The Quiet Place
“…in the days when men killed us by the hundred thousand there was a story on the beaches that some day a white seal would come out of the north and lead the seal people to a quiet place.” - Rudyard Kipling, “The White Seal”
Far north in the ocean, on sands Nova Scotian
The seals held their battles each Spring, till their wives
Swam in for the nursing of young, the rehearsing
Of skills that would serve them the rest of their lives.
And men came, and slew them. The older seals knew them
But wouldn’t believe in the hope of escape.
Then Kotick, the white one, set forth for the bright sun
In search of a sanctuary south of the Cape.
Years later he found it, where shoals and cliffs bound it
In seas to the north beyond knowledge of men.
His elders? He fought them! - by victory taught them
To follow and never return there again.
We all have our stories of paradise, glories
Of quests bravely finished and battles hard won.
The Isles of the Blest or the Lands of the West
- A single white hair, and your journey’s begun.
Wee Folk
Goblins patter, scrape and clatter
Frolic ‘mongst the blackened pots
Quick and tricky, fingers sticky
Tying apron-strings in knots
Eyes like saucers, brains like dots.
Gnomes stand rooted, heavy-booted
Red and blue in garden green
Smiling smugly, almost ugly
Pointy caps not quite obscene
But for birdshit, squeaky clean.
Fairies flutter, slick as butter
Melting into shade and shine
Evanescent, effervescent
Silk and mist flow scarce as fine
Lacking only pith and spine.
Gods and men, again, again
Judge each other and the rest
All creation, estimation
Sedulously cursed or blessed.
Biggest isn’t always best.
The Felling
A dream of falling trees was haunting me
Those sentinels which stood about my dwelling
Sent toppling in some vast catastrophe
Some storm beyond the weatherman’s foretelling.
One morning I awoke to find it true
The looming trees I loved completely gone
Not even stumps remained as tribute to
The centuries of earth they flourished on.
So now I know that what I took as omens
Were memories of a felling long ago
Of trees that stood here once, back when the Romans
Took British wood to make their empire grow.
And thinking back on all my years of sitting
In shade of spectres no-one else could see
I ponder on the reason for their flitting
And wonder why they won’t come back to me.
Loveless
“A figure inexpressibly thin and pathetic, of a dusty leaden colour, enveloped in a shroud-like garment, the thin lips crooked into a faint and dreadful smile, the hands pressed tightly over the region of the heart.”
- M R James, “Lost Hearts”
The orphaned soul, like a windblown sprite
Is swept along in an aimless flight
Beyond the grasp of a living hand
Condemned to drift in the hungry land
The land of the children of night.
And through their dark they will reach for you
Whose hand is hard and whose heart untrue
With nails that scratch at your door, your skin
To rend a way to the love within
The love that the boy never knew.
And when they find that it isn’t there
And flit away in the mooncold air
There’s nothing left but the gaping truth
That hearts denied in the spring of youth
Are hearts that no grace can repair.
Yule
Goblins, dance!
Keepers of the coal holes, dust upon your coarse souls, fire within your hearts
Now’s your chance
Winter’s at the window, frost is pressing in so here the frolic starts.
Still and fat
Snowman by the back wall, coal eyes watch the snow fall; feed the chimney stack!
Knowing that
Spreading heat will warm him, soften and deform him, then you’ll steal them back.
Squirrel, quick!
Race her to the bare trees, silent in the deep freeze, catch her in a rush
With a flick
Wring her neck and break her, skin her flesh and take her tail for chimney brush.
Winter bird
At the edge of vision, squawking in derision, safely perched on high
Undeterred
Nightly in the attic, bat-winged and erratic, goblins learn to fly.
Kitchen scene
Blue flames softly flicker, hissing cauldron-licker. Goblins get in first!
Fat or lean
Diet doesn’t matter, lean ones soon get fatter, fat ones simply burst.
Some have crept
In the shadowed hallway, hearing postman’s call they know that fun is near
Intercept
Christmas cards and letters, handy bonfire setters, let’s have one right here!
Down below
See the goblin toiler stoking up the boiler, water into steam
All aglow
Joyful as the year turns, dancing while the world burns, that’s the goblin dream.
All at once
Goblins stop.
Upward they gaze through such chinks as they find
Out to the clouds where the rising moon sails
Bearing the lantern whose light never fails
Leaving the smoke and the hubbub behind.
Goblin eyes bathe in the luminous cold
Soothed to the heart by the radiant calm
Souls found, then lost as that bittersweet balm
Fades in their memories, as goblins grow old.
Simon MacCulloch lives in London. His poems live in Reach Poetry, The Dawntreader, Spectral Realms, Aphelion, Black Petals, Grim and Gilded, Ekstasis, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Ephemeral Elegies, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Emberr, View from Atlantis, Altered Reality, The Sirens Call, The Chamber Magazine, I Become the Beast, Lovecraftiana, Awen and elsewhere.
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