The Sphere-Maker's Pride
With brass for lords and silver-gilt for kings,
I fix the bands of Heaven in their places
Around this world for all celestial things -
The moon that shows the tide its changing faces
And planets with the secret force of gods
In Man's affairs - these mighty works I set,
And having set my baubles and my rods,
I spin all thus, and all is spinning yet -
The march of Time, no less; so much is known,
Some angels are bamboozled by degree,
But by degree the clocks of space are shown;
Solstice and eclipse are known to me
And where the seasons turn for every year,
As proved by clockwork Michael's pointing spear.
Archangels spreading wings that span the void
Can reach the secrets men would love to spy -
Which crystal beam became the sun's strong guide,
Which gauge is best to whirl it through the sky,
How comets sporting beards from distant stars
Bring ancient light according to their sweep,
To prophesy for plagues or savage wars,
Before returning - dimming to their deep.
The secrets I would keep, and set in brass
The steps of every body formed to roam
And chant the songs Man cannot hear - alas!
But I would make these melodies my own,
Until wise Solomon might kneel and say
That he was but an infant in his day.
Arvo Pärt
He spreads the cloth, not sure if there's a guest,
and there's no priest to offer leaves and dust
in any case, but still the broken sing -
And we're among the broken - singing plain;
we’re chanting, in this existential crisis,
to reach what’s after grief - that kind of thing.
No need to fathom why, as if we could,
no need to change the words, as if we would;
we’re high on doubt, now music is a cry
And we rejoice with ghosts as angels come,
angels ringing holocausts and dread
and wondering how they've tumbled from their sky.
October to December
Summer’s gone –
they say the summer’s dead.
See waterfalls of ivy
turning red.
Winter’s dead,
for winter must be Death.
We see a passing ghost
in every breath.
Recalling my Glory
I rode the beast at Kenilworth -
Arion on the dolphin's back
To please Queen Bess - inspiring mirth
Through what a boy my size might lack.
Across the lake – this to and fro
Was down to artful winch and rope
And vanes which kept me dipping so,
As I held tight - in joy and hope.
Exploding in the midnight sky -
A thousand stars above my head!
But they and I were passing by
In thunder fit to wake the dead.
Tewkesbury Starlings
Scarfing over streets in constant change,
They're writing now in inks of murmuration,
Dotted at the twilight edge of strange,
Self-following - distinct - and one causation.
But it requires a mind with too much God
To read those codes and say what they might mean -
Those moving hieroglyphics, known and odd,
Like scribbles from a long dissolving dream.
I almost turn to footsteps - pointed toe,
Pointing out the beat and flesh as grace,
The dignity that ragged dancers know,
A dance that drops with Heaven to this place.
We Name the Gods
We name the gods but do not know their names,
Light candles to a light we cannot see,
Hallelujah!
Say prayers in tongues both barbarous and strange,
Assured that they will heed our obsequy.
But they will only speak in songs from stars
And we perplex them with an awkward rhyme –
Hallelujah!
Reducing them to butterflies in jars...
They’re watching, from the other side of Time.
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.
Excellent poems.
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