Eight Poems by Gary Bills

 

LONG WINTER

  

Oh look – the solar garden lamp

Reveals how far the world has turned -

It’s brighter, now the spring draws near?

And I should be more cheerful now

To see, beneath its hat of cells,

Within its jar,

A blue light - like a bottled star.

 

But all the stars are cold tonight,

The wind is bitterly cold tonight

And snowflakes cross the moaning air,

And there’s a whisper on the breeze

Which tells me spring is far away,

And I still fear

That spring will come, but not this year,

 

Not this year.

 

 

THE PROMISE OF YOUR MOUTH

 

Your harlot’s mouth and eyes like wells of grey,

Your jiggling bum; your shy, too brief embrace,

Your copper hair, – that blush upon your face,

Your rider’s waist, – such grace! What can I say?

Don’t toy with me! I’m sick and tired of play,

Of disappointments in your secret place -

The promise of your mouth, your eyes of grey,

Your jiggling bum; your shy, too brief embrace.

Madonna – mercy!  - grant me all this day;

Where fire and thought agree, there’s no disgrace,

And Time, too soon, will take those charms away -

Your harlot’s mouth and eyes like wells of grey,

Your jiggling bum; your shy, too brief embrace.

 

(Derived from the BM Harley manuscript 682/no 24 – mid 15^th century, and itself derived from the French of Charles d’Orléans.)

 

 

EARLY ADVICE

 

Birth will be strange, but you shall be with us.

You’ll learn how there are skies which are not pink

And atmospheres without their soft restrictions.

I can’t describe the breadth of raging space

Nor how your eyes will fill with clouds and stars;

But don’t turn back to mysteries you know,

Although the dark around you is as great

As all the night above the wide Pacific;

You must not fear the loneliness of seas,

It is enough to journey on a thought

With just a little lamp to grace your prow,

A lamp which won’t distract the drifting gods

Who prize the luminescence of the squid,

Who only hear the breathing of the whale.

 

 

FOREST

 

where rough-barked columns follow you to darkness,

where nothing really whispers in your mind,

where light will seldom settle on the tree-fans,

and swept, - the sudden continents of cloud;

where rowan berries redden with their curses,

enough, on just one stalk, to blight a village,

where there are always eyes you cannot see

and every spin-blown leaf becomes a moment,

where stillness is a settling of the needles,

where falling cones are counted down the silence

 

  

AURORA AND THE LOUT

 

A shepherd boy too far from home

Could find no rest on tranquil slopes

And sang to the stars a lover’s song

For he possessed a lover’s hopes,

Until, at last, the Maid of Dawn

Was stirred from sleep – and hearing this,

With cheeks aflame she searched the isle,

To stop his music with a kiss.

 

She trailed blond hair across his face,

She stroked his skin with golden hands;

But he forsook the moment’s grace

And dreamed of girls in far-off lands,

And while his fingers worked the lyre

He did not guess they played with fire.

 

 

NIGHT-WALKING

 

The wilderness beyond the path

Is heathland – heather, gorse, and ferns.

One star draws in above the oak;

The intermittent glow-worm burns.

 

Few sounds intrude of wheel or voice…

A moped on a distant road,

Then calling to its absent mate,

The common frog, or common toad.

 

Revolving moments in its throat -

The nightjar, which can never fail

To make the dark sit up and hear;

A rival to the nightingale,

 

A pulse beyond sweet melodies,

A churring music - strange and bare

Which wavers through the startled mind

And seems to bless the midnight air.

 

Now nature, sly and often cruel,

Beguiles me with her kinder face

And will not let me hear the screams

Which rise when fox and rabbit race,

 

Until I think no bounding stoat

Will find the reason for its quest;

No skylark keeps a vigil by

The broken eggs and ruined nest.

 

But, where wild orchids still endure,

Let all endure and keep the tryst,

Where nightjars calm the troubled hour

And truth and peace might coexist.

 

 

RESTORATION AT TWILIGHT.

 

Once a landscape mapped on time

Could not be scarred by human hands

Despite the roads and spreading towns,

Sacred were those twilight lands -

 

Which lay as shadows on each day,

Restoring what we feared had passed,

The endless meadows, wooded hills,

The pond where June might always last.

 

I half-believed a thought could save

Idyllic scenes, or make anew,

Beneath the solemn veils of dusk,

The outlines of a flawless view -

 

The roofless, ruined Abbey stood

In shadows by the river’s bend

To prove in shade how time endures,

And prove how moments always end -

 

Enduring cloisters, proof enough

That chanting monks possessed their age.

I close my eyes to hear them sing;

The rustle of a turning page…

 

And England is a map of stars,

The clustered streetlamps wink and glare,

The dead stay dead beneath our fuss;

Our fly-like buzzing fills the air –

 

But oh! - will someone glance our way,

When twilight covers everything we are,

And wish to hear, above the still,

The coughing of the petrol car?

 

Or will they say that we were cursed

And never thought about our ways;

 

Will they despise the tat and trash

Which mark the passing of our days?

 

 

THE TRAVELLER

(After the Anglo-Saxon elegies, The Wanderer and the Seafarer)

 

“Sometimes, a man is blessed by faith,

and faith attends his prayer,

although he rows the exile’s course

through grey, forbidding winter tides,

and fate is harsh and fixed.”

 

So confessed a traveller,

who called to mind the fall of kings,

the carnage of our conflict.

 

“Often and alone

I must bemoan my sorrow,

dawn by dawn.

I know there is no living friend

to whom I dare reveal my pain,

break down in anguish, openly;

and after all, was I not told

of manly virtues in restraint,

with sadness like a secret name?

 

“I was deprived of those I loved,

my childhood home is far away –

so far, I bind my wounded soul

in fetters of a failing pride.

In dreams I see my hearth and home,

where solitude was but a word

for poet-play, to please my child,

and no-one sat alone.

 

“But come first light, I’ll leave behind

white sea-birds on the inlet’s brow;

I’ll feel the bite of ice and snow,

the keenness of a chilling spray.

Too long ago, my kith and kin

were swallowed by a mouth of clay;

the way to exile called me then:

vocation of the freezing rain.

 

“The cities of our fathers fell;

my little house, the place for friends,

became a playground for the winds.

How shall I plan eternity

without a roof to shelter hope?

For me – there is no laughter now,

beyond the lull of charted seas.

 

“This world is bleak with Arctic weathers;

hidden demons mould the clouds.

A haunted man is left to guess

the changeless writ of fates to come;

but all we love must pass away,

and all we’ve made is left undone.

I seek the place where oceans pour

to darkness with the force of grief;

I map bare corners of this world

against the need to welcome spring -

it flowers now, with modesty;

but though I feel the west wind blow,

far Eden’s shore means more to me.

 

“The earth was never known for pain

until the fruit of good and ill

was taken by the sire of Cain;

tomorrow’s child must learn from age,

as dragons dwell in smiling men,

so ogres sleep in midnight’s songs;

I will uphold the hero, for our sons.

 

“Blessed the man who suffers hardship,

knows the tempest, keeps his faith;

blessed the man who strives for glory,

winning praise from equal men;

blessed the man who leaves the shore

and seeks a judgement at God’s heart.”

 

So spoke a grey-haired traveller,

who drained his cup, and sighed,

and sat apart.

 

 

WASSAILING

  

A spirit in the roots has heard the horn,

The gunshot, and he drains the rough libation.

One man bows low - another shakes the branches;

A bare white arm is reaching down from darkness.

White fingers fold around the gilded cup.

Who is that boy, - who hides among the boughs,

Who wears the crown of mistletoe, - that young one?

The lantern, raised so high, reveals no face.

What now? Why does he pass down empty sacks?

Why does he laugh to hear the farmers praise him,

As though he holds the weather in his hands?

At last, the old men stamp about the roots.

They stagger under loads we cannot see,

As if they feel the harvest on their backs.

Gary Bills was born at Wordsley, near Stourbridge. He took his first degree at Durham University, where he studied English, and he has subsequently worked as a journalist. He is currently the fiction editor for Poetry on the Lake, and he has recently gained his MA in Creative Writing at BCU, with a distinction.

He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his post-modernist epic poem, Bredbeddle's Well, which was published  in Lothlorien in 2022.

Gary's poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Magma, HQ and Acumen, and he has had three full collections published, – “The Echo and the Breath” (Peterloo Poets, 2001); “The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart” (bluechrome, 2003); and “Laws for Honey” (erbacce 2020). In 2005, he edited “The Review of Contemporary Poetry”, for bluechrome.

His work has been translated in to German, Romanian and Italian. A US-based indie publisher, The Little French, published his first novel, “A Letter for Alice” in 2019, and a collection of stories, “Bizarre Fables”, in 2021. These were illustrated by his wife, Heather E. Geddes. His second novel, "Sleep not my Wanton", came out in January 2022.

"Sleep Not..." is due out again shortly as an audio book, as possibly as a hardback.