chris s
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Edited Oct 09, 2006, 11:21
Ronald Bottrall: The Merry Maidens
Sep 27, 2006, 10:50
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........hop this one hasn't made it up here yet, tis one bleddy long thread, tis !
THE MERRY MAIDENS
Near St. Buryan can be found
Nineteen stones. Two pillars
Of granite flank themon the ground
Like a pair of gaolers.
One sabbath evenineteen young maids
Instead of going to pray
Strayed into a field's furtive shades
Hearing two pipers play.
Despite the day the maids did dance
Faster and faster still
And whirled into a senseless trance
Caused by those men of ill.
Lightning out of the cloudless air
Unfleshed their tender bones
And turned them and the evil pair
Into a group of stones.
-- RONALD BOTTRALL 1906 - 1989
(from "The Dreamt Sea: an Anthology of Anglo-Cornish Poetry 1928-2004, Francis Boutle Press)
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Littlestone
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The Merry Maidens
Sep 27, 2006, 13:27
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Thanks Chris! Great stuff, and duly added to stack.
Wish I could get into this thread and edit it but until that's possible have started sub-headings using the name of the poem or poet - hence the poem you posted now falls under the heading of The Merry Maidens. Will post it up on the Megalithic Poems blog once I've found a good pic to go with it.
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chris s
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Fiona Colligan-Yano - Bodmin Moor
Sep 29, 2006, 13:39
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FIONA COLLIGAN-YANO (1964-)
BODMIN MOOR
On Bodmin Moor
Broken tooth standing stones
Show where leylines
Perforate the earth.
Along the tear
Sweetfaced ponies
Masked by mud,
Follow paths between
Shaft, Circle, Tor and Sky.
And Dozemary Pool,
Essential blackness,
Lies at the bottom
of a sheer rock shute.
Where,
On a concrete island,
A sheepskin,
Daubed with covering woad,
Is stretched in sacrifice -
An Inverse pupil
Sunken in the Moor’s dark eye.
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chris s
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Arthur Caddick - At Lanyon Quoit
Sep 29, 2006, 13:41
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ARTHUR CADDICK (1911- 1987)
AT LANYON QUOIT
Look not softly,
Stranger, upon this Stone Age scene,
Nor let remoteness
Disguise where living men have been
In grief and laughter.
Though all’s now hushed and gaunt and harsh,
You are standing where humanity once stood.
These stones seal a sepulchre
For your own flesh and blood.
Here lie our forebears,
Though their memorials have no name.
How should we know them,
If from the grave these tribesmen came?
What was their language?
No echo in the southwest wind
Recalls one word one single warrior said.
Ravaged granite stays to mark
The lost unlettered dead.
Here lie their women,
Short-lived mothers of chance-reared young.
The artless lullabies
This Cornish hillside once heard sung,
Their mourners’ dirges,
Are as soundless to this world’s ears
As to the deaf that skylark’s note above.
Cold silence grips their converse
And all their songs of love.
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chris s
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D. M. Thomas- Ninemaidens
Sep 29, 2006, 13:44
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....a personal fave this, love the language. Powerful.
D. M. THOMAS (1935-)
NINEMAIDENS
Our sorrow and our joy
Dance with us.
Ninemaidens
We are unaccountable.
Dace with us
The Sabbath-dances.
We are unaccountable
For this summer lightning.
The Sabbath dances
Astonished,
For this summer lightning is love.
Astonished
Our hearts thunder.
Is love
Anything but yes?
Our heats thunder
Wiith desire for you.
Anything but yes
And we should die.
With desire for you
We are struck dumb.
And we should die
In your arms.
We are struck dumb,
Having too many words.
In your arms
Stone is beautiful.
We open to you.
We close into a circle,
Ninemaidens.
We open to you
Our sorrow and our joy.
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Littlestone
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Re: Arthur Caddick - At Lanyon Quoit
Sep 29, 2006, 13:47
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Bloody 'ell Chris, that's a goodun. Many thanks, and duly added to stack.
The Merry Maidens poem that you posted will be up on the Meg Poems blog in the next few days.
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chris s
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Fiona Colligan-Yano - The Burial Mound
Sep 29, 2006, 13:48
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The mound in question is on Porth Island, just north of Newquay.
NB....has this an entry in the gazeteer???
FIONA COLLIGAN-YANO (1964-)
THE BURIAL MOUND
In my mind, the glowing hump
Becomes illuminated by angry rays
Striking off the stone grey sea.
And for a moment
The discordant gulls
Weave as one with the receding day.
Voices of the long dead
Sweep upwards from the desecrated grave,
To keen with the flowing wind.
And, as eyelids flutter,
People gather in the gloom
And the gestalt sings awhile,
Despite times menstruum.
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Littlestone
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Re: Fiona Colligan-Yano - Bodmin Moor
Sep 29, 2006, 13:49
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Yikes!
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nigelswift
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Re: Arthur Caddick - At Lanyon Quoit
Sep 29, 2006, 13:49
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yes, that's an absolute star.
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Littlestone
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Re: D. M. Thomas- Ninemaidens
Sep 29, 2006, 13:50
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Yikes again!
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