Are steep an' deep wi' watter, an' you
Are scarce o' your wits.
Remember, I've warned the o' summat.
An' mind when crossin' the planken bridge,
Again I warn ye o' summat.
Ye slip not on the slippery ridge
Of the thawin' snow, or it'll be
A long put-back to your gran' marridge,
I'm tellin' ye.
Nay, are ter scared o' summat?
In kep the thick black curtains drawn,
Am I not tellin' thee summat?
Against the knockin' of sevenfold dawn,
An' red-tipped candles from morn to morn
Have dipped an' danced upon thy brawn
Till thou art worn--
Oh, I have cost thee summat.
Look in the mirror an' see thy-sen,
--What, I am showin' thee summat.
Wasted an' wan tha sees thy-sen,
An' thy hand that holds the mirror shakes
Till tha drops the glass and tha shudders when
Thy luck breaks.
Sure, tha'rt afraid o' summat.
Frail thou art, my saucy man,
--Listen, I'm tellin' thee summat.
Tottering and tired thou art, my man,
Tha came to say good-bye to me,
An' tha's done it so well, that now I can
Part wi' thee.
--Master, I'm givin' thee summat.
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