YULE
As silver as a winter fish
from broken ice
the frost moon rose
And all the bells of winter rang
while children sang
of deserts and a star.
WINTER MUSIC
Lizzie, play that melody once more -
It moves me, Lizzie, more than I can say,
Now night draws in and winter’s at my door.
Child, I see your hands are red and raw,
But fire-glow’s on the fiddle - you must play;
Oh Lizzie, play that melody once more,
For me, for all the smiles my young eyes saw;
I’ve loved and would not wish my loves away,
But night draws in and winter’s at my door.
You'll mock an old man’s passions, - I implore,
Implore you, Lizzie, humour me and stay;
Oh Lizzie, play that melody once more.
I’m no use, Lizzie; you tell me what I’m for,
Except to gaze on shadows day by day,
And night draws in and winter’s at my door.
One last request, – this one you won’t ignore!
Before you leave, before you go your way,
Oh Lizzie, play that melody once more,
Now night draws in and winter’s at my door.
LAST ADVENTURES
"Midwinter spring is its own season..."
T.S. Eliot
Sometimes, we are hidden from ourselves,
leafed in small distractions, green and wild
and over-swayed by what the storm foretells,
from calm to bluster, like an unweaned child.
The winter-spring is wisdom - Age's gift,
when boughs and twigs are seen for what they are:
the structures of clear thoughts against the sky,
connecting to the clouds when viewed afar,
stark neurones tapping God as He drifts by.
We feel the call of journey to our bones
and carvel ships with silk, embroidered sails
set out to wise adventures - other homes,
to solitudes where deeper selfhoods lie,
beyond the shrill foreboding of the gales.
PLAY
A puddle is an emblem for the sea,
a twig becomes a cipher for the wood,
a stone is earth, a spinning stone is good,
another stone's the moon, and I am me -
shuffling stuff around like Johnny God;
I'll say this twig is holding up the sky
with all the crowds of Heaven drifting by,
but soon, I'll need that twig for Aaron's rod
to bring a sprig of blossom to our day;
and now the ocean, settling in my glass -
it's rocking full of whales! I'll let them pass,
go back to when new life was merely play -
amoeba has an elephant in mind,
a mind in mind, through what its reach may find.
BEECHMERE
The wind shakes all its libraries of ghosts,
All searching out their relevance and reach
But handless, wordless - rootless they are lost
Among those crowns of oaks and mossy beech,
Complaining by - to men they cannot name,
While water shivers at late winter's touch -
Tree-crowded hollow filled by springs and rain,
Once deepened out for seams of tin - enough
To spoil a life - an age, of barrows heaped with pain...
Who spares a glance for shadows lost in time,
For picks, for lamps that will not burn again,
For gnome-eyed men with secrets from the mine?
A sudden flood made fathoms of their dark;
Now strangers come to fish for furtive carp.
FOLKS OF RAIN AND HARVEST
Though catkins shake in February's breeze,
where is our guarantee that Spring is real,
that seasons fit their tableaux on the wheel?
We'll think it round, perhaps, among these trees -
assumptions made in place and time, create
this spinning earth, the periodic flower,
and so made England in its dreamscape hour,
though still a nameless land, but marked by fate.
At Stonehenge, where they juggled sun and moon,
the stone minds and the bronze minds prayed with pain
and Gods of Winter, Gods of Summer danced
and folks of rain and harvest stood entranced -
the glory of the sunrise fading soon
above the untilled nowhere of their plain.
WE HEAR THEIR PACING MUSIC
We drift by in our little boat - drift by
the hall - the windows soft with light. Two men
we are, two poachers - out for eels again;
we hold our tongues and watch the eastern sky
and as we cast our nets, I wonder why
‘The eagle's more exalted than the wren’.
We hear their pacing music now and then -
strong cellos which are halfway to a cry.
I smile as Lords, all flurry and brocade,
cross the mirrored ballroom of my mind
and nod their powdered wigs or turn a rhyme,
with lisp and quip to please the blushing maid;
then waterfalls of trumpets - flinging blind
the seed pearl dresses poured in perfect time.
BLODEUWEDD
The Lady made of Flowers
All Winter long, as frost lay on her bones,
she took the browning acorns for her eyes
and counted passing moons - the fall and rise -
her hair as soft as water weed on stones
when sun unlocks the streams; too long alone,
her breasts are wind-kissed flowers - there she lies
to tempt a lover's glance and tempt the skies
where many amorous gods reach out and moan
from breezes whirling by - too far away.
As sure as flowers smiling - year by year,
her love's for us, her time with us is brief,
for heat and cold are enemies to fear...
But still, she’ll wear her coronet each May,
her crown of stars and thorns and bud and leaf.
SHANGRI-LA
I left this world and set out for the hills
where children flew red kites above the sun -
they set their games aside to whoop and run
past waterwheels and hovels - childish thrills
to tap me on my back: that grinning ghost
with hair of straw, who gabbled nonsense words;
of course I laughed - they laughed, like chirping birds
and pointed to the sky - for I was lost.
But in their town, I dined with two old men
beneath a row of gods, both strange and known;
one carved my form and set me on their shelf -
and Oh, the shame that settled on me then!
They saw my doubt - but here, so far from home,
I found no strangers, when I met myself.
THE CHOIRS OF SISYPHUS
"Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in Mankind..."
John Donne
Count the shuffling ghosts – they’re passing by:
those naked lines of women, dressed in hands,
while youngsters look for answers in the sky
and soon enough, they'll scream from revving vans
or else, that final shower… Cheek by jowl
in modern blocks with scratches down the walls.
Each day the same - more people. Rage or howl,
what difference does it make? The silence calls
and asks if any smiled, or told a joke -
or hummed a tune that Sisyphus might know,
despite the fear, the cries, the poisoned smoke…
They die and live with us – let’s make it so;
together, let's agree some god was wrong
and shame him with our unity and song.
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 fiction editor for Poetry on the Lake.
Gary gained his MA in Creative Writing at BCU, with a distinction.
He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his post-modernist epic poem, “Bredbeddle's Well”, which was published in Lothlorien in 2022, and he has been nominated for the Best of the Net awards, for his short story, “Country Burr”.
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. His second novel, "Sleep not my Wanton", came out in January 2022, and it is due out shortly as a Spanish language version.
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