Ten Lyrical Poems by Gary Bills

 

The Visitors

Strangers – ragged robed with shining eyes,

with flageolet and song -

I’ve heard it said that angels beat on doors

in winter's spite.

‘Oblige them, and your book of life is scored,

but should you fail, you'll stumble through their night..'

Stumble from the embershine through gloom,

to mocking tunes -

with King Lear set for Bedlam - Gloucester, blind,

both lost in fear…

‘And only fools mistake their lamps for towns,

when solstice flutes are howling far and near.. 

“Good Boy”

 

Molly has a pug that never poops,

A dog that never ages, unlike her;

He's worried that she's breathless, and she stoops,

While not one streak of grey has marked his fur -

 

Convincing fur. He's lightning after sticks,

He always was, since Molly was a child;

His bouncy nature's up for love and licks,

Although he's electronic, more than wild.

 

But he recalls the shimmerings of awe

Which came with yellow leaves through yellow light

And turned his set responses into more,

And so he changed, in sentience and sight.

 

Returning home through deep autumnal haze

He stops and still pretends to mark his post -

Which Molly loves - she loves his funny ways:

They always help to generate the ghost.

 

 

The Duck Messiah and his Sad Demise

 

In feathers he beheld the light of Christ,

White feathers on white ducks - that holy bird

More sacred than the dove - he was enticed

To wear a duck's bright vestments. Word by word

He waddled from obscurity to fame

And ate no plums and preached against the sauce

As oranges took on a hateful name,

For they were cursed with cranberries, of course.

Then others heard the Quack - forsaking swans,

Some even took to plumage, like the Duck;

This led to fireside chats for Durham dons,

Though most, all told, could scarcely give a cluck.

But clergymen, at last, with sharpened spite

Presumed to act, to save their troubled nation,

And roasted him by night. His chiefest crime?

A crazy thought’s no blueprint for Salvation.

 

Enlightenment

  

On marble, daub graffiti - carve your name,

or any scrawl the moment might require;

steal lead that shields the altar from the rain

and let the sunshine in - let pigeons roost,

where once we heard the choir.

If you agree, - the Sacred's not for me,

then piss against a pillar, cracking jokes;

and if her eyes are stone and cannot see -

strew litter at her feet and film a meme,

you clever, clever folks.

 

Paranoia 

  

There cannot always be such fear as this -

the email and a phone text going 'ping'

as preludes to Leviathan’s opening game -

To put us into checkmate - check each name

and whether we have signed our truths away; 

it isn't right, to have to live this way -

It isn't right...but we are in too deep,

putting days together, adding light

while writing notes on thoughts, until they speak.

April at the Ruined Priory

  

This month awakens not just plant and beast

and eyes the stones had blinded see again

and countless questions finger-tap the leaves

and endless worlds are falling with the rain –

 

Falling in the rain to make a world,

to help the tulip rise and die again,

and leaves are greenest now, though still unfurled;  

the air is charged, before and after rain –

 

Before and after rain - the static air

calls forth the sandalled dead to walk again

on paths with hooded prams, where babies stare

and listen to the timeless taps of rain.

 

 

Colony

If there are mountains – grapes that grow on mountains,

as green as jade, hand-smoothed by careful hands,

with others close to black like market dye – 

If there are tubers sweet as honeyed swede

one handspan in the soil, and trees for flame,

trees that scratch the rainfall from the sky –

And if the rain is sweetness on this earth,

then we must settle here and grow ourselves,

taller every day beneath God’s eye –

A foreign sun is still the sun of Home,

and so we’ll thrive - despite the mournful drum,

and seldom look to England with a sigh.

 

Dark Age

Giants made the world - and Fate, the ruins,

and though there may be golden domes somewhere,

I'll never reach them from the seas I sail.

To me, they're like the hippogriffs from tales,

as both remain unseen. (Why trace in air

proud ramparts - fabled flags, with storms a-brewing?)

The ocean builds her walls and they are grey

and storm birds speak of hearths without a flame.

Those ruins - obscene ruins, mark our day -

the ruins left by giants without names,

(their kings unknown, though treasured in the earth…)

They damn us, with the face of what has been.

 

The Carnivals of Rain 

  

Let me sail a journey through my mind

despite the lack of ships with golden bells,

as weather-banners prove, by loud display,

too few heraldic beasts are mild and kind -

And let me seek the Carnivals of Rain

which colour life - in joys may I forget

this old man’s leg - too badged with ruby islands,

with port and pressure rupturing the veins.

Too few heraldic beasts are mild and kind

when lifting feathered paws to weigh the rain –

but let me seek my rapture – let me go,

as giants on the lighthouse dim their flame.

 

 

Not Ready for the Day

 

Dandelions in the winds of dawn,

concealing half the yellow in their heads –

not ready for the day, half-maned in glory, 

carousels half spun expand in light

as if to shout – It’s me. I am the sun...

as perfect thousands jostle to be bright.

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.